Sherlock Holmes: Before Baker Street

in the air, had a swaggering style of walking, and was, above all else, remarkable for his extraordinary height. I don’t think any of our heads would have come up to his shoulder, and I am sure that he could not have measured less than six-and-a-half feet. It was strange among so many sad and weary faces to see one which was full of energy and resolution. The sight of it was to me like a fire in a snow-storm. I was glad, then, to find that he was my neighbor, and gladder still when, in the dead of the night, I heard a whisper close to my ear, and found that he had managed to cut an opening in the board which separated us.

“‘Hullo, chummy!’ said he, ‘what’s your name, and what are you here for?’

“I answered him, and asked in turn who I was talking with.

“‘I’m Jack Prendergast,’ said he, ‘and by God! You’ll learn to bless my name before you’ve done with me.’

“I remembered hearing of his case, for it was one which had made an immense sensation throughout the country some time before my own arrest. He was a man of good family and of great ability, but on incurably vicious habits, who had be an ingenious system of fraud obtained huge sums of money from the leading London merchants.

Jack Prendergast

“‘Ha, ha! You remember my case!’ said he proudly.

“‘Very well, indeed.’

“‘Then maybe you remember something queer about it?’

“‘What was that, then?’

“‘I’d had nearly a quarter-of-a-million, hadn’t I?’

“‘So it was said.’

“‘But none was recovered, eh?’

“‘No.’

“‘Well, where d’ye suppose the balance is?’ he asked.

“‘I have no idea,’ said I.

“‘Right between my finger and thumb,’ he cried. ‘By God! I’ve got more pounds to my name than you’ve hairs on your head. And if you’ve money, my son, and know how to handle it and spread it, you can do anything. Now, you don’t think it likely that a man who could do anything is going to wear his breeches out sitting in the stinking hold of a rat-gutted, beetle-ridden, mouldy old coffin of a China coaster. No, sir, such a man will look after himself and will look after his chums. You may lay to that! You hold on to him, and you may kiss the book that he’ll haul you through.’

“That was his style of talk, and at first I thought it meant nothing, but after a while, when he had tested me and sworn me in with all possible solemnity, he let me understand that there really was a plot to gain command of the vessel. A dozen of the prisoners had hatched it before they came aboard, Prendergast was the leader, and his money was the motive power.

“‘I’d a partner,’ said he, ‘a rare good man, as true as a stock to a barrel. He’s got the dibbs, he has, and where do you think he is at this moment? Why, he’s the chaplain of this ship  – the chaplain, no less! He came aboard with a black coat, and his papers right, and money enough in his box to buy the thing right up from keel to main-truck. The crew are his, body and soul. He could buy ‘em at so much a gross with a cash discount, and he did it before ever they signed on. He’s got two of the warders and Mercer, the second mate, and he’d get the captain himself, if he thought him worth it.’

“‘What are we to do, then?’ I asked.

“‘What do you think?’ said he. ‘We’ll make the coats of some of these soldiers redder than ever the tailor did.’

“‘But they are armed,’ said I.

“‘And so shall we be, my boy. There’s a brace of pistols for every mother’s son of us, and if we can’t carry this ship, with the crew at our back, it’s time we were all sent to a young misses’ boarding-school. You speak to your mate upon the left to-night, and see if he is to be trusted.

“I did so, and found my other neighbor to be a young fellow in much the same position as myself, whose crime had been forgery. His name was Evans, but he afterwards changed it, like myself, and his is now a rich and prosperous man in the south of England. He was ready enough to join the conspiracy, as the only means of saving ourselves, and before we had crossed the Bay there were only two of the prisoners who were not in the secret. One of these was of weak mind, and we did not dare to trust him, and the other was suffering from jaundice, and could not be of any use to us.

“From the beginning there was really nothing to prevent us from taking possession of the ship. The crew were a set of ruffians, specially picked for the job. The sham chaplain came into our cells to exhort us, carrying a black bag, supposed to be full of tracts, and so often did he come that by the third day we had each stowed away at the foot of our beds a file, a brace of pistols, a pound of powder, and twenty slugs. Two of the warders were agents of Prendergast, and the second mate was his right-hand man. The captain, the two mates, two warders, Lieutenant Martin, his eighteen soldiers, and the doctor were all that we had against us. Yet, safe as it was, we determined to neglect no precaution, and to make our attack suddenly by night. It came, however, more quickly than we expected, and in this way.

“One evening, about the third week after our start, the doctor had come down to see one of the prisoners who was ill, and putting his hand down on the bottom of his bunk he felt the