The Darkwater Hall Mystery

On consulting my notes, their paper grown yellow and their ink brown with the passage of almost 40 years, I find it to have been in the closing days of July 1885 that my friend Sherlock Holmes fell victim, more completely, perhaps, than at any other time, to the innate melancholy of his temperament. The circumstances were not propitious. London was stiflingly hot, without a drop of rain to lay the dust that, at intervals, a damp wind swept up Baker Street. The exertions caused Holmes by the affair of the Wallace-Bardwell portfolio, and the subsequent entrapment of the elusive Count Varga, had taken their toll of him. His gray eyes, always sharp and piercing, acquired a positively (continued on page 168)Darkwater Hall(continued from page 111) hectic brightness, and the thinness of his hawklike nose seemed accentuated. He smoked incessantly, getting through an ounce or more of heavy shag tobacco in a single day.

As his depression became blacker, he would sit in his purple dressing gown with his fiddle across his knee and draw from it strange harmonies, sometimes sonorous, sometimes puzzling, more often harsh and disagreeable. Strange, too, and quite as disagreeable, were the odors given off by his chemical experiments; I did not inquire their purpose. When he brought out his hair-trigger pistol and proceeded to add elaborate serifs to the patriotic V.R. done in bullet pocks in the wall opposite his armchair, my impatience and my concern together dictated action. Nothing short of a complete rest, in conditions of comfort and ease such as I could not possibly provide, would restore my friend to health. I moved swiftly; telegrams were exchanged; within little more than 12 hours, Sherlock Holmes was on his way to Hurlstone in Sussex, the seat of that Reginald Musgrave whose family treasures he had so brilliantly rediscovered some five years earlier. So events conspired to embroil me in what I must describe as a truly singular adventure.

It came about in the following fashion. That same afternoon, I had just returned from visiting a patient when the housekeeper announced the arrival of a Lady Fairfax. There entered a blonde young woman of the most unusual beauty and distinction of feature. I was at once aware in her of a discomposure obviously not at all derived from the sweltering weather, to which, indeed, her bearing proclaimed utter indifference. I encouraged this lovely but troubled creature to be seated and to divulge her purpose.

"It was Mr. Sherlock Holmes whom I came to see, but I understand he has gone away and is not expected back for a fortnight," she began.

"That is so."

"Can he not be recalled?"

I shook my head. "Quite out of the question."

"But I come on a matter of the utmost urgency. A life is in danger."

"Lady Fairfax," said I, "Holmes has been overworking and must have rest and a change of air. I speak not only as his friend but as his physician."

The lady sighed and lowered her gaze into her lap. "May I at least acquaint you with the main facts of the matter?"

"Do so, by all means, if you feel it will be of service to you."

"Very well. My husband is Sir Harry Fairfax, the sixth baronet, of Darkwater Hall in Wiltshire. In his capacity as a magistrate, he had brought before him last year a man known locally as Black Ralph. The charge was poaching. There was no doubt of his guilt; he had erred before in this way and in others, and my husband's sentence of 12 months in jail was lenient to a degree. Now, Black Ralph is at liberty again, and word has reached our servants that he means to revenge himself on my husband--to kill him."

"Kill him?" I ejaculated.

"Nothing less, Dr. Watson," said Lady Fairfax, clasping and unclasping her white-gloved hands as she spoke. "My husband scouts these threats, calling Black Ralph a harmless rascal with a taste for rhetoric. But the fellow is no mere drunken reprobate such as one finds in every village; I have seen him and studied him, and I tell you he is malignant and in all likelihood mentally deranged, as well."

I was at a loss. My visitor was by now extremely agitated, her vivid lips atremble and her fine blue eyes flashing fire. "He sounds most menacing," said I, "and I understand your desire for assistance. I chance to know a certain Inspector Lestrade at Scotland Yard who would be happy to lend you all the aid he could."

"Thank you, but my husband refuses to go to the police and he has forbidden me to do so."

"I see."

"There must, however, be other consulting detectives in London whom I -might approach. Perhaps you know of some of them."

"Well," said I, after a short space, "it's true that in the last year or so a number of--what shall I call them?--rivals of Sherlock Holmes have sprung up. But they're very slight and unsatisfactory fellows. I could not in honesty recommend a single one."

There was a silence. The lady sighed once more and at last turned to me. "Dr. Watson, will you help me?"

I had half expected this preposterous suggestion but was none the better armed against it when it came. "I? I am quite unfit. I'm a simple medical man, Lady Fairfax, not a detective."

"But you have worked with Mr. Holmes on his previous cases. You are his close friend and associate. You must have learned a great deal from him."

"I think I can say I know his methods, but there are aspects of his activities of which I am altogether ignorant."

"That would not prevent you from talking to my husband, from making him see the peril he faces. Nor from approaching Black Ralph, warning him, offering him money. Dr. Watson, I know you think me overwrought, fanciful, perhaps even deluded. Is it not the case, that you think so?"

This was uncommonly and uncomfortably shrewd, not only as an observation but also as a turn of tactics. I made some motion intended to be evasive.

"Thank you for being so honest," was the smiling response. "Now, I may be all you suppose, but I lay no obligation upon you, and would two or three comfortable days out of London in this weather be so great a burden?"

Sherlock Holmes once observed that the fair sex was my department. I never fully took his meaning, but if it was to the effect that I enjoyed any ascendancy in that sphere, he misreckoned. Otherwise, I should scarcely have found myself, the evening after the interview just described, alighting at a remote railway halt some miles from Westbury.

At once a tall, broad-shouldered man in black accosted me, mentioning my name in a foreign accent. He was an obvious Spaniard--by name Carlos, as I was later to learn--with the dignified deportment of that race and an address that contrived to be at once courteous and proud. Courtesy was to the fore while he introduced himself as butler to Sir Harry Fairfax and installed me and my luggage in the smart wagonette that waited in the station yard; and yet his somber glance bespoke a temperament to which the keeping of pledges and the avenging of slights were of deadly concern. Not that I took much note at the time; I was pleasantly struck by the baronet's civility in sending an upper servant to meet me and soothed by the unhurried drive through the leafy lanes, where, as the shadows lengthened, a cooling breeze blew. I looked forward, too, to renewing my acquaintance with the charming Lady Fairfax and, with a lively quickening of curiosity, to uncovering whatever might be the nature of the threat to her husband.

The carriage mounted a crest in the road and these agreeable feelings were soon dispersed. We had come to the edge of the chalky upland that forms most of the county and entered a region of clay and rock. Some half mile off stood a tall house of gray stone mantled with ivy and of a design that even at this distance seemed ill-contrived. To one side of it lay a plantation of trees with foliage of (continued on page 202)Darkwater Hall(continued from page 168) a deep, almost bluish hue uncommon in England; on the other, there wound a stream or small river. I knew at once that the house was our destination and, as soon as a curve in the stream brought the murky, weed-clogged flood close to the road, saw the force of its name. A moment later, I was almost spilled from my seat by the wild shying of the pair of cobs that drew the wagonette. The cause was not far to seek--a human figure of indescribable menace lurking in the hedgerow. I caught a glimpse of a hairy fist shaken, of rotten teeth bared in a snarl, no more, but I would have been sure that it was Black Ralph I had seen even if the Spaniard's dark eye had not fixed me with a sufficiently eloquent look.

Darkwater Hall was no more prepossessing at close quarters. Weathering showed it to be not of recent erection, but its bulging windows and squat chimneys belonged to no period or style I had ever encountered. The interior was comparatively conventional. Carlos took me to a more than adequate bedroom and quickly fetched me ample hot water, so that I was able to make a very tolerable change and go to greet my hosts in freshened spirits.

With his fresh complexion, steady eye and open, unassuming manner, Sir Harry Fairfax was one of the finest types of English country gentleman. I judged him to be about 30 years old. His brother Miles resembled him in age and nothing else, a sallow, sneering young man probably addicted to cigarettes and strong waters. My hostess, in a gown of azure velvet that showed off the brilliance of her eyes, steered me toward the fifth member of the party. Him I identified as an army man (from the set of his shoulders) who had served some years in the tropics (from his deep tan) but whose career had not prospered (from his disappointed air), and was somewhat tickled to hear him introduced as Captain Bradshaw of the Assam Light Horse. No one who had failed to gain his majority by the age of 45, which I judged Bradshaw to have reached, could be called a successful soldier. I hid a smile at the thought of the "Excellent, Watson!" that a well-known voice might have breathed into my ear, had its owner been present, and took to conversation.

"I was a sort of soldier myself when I was a youngster," said I.

"Oh, yes? Where did you serve?"

"Afghanistan."

"You saw some action there, I take it."

"Not the sort that a fighting soldier sees, but enough. I was wounded and at last invalided out."

"What infernal luck."

"You're on leave, I take it."

"Awaiting retirement," said Bradshaw in a tone as dejected as his bearing.

Miles Fairfax now cocked his unkempt head at me. "Welcome to Darkwater Hall, Dr. Watson. Life here may strike you as a trifle dull and rustic after the bustle and polish of London, but, believe me, it has its points of interest."

"No doubt."

"I presume you're a medical doctor, not one who professes law or divinity."

"Medicine's my trade, yes."

"Then the following fact, omitted by my brother when he introduced us, might amuse you. Although unlike in every possible way, he and I are twins."

"That's not so surprising," said I. "Many pairs of twins are no more alike than ordinary brothers and sisters, and we know how they can differ."

"Indeed," said he at his most sarcastic. "Is it true, doctor, that twins can be born several or even many hours apart?"

"It is."

"Not so in our case--eh, Harry? Twenty minutes was all that separated our respective arrivals in this world. But it was enough."

His sister-in-law put a gently restraining hand on his arm, but the fellow shook it off with a roughness that, had it been my place to do so, I should have considered correcting. I was now morally certain he was intoxicated.

"Yes," he went on with a growl, "twenty minutes settled the disposal of the baronetcy, the house, the estate, the money. God's will, what?"

"At least, Mr. Fairfax," said I, "it's evident you're a good loser."

That shot went home and it silenced him for a while, but I was relieved when Carlos announced dinner, thus effecting a change of scene and mood. The fare was palatable and the service most adroit and pleasant, provided by Carlos and a young woman I learned was his wife, named Dolores. With her raven hair, creamy skin and deep-brown eyes, she was in striking contrast to her mistress, but female beauty takes many forms.

I was in the midst of recounting, at the baronet's invitation, the full facts of the strange affair at Stoke Moran, when Lady Fairfax gave an abrupt gasp and raised her hands to her throat. I followed her horrified gaze and spied, through a gap in the curtains, a face I had seen for a moment earlier that day, a face once more contorted with malice.

"Black Ralph! At the window!" I cried, and jumped up from my chair. Bradshaw, too, was on his feet, standing between the lady and the point where the intruder had appeared. Sir Harry and I were out of the house within seconds, but though we searched thoroughly the nearer part of the grounds, we returned empty-handed, much to Miles's scoffing amusement. Some time later, my host contrived to disengage me from the rest of the company, having imputed to me a desire to be shown the contents of his gun room. He enjoyed some friendly amusement at my expense when I cautioned him to stay away from the windows there until I had drawn the curtains over them.

"Do you imagine that Black Ralph has come back with a Gatling gun?" he asked with a smile.

"I imagine nothing, Sir Harry. I go by what I see and hear," and I told him of my earlier sighting of that villainous creature.

He was quite unmoved, attributing these visitations to the idle curiosity of a simpleton. "I am at no risk, doctor," he ended firmly.

"Lady Fairfax thinks differently."

"That's her way. She watches over me with a care that would sometimes befit a mother more than a wife. Such matters will be resolved with the arrival of our first child."

"Is that happy event in positive prospect?"

"Not as yet."

Rather abruptly, he thrust into my hands a pair of antique dueling pistols that had resided in a glass case and inquired my opinion of them. I made what reply I could, as also when he passed me an early revolver from the time of Waterloo. After a moment, he began to speak of his brother.

"Visitors are always apt to bring out the worst in him. I fancy he sees himself through their eyes and dislikes the sight. A man with no occupation, no interest in country pursuits--except shooting, at which he excels--and yet too indolent to make a move. Poor, poor Miles, the prisoner of his own nature, as we all are! And poor Bradshaw, too."

"How so?" I inquired.

"Well, frankly, Watson--and in the circumstances, there seems little point in not being frank with you--Jack has been living here largely on my charity. I offer it gladly, as he served under my father, but it galls him. And under that quiet exterior, you know, there's a caldron of feelings. Not a stable character, Jack's. It told against him in the regiment, so the dad said."

No more was said while I ran my eye over a weapon I recognized, one of the single-action Rossi-Charles rifles with the old aperture sight. Though inaccurate at anything of a range, they had been much prized at one time for never jamming and for their lightness and cheapness. I mentioned having come across them in Afghanistan and Sir Harry told me his father had picked this one up after Jalalabad. Forty years ago and more, I remember thinking to myself, and am still at a loss to say why I did--40 years ago, before I was born.

The rest of the evening passed pleasantly, if inconclusively enough, and in due course, the party dispersed. Next morning, thoroughly refreshed, I had barely finished breakfast when the household exploded into sudden clamor. It appeared that the gun room had been broken into by a window and the Rossi-Charles rifle and half a dozen rounds of its ammunition removed. Nothing else was missing, according to Carlos, who, I gathered, was in virtual charge of his master's modest armory. Mindful of Sherlock Holmes's dictum, that there is no branch of detective science so important as the art of tracing footsteps, I fetched the large magnifying glass I had had the forethought to bring with me and set to work on the approaches to the window. But circumstance was against me in the very particular in which it so often favored my friend; the ground, baked hard by the hot summer, yielded no trace of what I sought. I returned to the gun room to find an altercation in progress.

"It is indeed suspicious----" Sir Harry was saying.

"Suspicious!" his wife flashed at him. "Might a bullet in your heart come near to furnishing a certainty?"

"In law, it is no more than suspicious, and even a magistrate cannot have a man confined on such grounds. I have no charge to bring."

Bradshaw, at the lady's other side, seemed disposed to agree, pointing out that there had been no witnesses to the burglary.

"Then," came the ready rejoinder, "Harry must be placed under guard, protected night and day."

"I refuse to be made a prisoner in my own house, and out of doors the plan would be quite impracticable, eh, Jack?"

"I shouldn't like to undertake it myself with anything less than a full platoon," declared the soldier.

"Then you must leave the Hall, go somewhere safe and secret until----"

"What, and give a rascal like Black Ralph the satisfaction of making me bolt like a rabbit? I'd sooner die."

His sincerity was unmistakable and made an impression on all his hearers, even his brother, who for the moment forgot the sneer, though he remembered soon enough when I took a hand in the conversation.

First explaining the absence of footsteps outside, I added, "But I did find some fragments of glass on the soil, as we did on this side of the window."

"Is that so surprising?" was the baronet's question.

I answered it with another. "Is this door normally kept locked?"

"Why, yes, of course."

"How many keys are there?"

"Two. I have one, Carlos the other."

"Does he carry it with him at all times?"

"No; for the most part, it's kept on a ring hanging up in his pantry."

"And is that generally known in the household?"

"It might well be, yes."

The younger twin said with a curl of his lip, "Your reasoning is pellucidly clear, Dr. Watson. Any of us, and Carlos besides, could have let himself in here, broken the window from inside, in order to suggest an intruder from outside, and made off with the rifle. How exquisitely ingenious!"

"Mr. Fairfax," said I, summoning up as much reasonableness as I could, "all I seek to do is to explore possibilities, however remote they may appear to be and however absurd they may turn out in retrospect to have been."

"As the great Sherlock Holmes would be seeking to do, were he here."

"I am not too proud to learn from my betters," I observed a little tartly as I drew Sir Harry aside.

Before I could speak, he said with some warmth, "You don't seriously suppose, do you, Watson, that Carlos, or Jack Bradshaw, or my own brother, would have stolen that weapon? For what conceivable motive?"

"Of course I don't suppose any such thing," said I. "This Black Ralph miscreant is obviously the culprit. No, I was merely----"

"Displaying your powers of observation and deduction?" he asked, all his good humor restored.

"Very likely. Now you must tell me where to find the fellow. There's no time to be lost."

"I beg you to be careful, my dear fellow."

"You are to be careful, Sir Harry. Keep to the house as far as you can. Take Bradshaw with you, if you must venture out. Warn the servants."

He promised to do as I said, and his directions took me straight to the noisome hovel that was Black Ralph's abode, but my journey was in vain. The slattern who answered my knock informed me that the man had left the previous day to visit his sister near Warminster and was not expected back for a week. I did not stay to puncture such an obvious tissue of falsehood. When an inquiry at the local tavern fell out equally fruitless, I returned to Darkwater Hall and addressed myself to questioning the servants, the source of the disquieting rumors that had reached Lady Fairfax in the first place.

My most puzzling informant was the girl Dolores, who fortunately spoke English well, though with a stronger accent than her husband. At first she had little to say, answering in curt monosyllables or merely shrugging her graceful shoulders by way of reply. But then, led by luck or instinct, I ventured to ask what were her personal views of her employer. At once, her dark eyes blazed and I caught a glimpse of splendid white teeth.

"He is cold!" she cried. "He is a good man, this Sir Harry Fairfax, a fine English gentleman, but he is cold! His blood is like the blood of a fish!"

Making no move to restrain her, for we were out of hearing of the household at the time, I did no more than encourage her to explain herself.

"I cannot! How can I, to another Englishman?"

"Has he treated you unkindly?"

"Unkindly, never; I tell you he is a good man. But coldly, coldly!"

"In what way coldly?"

Again, the girl did no more than shrug her shoulders. I sensed I would get no further along this path and took a new approach by asking whether Carlos also held the opinion that Sir Harry was a good man.

"Yes, yes," was the reply, accompanied by a toss of the head. "I think so. Or perhaps I should better say that I hope so, I greatly hope so."

"Why is that?"

But here, once more, I found there was no more progress to be made. I revolved in my mind this interview, together with other matters, through an agreeable luncheon and the earlier part of a confoundedly sultry afternoon. Half past four found me in the drawing room taking tea with my hostess.

"We won't wait for Harry," said she. "He often misses tea altogether."

"Where is Sir Harry at this moment?"

"At the stables. He should be safe enough there."

"I see there is a fourth cup."

"In case Miles should decide to join us."

"But you make no provision for Captain Bradshaw."

"Ah, he never takes tea. Nothing must be allowed to interfere with his afternoon walk. Jack Bradshaw is a very serious man."

"He is certainly very serious about you, Lady Fairfax."

"What do you mean?"

"He's in love with you, as you must know. I learned it last night, at dinner. You showed signs of strong fear; Bradshaw had not seen what it was that had frightened you, but he could tell its direction from your gaze and at once--before I was on my feet, and I moved quickly--interposed himself between you and the source of danger. Such speed comes from instinct founded on strong emotion, not from the conscious part of the mind."

The lady was not indignant, nor did she affect disbelief or surprise. I was sufficiently emboldened by this further evidence of her sagacity to inquire if I might go further in plain speaking.

"We shall make no progress if we allow ourselves to be circumscribed by false notions of delicacy," she replied.

"Very well. Remember that I am discussing remote contingencies, nothing more. If I wanted to procure Sir Harry's demise, when should I best make my attempt?"

"When his life had recently been threatened by a convicted criminal."

"Just so," said I.

"Your motive? We know of one possibility, that your victim stands between you and the object of your passion. No doubt, there are others."

"Certainly. Perhaps I'm the prey of a special kind of envy, or a sense that fortune has been unjust to me."

"I follow you."

"Or, again, I may feel that my honor has been slighted so grievously that only death can redress the wrong."

"Do you call that plain speaking, Dr. Watson?" was a question never answered, for at that moment, the teacup in that graceful hand shattered into fragments and the crack of a rifle was heard from the nearer distance. Bidding Lady Fairfax lie down, I hastened out through the open French windows and searched the adjacent shrubbery but found nothing. On my return to the house. I found the baronet with his arms about his wife, who was decidedly less upset than many young women would have been after such an experience. After satisfying myself that she needed none of my professional care, I searched for the bullet that had passed between us and eventually retrieved it from the corner, where it had ricocheted after hitting the back wall. This contact had somewhat deformed it, but I was soon satisfied that it had come from the Rossi-Charles rifle.

By now, Miles Fairfax had arrived from his sitting room on the first floor, unaware, on his account, of anything amiss until summoned by a servant. Had he not heard the shot? He had, indeed, heard a shot but had taken it for one more of the hundreds fired in the vicinity every year for peaceful purposes. Bradshaw appeared a little later, back, he declared, from his walk, and evidently much agitated at the narrowness of Lady Fairfax' escape.

He clutched his forehead wildly. "In heaven's name, what lunatic would seek to harm so innocent a creature?" he cried.

"Oh, I think it must have been to me that harm was intended, Jack," said Sir Harry. "Consider where Watson was sitting. From that distance, it would have been perfectly possible to mistake him for me."

"Harry," said his wife in tones of resolve, "there must be no shoot tomorrow. I forbid it."

"What shoot is this?" I asked.

"A very modest affair, doctor," returned Sir Harry. "We intend to do no more than clear some of the pigeons from the east wood. A few people from round about will be joining us."

"And is your intention known in the district?"

"Well, it is our yearly custom. I suppose it must be known."

"Don't go, dearest," implored the lady. "Let the others do as they please, but you remain behind."

I took it upon myself to intervene. "My dear Lady Fairfax," said I, "Sir Harry must be there. It's our best chance. We must bring Black Ralph into the open and end this menace. I will be responsible for your husband's safety."

And, with the support of Bradshaw and, unexpectedly, that of Miles Fairfax, I carried the day. Later, I made some preparations with which I will not weary the reader and, in common with the rest of the household, retired early.

The next day began auspiciously enough, with a blue sky faintly veiled in mist, so often the prelude to a blazing noon. By 11 o'clock, the shooting party was on its way toward the wood. Besides myself, it included the Fairfax brothers and half a dozen neighbors but not Captain Bradshaw, whom I had just heard explaining to a bewhiskered farmer that the recurrence of a bowel complaint, the effect of a germ picked up in India, forbade him to attend. Happening to catch my eye as he said this, he had hastily looked away, and with reason; I have never met a worse liar. The only servant present was a ruddy-cheeked youth carrying a rattle to put up the birds.

The sun was hot and high as we moved into the shadows of the wood, where there were many small noises. Almost at once, Miles Fairfax stumbled at some irregularity of the ground and but for my outthrust arm might have fallen.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

He hobbled a pace or two. "My damned ankle. I seem to have twisted it."

"Best let me have a look."

This natural suggestion seemed to fill him with wrath. "I haven't broken my leg, curse it!" he cried. "I don't need surgery! I'll be all right directly and will catch you up. Go on, all of you! Go on!"

It seemed we had no choice but to do as we were told. Presently, the rattle sounded, flocks of pigeons took to the air and the guns blazed merrily away. I held my fire, maintaining a keen lookout and staying as close to Sir Harry as I could without forming one target with him. The party trod steadily on, deeper into the wood. I caught various movements among foliage, but none were of human agency. I had begun to fear, not what might happen but that nothing would, when we reached a clearing some 70 yards across. At once, there came the sharp crack of a rifle shot and Sir Harry cried out and fell. I was thunderstruck, but after a glance at the baronet's prostrate form, I shouted to the party that they should lie flat and keep their heads down. They obeyed with alacrity. Another shot sounded, but the bullet went wild. I faced in the direction from which it had come and walked slowly forward.

"Aim here," I called, indicating my chest. "Here."

A third report followed; I heard the round buzzing through the air ten feet above my head. The fourth and fifth attempts were no better. When I had gone some 20 yards, there was a receding flurry in the bushes. I followed at a run but still had seen nothing when two shots rang out almost together and a cry of pain followed. Within a minute, I had found what I sought--Bradshaw and Carlos each covering with a rifle the prostrate form of Black Ralph.

"Well done, lads," said I, grasping each by the arm, then turned my attention to the would-be assassin. My first good look at the scoundrel showed him to be of simous and apelike appearance, and there was something animal in the way he whimpered over his injury. This was nothing much; a bullet had creased his kneecap, temporarily incapacitating him but not, which would have been the case had it struck nearer, crippling him for life. All in all, he was infernally lucky.

"Whose shot was it?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," said Bradshaw.

"I am sure," said the Spaniard with a gallant bow. "It was yours, Captain. Most brilliant, with a moving target at that range. And now you may leave it to me to deliver to the authorities this piece of filth."

Sir Harry's wound was lighter--a gash in the upper arm that had not bled excessively. When I reached him, he was being tenderly comforted by his brother Miles, whose whole nature seemed transformed and who gave me such a look, compounded of remorse for past conduct and a firm resolve for the future, as I shall never forget. On our return to Darkwater Hall, the wife's joy at her husband's safe home-coming affected us all, notably Bradshaw. I received so much praise for my supposed courage in exposing myself to Black Ralph's fire that I was forced at last to explain that it was undeserved.

"The rifle is the key," said I, the recovered weapon in my hand. "Like all its brothers, it's inaccurate. So, when it was stolen, I knew the culprit was someone ignorant of firearms. Then, when your teacup flew to pieces yesterday, Lady Fairfax, I knew more. To get a bullet out of this thingumbob between you and me at something like eighty yards, the firer must be either a brilliant shot with many hours of practice behind him--impossible--or a very bad shot with the luck of the Devil, one who had the luck of the Devil again an hour ago; that staggered me, I must say. So, you see, while Black Ralph was aiming at my chest, I was safe. If he had just let fly at random, he might conceivably have hit me."

Bradshaw seemed dissatisfied. "But even the most inaccurate weapon in the world is dangerous at short range," he observed.

"Indeed it is. That was why I kept my distance till there were no more shots in the locker. But, of course, I knew who was the villain of the piece within minutes of arriving in the house, despite all the questions I asked."

"By deduction?" asked Miles Fairfax with a friendly smile.

"Certainly not. I knew Black Ralph was a criminal, one glimpse of him was enough to show me he was a dangerous one, and everybody else I saw was simply incapable of such a monstrous deed as the one he tried to perpetrate today. It was obvious. And I thank God for that fact. In a case of the least difficulty, I should have been the sorriest of substitutes for Sherlock Holmes."

Accompanied by Bradshaw, who told me he felt he had vegetated too long, I caught the evening train to London, where we supped pleasantly at the Savoy.

If I were recording here one of Holmes's adventures, I should lay down my pen at this point, but since I mean to ensure that nobody shall see this account till 50 years after my death, I will take leave to say a little more.

I have deceived the reader. By this I do not merely mean to confess that, in this narrative as in others, I have done what Holmes himself once accused me of doing and concealed "links in the chain"--the scheme I devised with Bradshaw and Carlos for apprehending Black Ralph is the most glaring example--in order to make a better story, though I hope the finale thus produced is not "meretricious." My main apology is of another order altogether.

The interview with Dolores, as recounted above, is a lie. She did, indeed, impute to Carlos a groundless jealousy of Sir Harry. But the manner of this and its circumstances were wholly different from what I have implied. The two of us were in my bed. Even in these easygoing days of the third decade of the 20th Century, I would not care to publish such a revelation. I dare hope that the reader of the Seventies will find it unexceptionable; a vigorous bachelor of three-and-30, such as I then was, a beautiful and passionate girl and an opportunity--is there anything there to outrage delicacy?

Dolores, what was it in you, or in me, or in both of us that brought it about that in your arms I experienced a joy more intense and more exquisite than any before or since? Was it that we were so different from each other or that we shared a strange communion of spirit? Was it the season? Was it--contrary to appearance--the place? To me, that is the real Darkwater Hall mystery, as impenetrable and as wonderful now as it was then, 40 years ago.

John H. Watson, M.D., Bournemouth, April 1925

"The lady sighed once more and at last turned to me. 'Dr. Watson, will you help me?'"

"His wife, Dolores, was in striking contrast to her mistress, but female beauty takes many forms."