When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock Holmes

cases between the years '82 and '90, I am faced by so many which

present strange and interesting features that it is no easy

matter to know which to choose and which to leave. Some, however,

have already gained publicity through the papers, and others have

not offered a field for those peculiar qualities which my friend

possessed in so high a degree, and which it is the object of

these papers to illustrate. Some, too, have baffled his

analytical skill, and would be, as narratives, beginnings without

an ending, while others have been but partially cleared up, and

have their explanations founded rather upon conjecture and

surmise than on that absolute logical proof which was so dear to

him. There is, however, one of these last which was so remarkable

in its details and so startling in its results that I am tempted

to give some account of it in spite of the fact that there are

points in connection with it which never have been, and probably

never will be, entirely cleared up.

The year '87 furnished us with a long series of cases of greater

or less interest, of which I retain the records. Among my

headings under this one twelve months I find an account of the

adventure of the Paradol Chamber, of the Amateur Mendicant

Society, who held a luxurious club in the lower vault of a

furniture warehouse, of the facts connected with the loss of the

British bark Sophy Anderson, of the singular adventures of the

Grice Patersons in the island of Uffa, and finally of the

Camberwell poisoning case. In the latter, as may be remembered,

Sherlock Holmes was able, by winding up the dead man's watch, to

prove that it had been wound up two hours before, and that

therefore the deceased had gone to bed within that time--a

deduction which was of the greatest importance in clearing up the

case. All these I may sketch out at some future date, but none of

them present such singular features as the strange train of

circumstances which I have now taken up my pen to describe.

It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales

had set in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had

screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that

even here in the heart of great, hand-made London we were forced

to raise our minds for the instant from the routine of life and

to recognize the presence of those great elemental forces which

shriek at mankind through the bars of his civilization, like

untamed beasts in a cage. As evening drew in, the storm grew

higher and louder, and the wind cried and sobbed like a child in

the chimney. Sherlock Holmes sat moodily at one side of the

fireplace cross-indexing his records of crime, while I at the

other was deep in one of Clark Russell's fine sea-stories until

the howl of the gale from without seemed to blend with the text,

and the splash of the rain to lengthen out into the long swash of

the sea waves. My wife was on a visit to her mother's, and for a

few days I was a dweller once more in my old quarters at Baker

Street.

"Why," said I, glancing up at my companion, "that was surely the

bell. Who could come to-night? Some friend of yours, perhaps?"

"Except yourself I have none," he answered. "I do not encourage

visitors."

"A client, then?"

"If so, it is a serious case. Nothing less would bring a man out

on such a day and at such an hour. But I take it that it is more

likely to be some crony of the landlady's."

Sherlock Holmes was wrong in his conjecture, however, for there

came a step in the passage and a tapping at the door. He

stretched out his long arm to turn the lamp away from himself and

towards the vacant chair upon which a newcomer must sit.

"Come in!" said he.

The man who entered was young, some two-and-twenty at the

outside, well-groomed and trimly clad, with something of

refinement and delicacy in his bearing. The streaming umbrella

which he held in his hand, and his long shining waterproof told

of the fierce weather through which he had come. He looked about

him anxiously in the glare of the lamp, and I could see that his

face was pale and his eyes heavy, like those of a man who is

weighed down with some great anxiety.

"I owe you an apology," he said, raising his golden pince-nez to

his eyes. "I trust that I am not intruding. I fear that I have

brought some traces of the storm and rain into your snug

chamber."

"Give me your coat and umbrella," said Holmes. "They may rest

here on the hook and will be dry presently. You have come up from

the south-west, I see."

"Yes, from Horsham."

"That clay and chalk mixture which I see upon your toe caps is

quite distinctive."

"I have come for advice."

"That is easily got."

"And help."

"That is not always so easy."

"I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes. I heard from Major Prendergast

how you saved him in the Tankerville Club scandal."

"Ah, of course. He was wrongfully accused of cheating at cards."

"He said that you could solve anything."

"He said too much."

"That you are never beaten."

"I have been beaten four times--three times by men, and once by a

woman."

"But what is that compared with the number of your successes?"

"It is true that I have been generally successful."

"Then you may be so with me."

"I beg that you will draw your chair up to the fire and favor me

with some details as to your case."

"It is no ordinary one."

"None of those which come to me are. I am the last court of

appeal."

"And yet I question, sir, whether, in all your experience, you

have ever listened to a more mysterious and inexplicable chain of

events than those which have happened in my own family."

"You fill me with interest," said Holmes. "Pray give us the

essential facts from the commencement, and I can afterwards

question you as to those details which seem to me to be most

important."

The young man pulled his chair up and pushed his wet feet out

towards the blaze.

"My name," said he, "is John Openshaw, but my own affairs have,

as far as I can understand, little to do with this awful

business. It is a hereditary matter; so in order to give you an

idea of the facts, I must go back to the commencement of the

affair.

"You must know that my grandfather had two sons--my uncle Elias

and my father Joseph. My father had a small factory at Coventry,

which he enlarged at the time of the invention of bicycling. He

was a patentee of the Openshaw unbreakable tire, and his business

met with such success that he was able to sell it and to retire

upon a handsome competence.

"My uncle Elias emigrated to America when he was a young man and

became a planter in Florida, where he was reported to have done

very well. At the time of the war he fought in Jackson's army,

and afterwards under Hood, where he rose to be a colonel. When

Lee laid down his arms my uncle returned to his plantation, where

he remained for three or four years. About 1869 or 1870 he came

back to Europe and took a small estate in Sussex, near Horsham.

He had made a very considerable fortune in the States, and his

reason for leaving them was his aversion to the negroes, and his

dislike of the Republican policy in extending the franchise to

them. He was a singular man, fierce and quick-tempered, very

foul-mouthed when he was angry, and of a most retiring

disposition. During all the years that he lived at Horsham, I

doubt if ever he set foot in the town. He had a garden and two or

three fields round his house, and there he would take his

exercise, though very often for weeks on end he would never leave

his room. He drank a great deal of brandy and smoked very

heavily, but he would see no society and did not want any

friends, not even his own brother.

"He didn't mind me; in fact, he took a fancy to me, for at the

time when he saw me first I was a youngster of twelve or so. This

would be in the year 1878, after he had been eight or nine years

in England. He begged my father to let me live with him and he

was very kind to me in his way. When he was sober he used to be

fond of playing backgammon and draughts with me, and he would

make me his representative both with the servants and with the

tradespeople, so that by the time that I was sixteen I was quite

master of the house. I kept all the keys and could go where I

liked and do what I liked, so long as I did not disturb him in

his privacy. There was one singular exception, however, for he

had a single room, a lumber-room up among the attics, which was

invariably locked, and which he would never permit either me or

anyone else to enter. With a boy's curiosity I have peeped

through the keyhole, but I was never able to see more than such a

collection of old trunks and bundles as would be expected in such

a room.

"One day--it was in March, 1883--a letter with a foreign stamp

lay upon the table in front of the colonel's plate. It was not a

common thing for him to receive letters, for his bills were all

paid in ready money, and he had no friends of any sort. 'From

India!' said he as he took it up, 'Pondicherry postmark! What can

this be?' Opening it hurriedly, out there jumped five little

dried orange pips, which pattered down upon his plate. I began to

laugh at this, but the laugh was struck from my lips at the sight

of his face. His lip had fallen, his eyes were protruding, his

skin the color of putty, and he glared at the envelope which he

still held in his trembling hand, 'K. K. K.!' he shrieked, and

then, 'My God, my God, my sins have overtaken me!'

"'What is it, uncle?' I cried.

"'Death,' said he, and rising from the table he retired to his

room, leaving me palpitating with horror. I took up the envelope

and saw scrawled in red ink upon the inner flap, just above the

gum, the letter K three times repeated. There was nothing else

save the five dried pips. What could be the reason of his

overpowering terror? I left the breakfast-table, and as I

ascended the stair I met him coming down with an old rusty key,

which must have belonged to the attic, in one hand, and a small

brass box, like a cashbox, in the other.

"'They may do what they like, but I'll checkmate them still,'

said he with an oath. 'Tell Mary that I shall want a fire in my

room to-day, and send down to Fordham, the Horsham lawyer.'

"I did as he ordered, and when the lawyer arrived I was asked to

step up to the room. The fire was burning brightly, and in the

grate there was a mass of black, fluffy ashes, as of burned

paper, while the brass box stood open and empty beside it. As I

glanced at the box I noticed, with a start, that upon the lid was

printed the treble K which I had read in the morning upon the

envelope.

"'I wish you, John,' said my uncle, 'to witness my will. I leave

my estate, with all its advantages and all its disadvantages, to

my brother, your father, whence it will, no doubt, descend to

you. If you can enjoy it in peace, well and good! If you find you

cannot, take my advice, my boy, and leave it to your deadliest

enemy. I am sorry to give you such a two-edged thing, but I can't

say what turn things are going to take. Kindly sign the paper

where Mr. Fordham shows you.'

"I signed the paper as directed, and the lawyer took it away with

him. The singular incident made, as you may think, the deepest

impression upon me, and I pondered over it and turned it every

way in my mind without being able to make anything of it. Yet I

could not shake off the vague feeling of dread which it left

behind, though the sensation grew less keen as the weeks passed

and nothing happened to disturb the usual routine of our lives. I

could see a change in my uncle, however. He drank more than ever,

and he was less inclined for any sort of society. Most of his

time he would spend in his room, with the door locked upon the

inside, but sometimes he would emerge in a sort of drunken frenzy

and would burst out of the house and tear about the garden with a

revolver in his hand, screaming out that he was afraid of no man,

and that he was not to be cooped up, like a sheep in a pen, by

man or devil. When these hot fits were over however, he would

rush tumultuously in at the door and lock and bar it behind him,

like a man who can brazen it out no longer against the terror

which lies at the roots of his soul. At such times I have seen

his face, even on a cold day, glisten with moisture, as though it

were new raised from a basin.

"Well, to come to an end of the matter, Mr. Holmes, and not to

abuse your patience, there came a night when he made one of those

drunken sallies from which he never came back. We found him, when

we went to search for him, face downward in a little

green-scummed pool, which lay at the foot of the garden. There

was no sign of any violence, and the water was but two feet deep,

so that the jury, having regard to his known eccentricity,

brought in a verdict of 'suicide.' But I, who knew how he winced

from the very thought of death, had much ado to persuade myself

that he had gone out of his way to meet it. The matter passed,

however, and my father entered into possession of the estate, and

of some 14,000 pounds, which lay to his credit at the bank."

"One moment," Holmes interposed, "your statement is, I foresee,

one of the most remarkable to which I have ever listened. Let me

have the date of the reception by your uncle of the letter, and

the date of his supposed suicide."

"The letter arrived on March 10, 1883. His death was seven weeks

later, upon the night of May 2d."

"Thank you. Pray proceed."