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SHERLOCKHOLMES-EMPTYHOUSE 02 LYRICS

The place was pitch-dark, but it was evident to me that it was
an empty house. Our feet creaked and crackled over the bare
planking, and my outstretched hand touched a wall from which the
paper was hanging in ribbons. Holmes's cold, thin fingers
closed round my wrist and led me forwards down a long hall,
until I dimly saw the murky fanlight over the door. Here Holmes
turned suddenly to the right, and we found ourselves in a large,
square, empty room, heavily shadowed in the corners, but faintly
lit in the centre from the lights of the street beyond. There was
no lamp near and the window was thick with dust, so that we could
only just discern each other's figures within. My companion put
his hand upon my shoulder and his lips close to my ear.

"Do you know where we are?" he whispered.

"Surely that is Baker Street," I answered, staring through the
dim window.

"Exactly. We are in Camden House, which stands opposite to our
own old quarters."

"But why are we here?"

"Because it commands so excellent a view of that picturesque pile.
Might I trouble you, my dear Watson, to draw a little nearer to
the window, taking every precaution not to show yourself,
and then to look up at our old rooms -- the starting-point of so
many of our little adventures? We will see if my three years of
absence have entirely taken away my power to surprise you."

I crept forward and looked across at the familiar window.
As my eyes fell upon it I gave a gasp and a cry of amazement.
The blind was down and a strong light was burning in the room.
The shadow of a man who was seated in a chair within was thrown in
hard, black outline upon the luminous screen of the window.
There was no mistaking the poise of the head, the squareness of
the shoulders, the sharpness of the features. The face was
turned half-round, and the effect was that of one of those black
silhouettes which our grandparents loved to frame. It was a
perfect reproduction of Holmes. So amazed was I that I threw
out my hand to make sure that the man himself was standing
beside me. He was quivering with silent laughter.

"Well?" said he.

"Good heavens!" I cried. "It is marvellous."

"I trust that age doth not wither nor custom stale my infinite
variety,'" said he, and I recognised in his voice the joy and
pride which the artist takes in his own creation. "It really is
rather like me, is it not?"

"I should be prepared to swear that it was you."

"The credit of the execution is due to Monsieur Oscar Meunier,
of Grenoble, who spent some days in doing the moulding. It is a
bust in wax. The rest I arranged myself during my visit to
Baker Street this afternoon."

"But why?"

"Because, my dear Watson, I had the strongest possible reason
for wishing certain people to think that I was there when I was
really elsewhere."

"And you thought the rooms were watched?"

"I KNEW that they were watched."

"By whom?"

"By my old enemies, Watson. By the charming society whose leader
lies in the Reichenbach Fall. You must remember that they knew,
and only they knew, that I was still alive. Sooner or later they
believed that I should come back to my rooms. They watched them
continuously, and this morning they saw me arrive."

"How do you know?"

"Because I recognised their sentinel when I glanced out of my
window. He is a harmless enough fellow, Parker by name,
a garroter by trade, and a remarkable performer upon the Jew's
harp. I cared nothing for him. But I cared a great deal for
the much more formidable person who was behind him, the bosom
friend of Moriarty, the man who dropped the rocks over the cliff,
the most cunning and dangerous criminal in London. That is the
man who is after me to-night, Watson, and that is the man who is
quite unaware that we are after HIM."

My friend's plans were gradually revealing themselves.
From this convenient retreat the watchers were being watched and
the trackers tracked. That angular shadow up yonder was the bait
and we were the hunters. In silence we stood together in the
darkness and watched the hurrying figures who passed and
repassed in front of us. Holmes was silent and motionless;
but I could tell that he was keenly alert, and that his eyes were
fixed intently upon the stream of passers-by. It was a bleak
and boisterous night, and the wind whistled shrilly down the
long street. Many people were moving to and fro, most of them
muffled in their coats and cravats. Once or twice it seemed to
me that I had seen the same figure before, and I especially
noticed two men who appeared to be sheltering themselves from
the wind in the doorway of a house some distance up the street.
I tried to draw my companion's attention to them, but he gave a
little ejaculation of impatience and continued to stare into the
street. More than once he fidgeted with his feet and tapped
rapidly with his fingers upon the wall. It was evident to me
that he was becoming uneasy and that his plans were not working
out altogether as he had hoped. At last, as midnight approached
and the street gradually cleared, he paced up and down the room
in uncontrollable agitation. I was about to make some remark to
him when I raised my eyes to the lighted window and again
experienced almost as great a surprise as before. I clutched
Holmes's arm and pointed upwards.

"The shadow has moved!" I cried.

It was, indeed, no longer the profile, but the back, which was
turned towards us.

Three years had certainly not smoothed the asperities of his temper
or his impatience with a less active intelligence than his own.

"Of course it has moved," said he. "Am I such a farcical
bungler, Watson, that I should erect an obvious dummy and expect
that some of the sharpest men in Europe would be deceived by it?
We have been in this room two hours, and Mrs. Hudson has made
some change in that figure eight times, or once in every quarter
of an hour. She works it from the front so that her shadow may
never be seen. Ah!" He drew in his breath with a shrill,
excited intake. In the dim light I saw his head thrown forward,
his whole attitude rigid with attention. Outside, the street
was absolutely deserted. Those two men might still be crouching
in the doorway, but I could no longer see them. All was still
and dark, save only that brilliant yellow screen in front of us
with the black figure outlined upon its centre. Again in the
utter silence I heard that thin, sibilant note which spoke of
intense suppressed excitement. An instant later he pulled me
back into the blackest corner of the room, and I felt his
warning hand upon my lips. The fingers which clutched me were
quivering. Never had I known my friend more moved, and yet the
dark street still stretched lonely and motionless before us.

But suddenly I was aware of that which his keener senses had
already distinguished. A low, stealthy sound came to my ears,
not from the direction of Baker Street, but from the back of the
very house in which we lay concealed. A door opened and shut.
An instant later steps crept down the passage -- steps which
were meant to be silent, but which reverberated harshly through
the empty house. Holmes crouched back against the wall and I
did the same, my hand closing upon the handle of my revolver.
Peering through the gloom, I saw the vague outline of a man,
a shade blacker than the blackness of the open door. He stood
for an instant, and then he crept forward, crouching, menacing,
into the room. He was within three yards of us, this sinister
figure, and I had braced myself to meet his spring, before I
realized that he had no idea of our presence. He passed close
beside us, stole over to the window, and very softly and
noiselessly raised it for half a foot. As he sank to the level
of this opening the light of the street, no longer dimmed by the
dusty glass, fell full upon his face. The man seemed to be
beside himself with excitement. His two eyes shone like stars
and his features were working convulsively. He was an elderly
man, with a thin, projecting nose, a high, bald forehead, and a
huge grizzled moustache. An opera-hat was pushed to the back of
his head, and an evening dress shirt-front gleamed out through
his open overcoat. His face was gaunt and swarthy, scored with
deep, savage lines. In his hand he carried what appeared to be
a stick, but as he laid it down upon the floor it gave a
metallic clang. Then from the pocket of his overcoat he drew a
bulky object, and he busied himself in some task which ended
with a loud, sharp click, as if a spring or bolt had fallen into
its place. Still kneeling upon the floor he bent forward and
threw all his weight and strength upon some lever, with the
result that there came a long, whirling, grinding noise, ending
once more in a powerful click. He straightened himself then,
and I saw that what he held in his hand was a sort of gun, with
a curiously misshapen butt. He opened it at the breech, put
something in, and snapped the breech-block. Then, crouching
down, he rested the end of the barrel upon the ledge of the open
window, and I saw his long moustache droop over the stock and
his eye gleam as it peered along the sights. I heard a little
sigh of satisfaction as he cuddled the butt into his shoulder,
and saw that amazing target, the black man on the yellow ground,
standing clear at the end of his fore sight. For an instant he
was rigid and motionless. Then his finger tightened on the
trigger. There was a strange, loud whiz and a long, silvery
tinkle of broken glass. At that instant Holmes sprang like a
tiger on to the marksman's back and hurled him flat upon his
face. He was up again in a moment, and with convulsive strength
he seized Holmes by the throat; but I struck him on the head
with the butt of my revolver and he dropped again upon the floor.
I fell upon him, and as I held him my comrade blew a shrill call
upon a whistle. There was the clatter of running feet upon the
pavement, and two policemen in uniform, with one plain-clothes
detective, rushed through the front entrance and into the room.

"That you, Lestrade?" said Holmes.

"Yes, Mr. Holmes. I took the job myself. It's good to see you
back in London, sir."

"I think you want a little unofficial help. Three undetected
murders in one year won't do, Lestrade. But you handled the
Molesey Mystery with less than your usual -- that's to say, you
handled it fairly well."

We had all risen to our feet, our prisoner breathing hard,
with a stalwart constable on each side of him. Already a few
loiterers had begun to collect in the street. Holmes stepped up
to the window, closed it, and dropped the blinds. Lestrade had
produced two candles and the policemen had uncovered their lanterns.
I was able at last to have a good look at our prisoner.

It was a tremendously virile and yet sinister face which was
turned towards us. With the brow of a philosopher above and the
jaw of a sensualist below, the man must have started with great
capacities for good or for evil. But one could not look upon his
cruel blue eyes, with their drooping, cynical lids, or upon the
fierce, aggressive nose and the threatening, deep-lined brow,
without reading Nature's plainest danger-signals. He took no heed
of any of us, but his eyes were fixed upon Holmes's face with an
expression in which hatred and amazement were equally blended.
"You fiend!" he kept on muttering. "You clever, clever fiend!"

"Ah, Colonel!" said Holmes, arranging his rumpled collar;
"'journeys end in lovers' meetings,' as the old play says.
I don't think I have had the pleasure of seeing you since you
favoured me with those attentions as I lay on the ledge above
the Reichenbach Fall."

The Colonel still stared at my friend like a man in a trance.
"You cunning, cunning fiend!" was all that he could say.

"I have not introduced you yet," said Holmes. "This, gentlemen,
is Colonel Sebastian Moran, once of Her Majesty's Indian Army,
and the best heavy game shot that our Eastern Empire has ever
produced. I believe I am correct, Colonel, in saying that your
bag of tigers still remains unrivalled?"

The fierce old man said nothing, but still glared at my companion;
with his savage eyes and bristling moustache he was wonderfully
like a tiger himself.

"I wonder that my very simple stratagem could deceive so old
a shikari," said Holmes. "It must be very familiar to you.
Have you not tethered a young kid under a tree, lain above it
with your rifle, and waited for the bait to bring up your tiger?
This empty house is my tree and you are my tiger. You have
possibly had other guns in reserve in case there should be
several tigers, or in the unlikely supposition of your own aim
failing you. These," he pointed around, "are my other guns.
The parallel is exact."

Colonel Moran sprang forward, with a snarl of rage, but the
constables dragged him back. The fury upon his face was
terrible to look at.

"I confess that you had one small surprise for me," said Holmes.
"I did not anticipate that you would yourself make use of this
empty house and this convenient front window. I had imagined
you as operating from the street, where my friend Lestrade and
his merry men were awaiting you. With that exception all has
gone as I expected."

Colonel Moran turned to the official detective.

"You may or may not have just cause for arresting me," said he,
"but at least there can be no reason why I should submit to the
gibes of this person. If I am in the hands of the law let
things be done in a legal way."

"Well, that's reasonable enough," said Lestrade. "Nothing
further you have to say, Mr. Holmes, before we go?"

Holmes had picked up the powerful air-gun from the floor and
was examining its mechanism.

"An admirable and unique weapon," said he, "noiseless and of
tremendous power. I knew Von Herder, the blind German mechanic,
who constructed it to the order of the late Professor Moriarty.
For years I have been aware of its existence, though I have
never before had the opportunity of handling it. I commend it
very specially to your attention, Lestrade, and also the bullets
which fit it."

"You can trust us to look after that, Mr. Holmes," said Lestrade,
as the whole party moved towards the door. "Anything further to say?"

"Only to ask what charge you intend to prefer?"

"What charge, sir? Why, of course, the attempted murder of Mr.
Sherlock Holmes."

"Not so, Lestrade. I do not propose to appear in the matter at all.
To you, and to you only, belongs the credit of the remarkable arrest
which you have effected. Yes, Lestrade, I congratulate you! With
your usual happy mixture of cunning and audacity you have got him."

"Got him! Got whom, Mr. Holmes?"

"The man that the whole force has been seeking in vain --
Colonel Sebastian Moran, who shot the Honourable Ronald Adair
with an expanding bullet from an air-gun through the open window
of the second-floor front of No. 427, Park Lane, upon the 30th
of last month. That's the charge, Lestrade. And now, Watson,
if you can endure the draught from a broken window, I think that
half an hour in my study over a cigar may afford you some
profitable amusement."


Our old chambers had been left unchanged through the supervision
of Mycroft Holmes and the immediate care of Mrs. Hudson.
As I entered I saw, it is true, an unwonted tidiness, but the old
landmarks were all in their place. There were the chemical
corner and the acid-stained, deal-topped table. There upon a
shelf was the row of formidable scrap-books and books of reference
which many of our fellow-citizens would have been so glad to burn.
The diagrams, the violin-case, and the pipe-rack -- even the
Persian slipper which contained the tobacco -- all met my eyes
as I glanced round me. There were two occupants of the room --
one Mrs. Hudson, who beamed upon us both as we entered;
the other the strange dummy which had played so important a part in
the evening's adventures. It was a wax-coloured model of my friend,
so admirably done that it was a perfect facsimile. It stood on a
small pedestal table with an old dressing-gown of Holmes's so draped
round it that the illusion from the street was absolutely perfect.

"I hope you preserved all precautions, Mrs. Hudson?" said Holmes.

"I went to it on my knees, sir, just as you told me."

"Excellent. You carried the thing out very well. Did you observe
where the bullet went?"

"Yes, sir. I'm afraid it has spoilt your beautiful bust, for it
passed right through the head and flattened itself on the wall.
I picked it up from the carpet. Here it is!"

Holmes held it out to me. "A soft revolver bullet, as you
perceive, Watson. There's genius in that, for who would expect
to find such a thing fired from an air-gun. All right, Mrs.
Hudson, I am much obliged for your assistance. And now, Watson,
let me see you in your old seat once more, for there are
several points which I should like to discuss with you."

He had thrown off the seedy frock-coat, and now he was the
Holmes of old in the mouse-coloured dressing-gown which he took
from his effigy.

"The old shikari's nerves have not lost their steadiness nor his
eyes their keenness," said he, with a laugh, as he inspected the
shattered forehead of his bust.

"Plumb in the middle of the back of the head and smack through
the brain. He was the best shot in India, and I expect that
there are few better in London. Have you heard the name?"

"No, I have not."

"Well, well, such is fame! But, then, if I remember aright,
you had not heard the name of Professor James Moriarty, who had
one of the great brains of the century. Just give me down my
index of biographies from the shelf."

He turned over the pages lazily, leaning back in his chair and
blowing great clouds from his cigar.

"My collection of M's is a fine one," said he.
"Moriarty himself is enough to make any letter illustrious,
and here is Morgan the poisoner, and Merridew of abominable memory,
and Mathews, who knocked out my left canine in the waiting-room
at Charing Cross, and, finally, here is our friend of to-night."

He handed over the book, and I read:
"MORAN, SEBASTIAN, COLONEL. Unemployed. Formerly 1st Bengalore
Pioneers. Born London, 1840. Son of Sir Augustus Moran, C.B.,
once British Minister to Persia. Educated Eton and Oxford.
Served in Jowaki Campaign, Afghan Campaign, Charasiab (despatches),
Sherpur, and Cabul. Author of 'Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas,'
1881; 'Three Months in the Jungle,' 1884. Address: Conduit Street.
Clubs: The Anglo-Indian, the Tankerville, the Bagatelle Card Club."

On the margin was written, in Holmes's precise hand:
"The second most dangerous man in London."

"This is astonishing," said I, as I handed back the volume.
"The man's career is that of an honourable soldier."

"It is true," Holmes answered. "Up to a certain point he did
well. He was always a man of iron nerve, and the story is still
told in India how he crawled down a drain after a wounded
man-eating tiger. There are some trees, Watson, which grow to a
certain height and then suddenly develop some unsightly
eccentricity. You will see it often in humans. I have a theory
that the individual represents in his development the whole
procession of his ancestors, and that such a sudden turn to good
or evil stands for some strong influence which came into the
line of his pedigree. The person becomes, as it were, the
epitome of the history of his own family."

"It is surely rather fanciful."

"Well, I don't insist upon it. Whatever the cause, Colonel
Moran began to go wrong. Without any open scandal he still made
India too hot to hold him. He retired, came to London, and
again acquired an evil name. It was at this time that he was
sought out by Professor Moriarty, to whom for a time he was
chief of the staff. Moriarty supplied him liberally with money
and used him only in one or two very high-class jobs which no
ordinary criminal could have undertaken. You may have some
recollection of the death of Mrs. Stewart, of Lauder, in 1887.
Not? Well, I am sure Moran was at the bottom of it; but nothing
could be proved. So cleverly was the Colonel concealed that
even when the Moriarty gang was broken up we could not
incriminate him. You remember at that date, when I called upon
you in your rooms, how I put up the shutters for fear of
air-guns? No doubt you thought me fanciful. I knew exactly
what I was doing, for I knew of the existence of this remarkable
gun, and I knew also that one of the best shots in the world
would be behind it. When we were in Switzerland he followed us
with Moriarty, and it was undoubtedly he who gave me that evil
five minutes on the Reichenbach ledge.

"You may think that I read the papers with some attention during
my sojourn in France, on the look-out for any chance of laying
him by the heels. So long as he was free in London my life
would really not have been worth living. Night and day the
shadow would have been over me, and sooner or later his chance
must have come. What could I do? I could not shoot him at
sight, or I should myself be in the dock. There was no use
appealing to a magistrate. They cannot interfere on the
strength of what would appear to them to be a wild suspicion.
So I could do nothing. But I watched the criminal news, knowing
that sooner or later I should get him. Then came the death of
this Ronald Adair. My chance had come at last! Knowing what I
did, was it not certain that Colonel Moran had done it? He had
played cards with the lad; he had followed him home from the
club; he had shot him through the open window. There was not a
doubt of it. The bullets alone are enough to put his head in a
noose. I came over at once. I was seen by the sentinel, who
would, I knew, direct the Colonel's attention to my presence. He
could not fail to connect my sudden return with his crime and to
be terribly alarmed. I was sure that he would make an attempt
to get me out of the way AT ONCE, and would bring round his
murderous weapon for that purpose. I left him an excellent mark
in the window, and, having warned the police that they might be
needed -- by the way, Watson, you spotted their presence in that
doorway with unerring accuracy -- I took up what seemed to me to
be a judicious post for observation, never dreaming that he
would choose the same spot for his attack. Now, my dear Watson,
does anything remain for me to explain?"

"Yes," said I. "You have not made it clear what was Colonel
Moran's motive in murdering the Honourable Ronald Adair."

"Ah! my dear Watson, there we come into those realms of
conjecture where the most logical mind may be at fault.
Each may form his own hypothesis upon the present evidence,
and yours is as likely to be correct as mine."

"You have formed one, then?"

"I think that it is not difficult to explain the facts.
It came out in evidence that Colonel Moran and young Adair had
between them won a considerable amount of money. Now, Moran
undoubtedly played foul -- of that I have long been aware.
I believe that on the day of the murder Adair had discovered that
Moran was cheating. Very likely he had spoken to him privately,
and had threatened to expose him unless he voluntarily resigned
his membership of the club and promised not to play cards again.
It is unlikely that a youngster like Adair would at once make a
hideous scandal by exposing a well-known man so much older than
himself. Probably he acted as I suggest. The exclusion from
his clubs would mean ruin to Moran, who lived by his ill-gotten
card gains. He therefore murdered Adair, who at the time was
endeavouring to work out how much money he should himself return,
since he could not profit by his partner's foul play. He locked
the door lest the ladies should surprise him and insist upon knowing
what he was doing with these names and coins. Will it pass?"

"I have no doubt that you have hit upon the truth."

"It will be verified or disproved at the trial. Meanwhile,
come what may, Colonel Moran will trouble us no more, the famous
air-gun of Von Herder will embellish the Scotland Yard Museum,
and once again Mr. Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to
examining those interesting little problems which the complex
life of London so plentifully presents."