Chapter IX A Double-Barreled Detective Story | ||
9. Chapter IX
From a letter to Mrs. Stillman, dated merely "Tuesday."
Fetlock Jones was put under lock and key in an unoccupied log
cabin, and left there to await his trial. Constable Harris provided him
with a couple of days' rations, instructed him to keep a good guard over
himself, and promised to look in on him as soon as further supplies
should be due.
Next morning a score of us went with Hillyer, out of friendship,
and helped him bury his late relative, the unlamented Buckner, and I
acted as first assistant pall-bearer, Hillyer acting as chief. Just as
we had finished our labors a ragged and melancholy stranger, carrying an
old hand-bag, limped by with his head down, and I caught the scent I had
chased around the globe! It was the odor of Paradise to my perishing
hope!
In a moment I was at his side and had laid a gentle hand upon his
shoulder. He slumped to the ground as if a stroke of lightning had
withered him in his tracks; and as the boys came running he struggled to
his knees and put up his pleading hands to me, and out of his chattering
jaws he begged me to persecute him no more, and said:
"You have hunted me around the world, Sherlock Holmes, yet God is
my witness I have never done any man harm!"
A glance at his wild eyes showed us that he was insane. That was
my work, mother! The tidings of your death can some day repeat the
misery I felt in that moment, but nothing else can ever do it. The boys
lifted him up, and gathered about him, and were full of pity of him, and
said the gentlest and touchingest things to him, and said cheer up and
don't be troubled, he was among friends now, and they would take care of
him, and protect him, and hang any man that laid a hand on him. They are
just like so many mothers, the rough mining-camp boys are, when you wake
up the south side of their hearts; yes, and just like so many reckless
and unreasoning children when you wake up the opposite of that muscle.
They did everything they could think of to comfort him, but nothing
succeeded until Wells-Fargo Ferguson, who is a clever strategist, said:
"If it's only Sherlock Holmes that's troubling you, you needn't
worry any more."
"Why?" asked the forlorn lunatic, eagerly.
"Because he's dead again."
"Dead! Dead! Oh, don't trifle with a poor wreck like me. Is
he dead? On honor, now—is he telling me true, boys?"
"True as you're standing there!" said Ham Sandwich, and they all
backed up the statement in a body.
"They hung him in San Bernardino last week," added Ferguson,
clinching the matter, "whilst he was searching around after you. Mistook
him for another man. They're sorry, but they can't help it now."
"They're a-building him a monument," said Ham Sandwich, with the
air of a person who had contributed to it, and knew.
"James Walker" drew a deep sigh—evidently a sigh of relief—and
said nothing; but his eyes lost something of their wildness, his
countenance cleared visibly, and its drawn look relaxed a little. We all
went to our cabin, and the boys cooked him the best dinner the camp
could furnish the materials for, and while they were about it Hillyer
and I outfitted him from hat to shoe-leather with new clothes of ours,
and made a comely and presentable old gentleman of him. "Old" is the
right word, and a pity, too: old by the droop of him, and the frost upon
his hair, and the marks which sorrow and distress have left upon his
face; though he is only in his prime in the matter of years. While he
ate, we smoked and chatted; and when he was finishing he found his voice
at last, and of his own accord broke out with his personal history. I
cannot furnish his exact words, but I will come as near it as I can.
THE "WRONG MAN'S" STORY
It happened like this: I was in Denver. I had been there many
years; sometimes I remember how many, sometimes I don't—but it isn't
any matter. All of a sudden I got a notice to leave, or I would be
exposed for a horrible crime committed long before—years and years
before—in the East.
I knew about that crime, but I was not the criminal; it was a
cousin of mine of the same name. What should I better do? My head was
all disordered by fear, and I didn't know. I was allowed very little
time—only one day, I think it was. I would be ruined if I was
published, and the people would lynch me, and not believe what I said.
It is always the way with lynchings: when they find out it is a mistake
they are sorry, but it is too late—the same as it was with Mr. Holmes,
you see. So I said I would sell out and get money to live on, and run
away until it blew over and I could come back with my proofs. Then I
escaped in the night and went a long way off in the mountains somewhere,
and lived disguised and had a false name.
I got more and more troubled and worried, and my troubles made me
see spirits and hear voices, and I could not think straight and clear on
any subject, but got confused and involved and had to give it up,
because my head hurt so. It got to be worse and worse; more spirits and
more voices. They were about me all the time; at first only in the
night, then in the day too. They were always whispering around my bed
and plotting against me, and it broke my sleep and kept me fagged out,
because I got no good rest.
And then came the worst. One night the whispers said, "We'll
never manage, because we can't see him, and so can't point him
out to the people."
They sighed; then one said: "We must bring Sherlock Holmes. He
can be here in twelve days."
They all agreed, and whispered and jibbered with joy. But my
heart broke; for I had read about that man, and knew what it would be to
have him upon my track, with his superhuman penetration and tireless
energies.
The spirits went away to fetch him, and I got up at once in the
middle of the night and fled away, carrying nothing but the hand-bag
that had my money in it—thirty thousand dollars; two-thirds of it are
in the bag there yet. It was forty days before that man caught up on my
track. I just escaped. From habit he had written his real name on a
tavern register, but had scratched it out and written "Dagget Barclay"
in the place of it. But fear gives you a watchful eye and keen, and I
read the true name through the scratches, and fled like a deer.
He has hunted me all over this world for three years and a
half—the Pacific states, Australasia, India—everywhere you can think
of; then back to Mexico and up to California again, giving me hardly any
rest; but that name on the registers always saved me, and what is left
of me is alive yet. And I am so tired! A cruel time he has given
me, yet I give you my honor I have never harmed him nor any man.
That was the end of the story, and it stirred those boys to
bloodheat, he sure of it. As for me—each word burnt a hole in me where
it struck.
We voted that the old man should bunk with us, and be my guest
and Hillyer's. I shall keep my own counsel, naturally; but as soon as he
is well rested and nourished, I shall take him to Denver and
rehabilitate his fortunes.
The boys gave the old fellow the bone-smashing good-fellowship
handshake of the mines, and then scattered away to spread the news.
At dawn next morning Wells-Fargo Ferguson and Ham Sandwich called
us softly out, and said, privately:
"That news about the way that old stranger has been treated has
spread all around, and the camps are up. They are piling in from
everywhere, and are going to lynch the P'fessor. Constable Harris is in
a dead funk, and has telephoned the sheriff. Come along!"
We started on a run. The others were privileged to feel as they
chose, but in my heart's privacy I hoped the sheriff would arrive in
time; for I had small desire that Sherlock Holmes should hang for my
deeds, as you can easily believe. I had heard a good deal about the
sheriff, but
for reassurance's sake I asked:
"Can he stop a mob?"
"Can he stop a mob! Can Jack Fairfax stop a mob!
Well, I should smile! Ex-desperado—nineteen scalps on his string. Can
he! Oh, I say!"
As we tore up the gulch, distant cries and shouts and yells rose
faintly on the still air, and grew steadily in strength as we raced
along. Roar after roar burst out, stronger and stronger, nearer and
nearer; and at last, when we closed up upon the multitude massed in the
open area in front of the tavern, the crash of sound was deafening. Some
brutal roughs from Daly's gorge had Holmes in their grip, and he was the
calmest man there; a contemptuous smile played about his lips, and if
any fear of death was in his British heart, his iron personality was
master of it and no sign of it was allowed to appear.
"Come to a vote, men!" This from one of the Daly gang, Shadbelly
Higgins. "Quick! is it hang, or shoot?"
"Neither!" shouted one of his comrades. "He'll he alive again in
a week; burning's the only permanency for him."
The gangs from all the outlying camps burst out in a thundercrash
of approval, and went struggling and surging toward the prisoner, and
closed around him, shouting, "Fire! fire's the ticket!" They dragged him
to the horse-post, backed him against it, chained him to it, and piled
wood and pine cones around him waist-deep. Still the strong face did not
blench, and still the scornful smile played about the thin lips.
"A match! fetch a match!"
Shadbelly struck it, shaded it with his hand, stooped, and held
it under a pine cone. A deep silence fell upon the mob. The cone caught,
a tiny flame flickered about it a moment or two. I seemed to catch the
sound of distant hoofs—it grew more distinct—still more and more
distinct, more and more definite, but the absorbed crowd did not appear
to notice it. The match went out. The man struck another, stooped, and
again the flame rose; this time it took hold and began to spread—here
and there men turned away their faces. The executioner stood with the
charred match in his fingers, watching his work. The hoof-beats turned a
projecting crag, and now they came thundering down upon us. Almost the
next moment there was a shout:
"The sheriff!"
And straightway he came tearing into the midst, stood his horse
almost on his hind feet, and said:
"Fall back, you gutter-snipes!"
He was obeyed. By all but their leader. He stood his ground, and
his hand went to his revolver. The sheriff covered him promptly, and
said:
"Drop your hand, you parlor desperado. Kick the fire away. Now
unchain the stranger."
The parlor desperado obeyed. Then the sheriff made a speech;
sitting his horse at martial ease, and not warming his words with any
touch of fire, but delivering them in a measured and deliberate way, and
in a tone which harmonized with their character and made them
impressively disrespectful.
"You're a nice lot—now ain't you? Just about eligible to travel
with this bilk here—Shadbelly Higgins—this loud-mouthed sneak that
shoots people in the back and calls himself a desperado. If there's
anything I do particularly despise, it's a lynching mob; I've never seen
one that had a man in it. It has to tally up a hundred against one
before it can pump up pluck enough to tackle a sick tailor. It's made up
of cowards, and so is the community that breeds it; and ninety-nine
times out of a hundred the sheriff's another one." He paused—apparently
to turn that last idea over in his mind and taste the juice of it—then
he went on: "The sheriff that lets a mob take a prisoner away from him
is the lowest-down coward there is. By the statistics there was a
hundred and eighty-two of them drawing sneak pay in America last year.
By the way it's going, pretty soon there 'll be a new disease in the
doctor-books—sheriff complaint." That idea pleased him—any one
could see it. "People will say, 'Sheriff sick again?' 'Yes; got the
same old thing.' And next there 'll be a new title. People won't say,
'He's running for sheriff of Rapaho County,' for instance; they'll say,
'He's running for Coward of Rapaho.' Lord, the idea of a grown-up person
being afraid of a lynch mob!"
He turned an eye on the captive, and said, "Stranger, who are
you, and what have you been doing?"
"My name is Sherlock Holmes, and I have not been doing anything."
It was wonderful, the impression which the sound of that name
made on the sheriff, notwithstanding he must have come posted. He spoke
up with feeling, and said it was a blot on the county that a man whose
marvelous exploits had filled the world with their fame and their
ingenuity, and whose histories of them had won every reader's heart by
the brilliancy and charm of their literary setting, should be visited
under the Stars and Stripes by an outrage like this. He apologized in
the name of the whole nation, and made Holmes a most handsome bow, and
told Constable Harris to see him to his quarters, and hold himself
personally responsible if he was molested again. Then he turned to the
mob and said:
"Hunt your holes, you scum!" which they did; then he said:
"Follow me, Shadbelly; I'll take care of your case myself. No—keep your
popgun; whenever I see the day that I'll be afraid to have you behind me
with that thing, it 'll be time for me to join last year's hundred and
eighty-two"; and he rode off in a walk, Shadbelly following.
When we were on our way back to our cabin, toward breakfast-time,
we ran upon the news that Fetlock Jones had escaped from his lock-up in
the night and is gone! Nobody is sorry. Let his uncle track him out if
he likes; it is in his line; the camp is not interested.
Chapter IX A Double-Barreled Detective Story | ||