“See here,” said Holmes, pointing to the wooden hatchway. “Wewere hardly quick enough with our pistols.” There, sure enough,just behind where we had been standing, stuck one of thosemurderous darts which we knew so well. It must have whizzedbetween us at the instant we fired. Holmes smiled at it andshrugged his shoulders in his easy fashion, but I confess that itturned me sick to think of the horrible death which had passed soclose to us that night.
The Great Agra Treasure
Our captive sat in the cabin opposite to the iron box which hehad done so much and waited so long to gain. He was a sunburnedreckless-eyed fellow, with a network of lines and wrinkles all overhis mahogany features, which told of a hard, open-air life. Therewas a singular prominence about his bearded chin which markeda man who was not to be easily turned from his purpose. His agemay have been fifty or thereabouts, for his black, curly hair wasthickly shot with gray. His face in repose was not an unpleasingone, though his heavy brows and aggressive chin gave him, as I hadlately seen, a terrible expression when moved to anger. He sat nowwith his handcuffed hands upon his lap, and his head sunk uponhis breast, while he looked with his keen, twinkling eyes at thebox which had been the cause of his ill-doings. It seemed to methat there was more sorrow than anger in his rigid and containedcountenance. Once he looked up at me with a gleam of somethinglike humor in his eyes.
“Well, Jonathan Small,” said Holmes, lighting a cigar, “I am sorrythat it has come to this.”
“And so am I, sir,” he answered frankly. “I don’t believe that Ican swing over the job. I give you my word on the book that Inever raised hand against Mr. Sholto. It was that little hell-houndTonga, who shot one of his cursed darts into him. I had no part init, sir. I was as grieved as if it had been my blood-relation. I weltedthe little devil with the slack end of the rope for it, but it wasdone, and I could not undo it again.”
“Have a cigar,” said Holmes; “and you had best take a pull out ofmy flask, for you are very wet. How could you expect so small andweak a man as this black fellow to overpower Mr. Sholto and holdhim while you were climbing the rope?”
“You seem to know as much about it as if you were there, sir.
The truth is that I hoped to find the room clear. I knew the habitsof the house pretty well, and it was the time when Mr. Sholtousually went down to his supper. I shall make no secret of thebusiness. The best defence that I can make is just the simple truth.
Now, if it had been the old major I would have swung for him witha light heart. I would have thought no more of knifing him thanof smoking this cigar. But it’s cursed hard that I should be laggedover this young Sholto, with whom I had no quarrel whatever.”
“You are under the charge of Mr. Athelney Jones, of ScotlandYard. He is going to bring you up to my rooms, and I shall ask youfor a true account of the matter. You must make a clean breastof it, for if you do I hope that I may be of use to you. I think Ican prove that the poison acts so quickly that the man was deadbefore ever you reached the room.”
“That he was, sir. I never got such a turn in my life as when Isaw him grinning at me with his head on his shoulder as I climbedthrough the window. It fairly shook me, sir. I’d have half killedTonga for it if he had not scrambled off. That was how he cameto leave his club, and some of his darts too, as he tells me, whichI dare say helped to put you on our track; though how you kepton it is more than I can tell. I don’t feel no malice against you forit. But it does seem a queer thing,” he added with a bitter smile,“that I, who have a fair claim to nigh upon half a million of moneyshould spend the first half of my life building a breakwater in theAndamans, and am like to spend the other half digging drains atDartmoor. It was an evil day for me when first I clapped eyes uponthe merchant Achmet and had to do with the Agra treasure, whichnever brought anything but a curse yet upon the man who ownedit. To him it brought murder, to Major Sholto it brought fear andguilt, to me it has meant slavery for life.”
At this moment Athelney Jones thrust his broad face and heavyshoulders into the tiny cabin.
“Quite a family party,” he remarked. “I think I shall have a pullat that flask, Holmes. Well, I think we may all congratulate eachother. Pity we didn’t take the other alive, but there was no choice.
I say, Holmes, you must confess that you cut it rather fine. It wasall we could do to overhaul her.”
“All is well that ends well,” said Holmes. “But I certainly did notknow that the Aurora was such a clipper.”
“Smith says she is one of the fastest launches on the river, andthat if he had had another man to help him with the engines weshould never have caught her. He swears he knew nothing of thisNorwood business.”
“Neither he did,” cried our prisoner— “not a word. I chose hislaunch because I heard that she was a flier. We told him nothing;but we paid him well, and he was to get something handsome if wereached our vessel, the Esmeralda, at Gravesend, outward boundfor the Brazils.”
“Well, if he has done no wrong we shall see that no wrongcomes to him. If we are pretty quick in catching our men, we arenot so quick in condemning them.” It was amusing to notice howthe consequential Jones was already beginning to give himself airson the strength of the capture. From the slight smile which playedover Sherlock Holmes’s face, I could see that the speech had notbeen lost upon him.
“We will be at Vauxhall Bridge presently,” said Jones, “and shallland you, Dr. Watson, with the treasure-box. I need hardly tellyou that I am taking a very grave responsibility upon myself indoing this. It is most irregular, but of course an agreement is anagreement. I must, however, as a matter of duty, send an inspectorwith you, since you have so valuable a charge. You will drive, nodoubt?”
“Yes, I shall drive.”
“It is a pity there is no key, that we may make an inventory first.
You will have to break it open. Where is the key, my man?”
“At the bottom of the river,” said Small shortly.
