The Adventure of the Red Circle Read online

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  The Adventure of the Red Circle

  By

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  "Well, Mrs. Warren, I cannot see that you have any particular cause foruneasiness, nor do I understand why I, whose time is of some value,should interfere in the matter. I really have other things to engageme." So spoke Sherlock Holmes and turned back to the great scrapbookin which he was arranging and indexing some of his recent material.

  But the landlady had the pertinacity and also the cunning of her sex.She held her ground firmly.

  "You arranged an affair for a lodger of mine last year," she said--"Mr.Fairdale Hobbs."

  "Ah, yes--a simple matter."

  "But he would never cease talking of it--your kindness, sir, and theway in which you brought light into the darkness. I remembered hiswords when I was in doubt and darkness myself. I know you could if youonly would."

  Holmes was accessible upon the side of flattery, and also, to do himjustice, upon the side of kindliness. The two forces made him lay downhis gum-brush with a sigh of resignation and push back his chair.

  "Well, well, Mrs. Warren, let us hear about it, then. You don't objectto tobacco, I take it? Thank you, Watson--the matches! You are uneasy,as I understand, because your new lodger remains in his rooms and youcannot see him. Why, bless you, Mrs. Warren, if I were your lodger youoften would not see me for weeks on end."

  "No doubt, sir; but this is different. It frightens me, Mr. Holmes. Ican't sleep for fright. To hear his quick step moving here and movingthere from early morning to late at night, and yet never to catch somuch as a glimpse of him--it's more than I can stand. My husband is asnervous over it as I am, but he is out at his work all day, while I getno rest from it. What is he hiding for? What has he done? Except forthe girl, I am all alone in the house with him, and it's more than mynerves can stand."

  Holmes leaned forward and laid his long, thin fingers upon the woman'sshoulder. He had an almost hypnotic power of soothing when he wished.The scared look faded from her eyes, and her agitated features smoothedinto their usual commonplace. She sat down in the chair which he hadindicated.

  "If I take it up I must understand every detail," said he. "Take timeto consider. The smallest point may be the most essential. You saythat the man came ten days ago and paid you for a fortnight's board andlodging?"

  "He asked my terms, sir. I said fifty shillings a week. There is asmall sitting-room and bedroom, and all complete, at the top of thehouse."

  "Well?"

  "He said, 'I'll pay you five pounds a week if I can have it on my ownterms.' I'm a poor woman, sir, and Mr. Warren earns little, and themoney meant much to me. He took out a ten-pound note, and he held itout to me then and there. 'You can have the same every fortnight for along time to come if you keep the terms,' he said. 'If not, I'll haveno more to do with you.'

  "What were the terms?"

  "Well, sir, they were that he was to have a key of the house. That wasall right. Lodgers often have them. Also, that he was to be leftentirely to himself and never, upon any excuse, to be disturbed."

  "Nothing wonderful in that, surely?"

  "Not in reason, sir. But this is out of all reason. He has been therefor ten days, and neither Mr. Warren, nor I, nor the girl has once seteyes upon him. We can hear that quick step of his pacing up and down,up and down, night, morning, and noon; but except on that first nighthe had never once gone out of the house."

  "Oh, he went out the first night, did he?"

  "Yes, sir, and returned very late--after we were all in bed. He toldme after he had taken the rooms that he would do so and asked me not tobar the door. I heard him come up the stair after midnight."

  "But his meals?"

  "It was his particular direction that we should always, when he rang,leave his meal upon a chair, outside his door. Then he rings againwhen he has finished, and we take it down from the same chair. If hewants anything else he prints it on a slip of paper and leaves it."

  "Prints it?"

  "Yes, sir; prints it in pencil. Just the word, nothing more. Here'sthe one I brought to show you--soap. Here's another--match. This isone he left the first morning--daily gazette. I leave that paper withhis breakfast every morning."

  "Dear me, Watson," said Homes, staring with great curiosity at theslips of foolscap which the landlady had handed to him, "this iscertainly a little unusual. Seclusion I can understand; but why print?Printing is a clumsy process. Why not write? What would it suggest,Watson?"

  "That he desired to conceal his handwriting."

  "But why? What can it matter to him that his landlady should have aword of his writing? Still, it may be as you say. Then, again, whysuch laconic messages?"

  "I cannot imagine."

  "It opens a pleasing field for intelligent speculation. The words arewritten with a broad-pointed, violet-tinted pencil of a not unusualpattern. You will observe that the paper is torn away at the side hereafter the printing was done, so that the 's' of 'soap' is partly gone.Suggestive, Watson, is it not?"

  "Of caution?"

  "Exactly. There was evidently some mark, some thumbprint, somethingwhich might give a clue to the person's identity. Now. Mrs. Warren,you say that the man was of middle size, dark, and bearded. What agewould he be?"

  "Youngish, sir--not over thirty."

  "Well, can you give me no further indications?"

  "He spoke good English, sir, and yet I thought he was a foreigner byhis accent."

  "And he was well dressed?"

  "Very smartly dressed, sir--quite the gentleman. Dark clothes--nothingyou would note."

  "He gave no name?"

  "No, sir."

  "And has had no letters or callers?"

  "None."

  "But surely you or the girl enter his room of a morning?"

  "No, sir; he looks after himself entirely."

  "Dear me! that is certainly remarkable. What about his luggage?"

  "He had one big brown bag with him--nothing else."

  "Well, we don't seem to have much material to help us. Do you saynothing has come out of that room--absolutely nothing?"

  The landlady drew an envelope from her bag; from it she shook out twoburnt matches and a cigarette-end upon the table.

  "They were on his tray this morning. I brought them because I hadheard that you can read great things out of small ones."

  Holmes shrugged his shoulders.

  "There is nothing here," said he. "The matches have, of course, beenused to light cigarettes. That is obvious from the shortness of theburnt end. Half the match is consumed in lighting a pipe or cigar.But, dear me! this cigarette stub is certainly remarkable. Thegentleman was bearded and moustached, you say?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "I don't understand that. I should say that only a clean-shaven mancould have smoked this. Why, Watson, even your modest moustache wouldhave been singed."

  "A holder?" I suggested.

  "No, no; the end is matted. I suppose there could not be two people inyour rooms, Mrs. Warren?"

  "No, sir. He eats so little that I often wonder it can keep life inone."

  "Well, I think we must wait for a little more material. After all, youhave nothing to complain of. You have received your rent, and he isnot a troublesome lodger, though he is certainly an unusual one. Hepays you well, and if he chooses to lie concealed it is no directbusiness of yours. We have no excuse for an intrusion upon his privacyuntil we have some reason to think that there is a guilty reason forit. I've taken up the matter, and I won't lose sight of it. Report tome if anything fresh occurs, and rely upon my assistance if it shoul
dbe needed.

  "There are certainly some points of interest in this case, Watson," heremarked when the landlady had left us. "It may, of course, betrivial--individual eccentricity; or it may be very much deeper thanappears on the surface. The first thing that strikes one is the obviouspossibility that the person now in the rooms may be entirely differentfrom the one who engaged them."

  "Why should you think so?"

  "Well, apart from this cigarette-end, was it not suggestive that theonly time the lodger went out was immediately after his taking therooms? He came back--or someone came back--when all witnesses were outof the way. We have no proof