I really think, Watson, that it would be worth your while to glance over. These are the documents in the extraordinary cas

nder, and. undoing the tape, he handed me a short n

-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive all orde

igmatical message, I saw Holmes chuc

ittle bewilde

s could inspire horror. It seems to me

who was a fine, robust old man, was knocked clean do

id you say just now that there were very part

e first in which I

research, but had never caught him before in a communicative humour. Now he sat forward in his armchair and sp

nd working out my own little methods of thought, so that I never mixed much with the men of my year. Bar fencing and boxing I had few athletic tastes, and then my line of study was quite distinct from that of t

lengthened, and before the end of the term we were close friends. He was a hearty, full-blooded fellow, full of spirits and energy, the very opposite to me in most respects, but we had some subjects in common,

. The house was an old-fashioned, widespread, oak-beamed brick building, with a fine lime-lined avenue leading up to it. There was excellent wild-duck shooting in the fens, remarkably good f

a widower, and my f

h physically and mentally. He knew hardly any books, but he had travelled far, had seen much of the world, and had remembered all that he had learned. In person he was a thick-set, burly man with a shock of grizzled hair

s of observation and inference which I had already formed into a system, although I had not yet appreciated the part which they were to play

ng goodhumouredly. 'I'm an excellent subj

might suggest that you have gone about in fear of

is lips, and he stared

oke up that poaching gang they swore to knife us, and Sir Edward Holly has actually been

n a year. But you have taken some pains to bore the head of it and pour melted lead into the hole so as to mak

lse?' he ask

ed a good deal

now it? Is my nose knocked a

y have the peculiar flattening and t

thing

od deal of digging b

money at the

been in N

ht ag

ve visit

ite

with someone whose initials were J. A., and who

with a strange wild stare, and then pitched forward, with his f

not last long, however,- for when we undid his collar and sprinkled the water

not take much to knock me over. I don't know how you manage this, Mr. Holmes, but it seems to me that all the detectives of fact and of fa

, Watson, the very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be made out of what had up to that time been

ve said nothing to

k how you know, and how much you know?' He spoke now in a half-jesti

he letters were still legible, but it was perfectly clear from their blurred appearance, and from the staining of the skin round them, that efforts had bee

you say. But we won't talk of it. Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old

at he'll never be sure again of what you know and what you don't know.' He did not mean to show it, I am sure, but it was so strongly in his mind that it peeped out at every action. At last I b

king in the sun and admiring the view across the Broads, when a maid came

is name?' a

ld not g

es he wan

im, and that he only want

ee trousers, and heavy boots badly worn. His face was thin and brown and crafty, with a perpetual smile upon it, which showed an irregular line of yellow teeth, and his crinkled hands were half closed in a way that is distinctive of sailo

said he. 'What

ith puckered eyes, and with the sa

t know me?

ely Hudson,' said Mr. Tre

r and more since I saw you last. Here you are in your house,

owards the sailor, he said something in a low voice. 'Go into the kitchen,' he continued ou

ff a two-yearer in an eight-knot tramp, short-handed at that, and I wa

evor. 'You know whe

ate with the man when he was going back to the diggings, and then, leaving us on the lawn, he went indoors. An hour later, when we entered the house, we found him stretched dead drunk upon the dining-room

anic chemistry. One day, however, when the autumn was far advanced and the vacation drawing to a close, I received a telegram from my friend imploring me to

last two months had been very trying ones for him. He had grown thin and car

dying,' were the f

I cried. 'What

been on the verge all day. I d

nk, Watson, horrified

caused it

it over while we drive. You remember that fello

rfec

was that we let int

ve no

devil, Holm

t him in as

. The governor has never held up his head from that evening, and now the life ha

wer had h

ld he have fallen into the clutches of such a ruffian! But I am so glad that you have come, Holmes.

in front of us glimmering in the red light of the setting sun. From a grove upon our left

his vile language. The dad raised their wages all round to recompense them for the annoyance. The fellow would take the boat and my father's best gun and treat himself to little shooting trips. And all this with such a sneering, leering, insolent face that I wou

and turned him out of the room. He slunk away with a livid face and two venomous eyes which uttered more threats than his tongue could do. I don't know what passed between the poor dad and him after that, but the da

'll see that you shall know, come what may. You wouldn't believe harm of your poor old father, would you, lad?" He was v

ld us that he was going to leave us. He walked into the dining-room as we sat af

l run down to Mr. Beddoes in Hampshire. He'll

pirit, Hudson, I hope," said my father

ogy," said he sulkily,

ou have used this worthy fellow rather

we have both shown extraordinary

e snarled. "Very good, ma

ather in a state of pitiable nervousness. Night after night I heard him pacing his roo

?' I aske

nd the room in little circles like a man who has been driven out of his senses. When I at last drew him down on to the sofa, his mouth and eyelids were all puckered on one side, and I saw that h

'What then could have been in this l

part of it. The message was absurd and

that every blind in the house had been drawn down. As we dashed up to the doo

happen, doctor

ediately aft

ecover con

stant befor

essage

ere in the back drawer o

ckmail, had also been mentioned as living in Hampshire. The letter, then, might either come from Hudson, the seaman, saying that he had betrayed the guilty secret which appeared to exist, or it might come from Beddoes, warning an old confederate that such a betrayal was imminent. So far it seemed clear enough. But then how could this letter be trivial and grotesque, as described by the son? He must have misread it. If so, it must have been one of those ingenious secret codes which mean one thing while they seem to mean another. I must see this letter. If there was a hidden meaning in it, I was confident

ranged significance to such phrases as 'fly-paper' and 'hen-pheasant'? Such a meaning would be arbitrary and could not be deduced in any way. And yet I was loath to believe that this was the case, and the presence of the word Hudson seemed to show that the subject of the messa

and I saw that every third word, beginning with the first, wo

, the warning, as I now

udson has told all.

suppose,' said he. 'This is worse than death, for it means disgrace as we

. is," and so on. Afterwards he had, to fulfil the prearranged cipher, to fill in any two words in each space. He would naturally use the first words which came to his mind, and if

ber that my poor father used to have an invitation

remains for us to find out what this secret was which the sailor Hudson s

tatement which was drawn up by my father when he knew that the danger from Hudson had become imminent. I found it in the Japan

ey are endorsed outside, as you see, 'Some particulars of the voyage of the bark Gloria Scott, from her leaving Falmouth on the 8th October,

hought that you should come to blush for me - you who love me and who have seldom, I hope, had reason to do other than respect me. But if the blow falls which is forever hanging over me, then I should wish you to read this, that you may know straight from me how far I have been to blame. On the other hand, if all should g

as is more likely, for you know that my heart is weak, be lying with my tongue sealed forever in death. In either case t

laws, and was sentenced to transportation. Do not think very harshly of me, laddie. It was a debt of honour, so called, which I had to pay, and I used money which was not my own to do it, in the certainty that I could replace it before there could be any possibility of its being missed. But the most dreadful ill-luck pursued me. The money which I had reckoned upo

or sending out their prisoners. The Gloria Scott had been in the Chinese tea trade, but she was an old-fashioned, heavy-bowed, broad-beamed craft, and the new clippers had cut her out. She was a five-hundred-ton boat; and besi

cker jaws. He carried his head very jauntily in the air, had a swaggering style of walking, and was above all else, remarkable for his extraordinary height. I don't think any of our heads would have come up to his shoulder, and I am sure that he could not have measured less than six and a half feet. It was strange among so many sad a

he, "what's your name, a

nd asked in turn wh

"and by God! you'll learn to bless

some time before my own arrest. He was a man of good family and of great ability, but of incurably vicious h

emember my case!

well',

remember somethi

was that

a quarter of a m

it was

e was reco

"N

e suppose the bala

no idea,

can do anything. Now, you don't think it likely that a man who could do anything is going to wear his breeches out sitting in the stinking hold of a rat-gutted beetle-ridden, mouldy old coffin o

me in with all possible solemnity, he let me understand that there really was a plot to gain command of the vessel. A doze

in, no less! He came aboard with a black coat, and his papers right, and money enough in his box to buy the thing right up from keel to main-truck. The crew are his, body and soul. He could buy 'em a

we to do, th

l make the coats of some of these sol

y are arme

e can't carry this ship, with the crew at our back, it's time we were all sent to a young misses

d he is now a rich and prosperous man in the south of England. He was ready enough to join the conspiracy, as the only means of saving ourselves, and before we had crossed the bay there were on

often did he come that by the third day we had each stowed away at the foot of our beds a file, a brace of pistols, a pound of powder, and twenty slugs. Two of the warders were agents of Prendergast, and the second mate was his right-hand man. The captain, the two mates,

e was gagged before he could give the alarm and tied down upon the bed. He had unlocked the door that led to the deck, and we were through it in a rush. The two sentries were shot down, and so was a corporal who came running to see what was the matter. There were two more soldiers at the door of the stateroom, and their muskets seemed not to be loaded, for they never fired upon us, and they were shot whi!e

d again the place was a shambles. Wilson and eight others were wriggling on the top of each other on the floor, and the blood and the brown sherry on that table turn me sick now when I think of it. We were so cowed by the sight that I think we should have given the job up if it had not been for Prendergast. He bellowed like a bull and rushed for the door with all that were left alive at his heels. Out we ran, and there on the poop were the lieutenant and ten of his men. The swing skylights above the saloon table had been a bit open, and they had fired on us through the slit. We

see it done. But there was no moving Prendergast and those who were with him. Our only chance of safety lay in making a clean job of it, said he, and he would not leave a tongue with power to wag in a witness-box. It nearly came to our sharing the fate of the prisoners, but at last he said that if we wished we might take a boat and go. We jumped at the offer, for we were already sick of

king out our position and planning what coast we should make for. It was a nice question, for the Cape Verdes were about five hundred miles to the north of us, and the African coast about seven hundred to the east. On the whole, as the wind was coming round to the north, we thought hat Sierra Leone might be best and turned our head in that direction, the bark being at that time nearly hull down on our starboard quarter. Suddenly as w

d us where the vessel had foundered; but there was no sign of life, and we had turned away in despair, when we heard a cry for help and saw at some distance a piece of wreckage with a man lying stretched acros

and active man. When he saw the convict approaching him with the bloody knife in his hand he kicked off his bonds, which he had somehow contrived to loosen, and rushing down the deck he plunged into the after-hold. A dozen convicts, who descended with their pistols in search of him, found him with a match-box in his hand seated beside an open powder-barrel, which was o

e the Hotspur landed us at Sydney, where Evans and I changed our names and made our way to the diggings, where, among the crowds who were gathered from all nations, we had no difficulty in losing our former identities. The rest I need not relate. We prospered, we travelled, we came back as rich colonials to England, and we bought country estates. For more than twenty years we have led peaceful and useful lives, and we hoped that our past was fo

hardly legible, 'Beddoes writes in cipher to say H.

ing was written. They both disappeared utterly and completely. No complaint had been lodged with the police, so that Beddoes had mistaken a threat for a deed. Hudson had been seen lurking about, and it was believed by the police that he had done away with Beddoes and had fled. For myself I believe that the truth was exactly the opposite. I think that it is most pr