"Underneath is written in a hand so shaky as to be
hardly legible, 'Beddoes writes in cipher to say H.
Has told all. Sweet Lord, have mercy on our souls!'
"That was the narrative which I read that night to
young Trevor, and I think, Watson, that under the
circumstances it was a dramatic one. The good fellow
was heart-broken at it, and went out to the Terai tea
planting, where I hear that he is doing well. As to
the sailor and Beddoes, neither of them was ever heard
of again after that day on which the letter of warning
was written. They both disappeared utterly and
completely. No complaint had been lodged with he
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 probable that Beddoes, pushed to desperation and
believing himself to have been already betrayed, had
revenged himself upon Hudson, and had fled from the
country with as much money as he could lay his hands
on. Those are the facts of the case, Doctor, and if
they are of any use to your collection, I am sure that
they are very heartily at your service."
Adventure V
The Musgrave Ritual
An anomaly which often struck me in the character of
my friend Sherlock Holmes was that, although in his
methods of thought he was the neatest and most
methodical of mankind, and although also he affected a
certain quiet primness of dress, he was none the less
in his personal habits one of the most untidy men that
ever drove a fellow-lodger to distraction. Not that I
am in the least conventional in that respect myself.
The rough-and-tumble work in Afghanistan, coming on
the top of a natural Bohemianism of disposition, has
made me rather more lax than befits a medical man who
keeps his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in
the toe end of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered
correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife into the
very centre of his wooden mantelpiece, then I begin to
give myself virtuous airs. I have always held, too,
that pistol practice should be distinctly an open-air
pastime; and when Holmes, in one of his queer humors,
would sit in an arm-chair with his hair-trigger and a
hundred Boxer cartridges, and proceed to adorn the
opposite wall with a patriotic V. R. Done in
bullet-pocks, I felt strongly that neither the
atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was improved
by it.
Our chambers were always full of chemicals and of
criminal relics which had a way of wandering into
unlikely positions, and of turning up in the
butter-dish or in even less desirable places. But his
papers were my great crux. He had a horror of
destroying documents, especially those which were
connected with his past cases, and yet it was only
once in every year or two that he would muster energy
to docket and arrange them; for, as I have mentioned
somewhere in these incoherent memoirs, the outbursts
of passionate energy when he performed the remarkable
feats with which his name is associated were followed
by reactions of lethargy during which he would lie
about with his violin and his books, hardly moving
save fro the sofa to the table. Thus month after
month his papers accumulated, until every corner of
the room was stacked with bundles of manuscript which
were on no account to be burned, and which could not
be put away save by their owner. One winter's night,
as we sat together by the fire, I ventured to suggest
to him that, as he had finished pasting extracts into
his common-place book, he might employ the next two
hours in making our room a little more habitable. He
could not deny the justice of my request, so with a
rather rueful face went off to his bedroom, from which
he returned presently pulling a large tin box behind
him. This he placed in the middle of the floor and,
squatting down upon a stool in front of it, he threw
back the lid. I could see that it was already a third
full of bundles of paper tied up with red tape into
separate packages.
"There are cases enough here, Watson," said he,
looking at me with mischievous eyes. "I think that if
you knew all that I had in this box you would ask me
to pull some out instead of putting others in."
"These are the records of your early work, then?" I
asked. "I have often wished that I had notes of those
cases."
"Yes, my boy, these were all done prematurely before
my biographer had come to glorify me." He lifted
bundle after bundle in a tender, caressing sort of
way. "They are not all successes, Watson," said he.
"But there are some pretty little problems among them.
Here's the record of the Tarleton murders, and the
case of Vamberry, the wine merchant, and the adventure
of the old Russian woman, and the singular affair of
the aluminium crutch, as well as a full account of
Ricoletti of the club-foot, and his abominable wife.
And here--ah, now, this really is something a little
recherch??."
He dived his arm down to the bottom of the chest, and
brought up a small wooden box with a sliding lid, such
as children's toys are kept in. From within he
produced a crumpled piece of paper, and old-fashioned
brass key, a peg of wood with a ball of string
attached to it, and three rusty old disks of metal.
"Well, my boy, what do you make of this lot?" he
asked, smiling at my expression.
"It is a curious collection."
"Very curious, and the story that hangs round it will
strike you as being more curious still."
"These relics have a history then?"
"So much so that they are history."
"What do you mean by that?"
Sherlock Holmes picked them up one by one, and laid
them along the edge of the table. Then re reseated
himself in his chair and looked them over with a gleam
of satisfaction in his eyes.
"These," said he, "are all that I have left to remind
me of the adventure of the Musgrave Ritual."
I had heard him mention the case more than once,
though I had never been able to gather the details.
"I should be so glad," said I, "if you would give me
an account of it."
"And leave the litter as it is?" he cried,
mischievously. "Your tidiness won't bear much strain
after all, Watson. But I should be glad that you
should add this case to your annals, for there are
points in it which make it quite unique in the
criminal records of this or, I believe, of any other
country. A collection of my trifling achievements
would certainly be incomplete which contained no
; account of this very singular business.
"You may remember how the affair of the Gloria Scott,
and my conversation with the unhappy man whose fate I
told you of, first turned my attention in the
direction of the profession which has become my life's
work. You see me now when my name has become known
far and wide, and when I am generally recognized both
by the public and by the official force as being a
final court of appeal in doubtful cases. Even when
you knew me first, at the time of the affair which you
have commemorated in 'A Study in Scarlet,' I had
already established a considerable, though not a very
lucrative, connection. You can hardly realize, then,
how difficult I found it at first, and how long I had
to wait before I succeeded in making any headway.
"When I first came up to London I had rooms in
Montague Street, just round the corner from the
British Museum, and there I waited, filling in my too
abundant leisure time by studying all those branches
of science which might make me more efficient. Now
and again cases came in my way, principally through
the introduction of old fellow-students, for during my
last years at the University there was a good deal of
talk there about myself and my methods. The third of
these cases was that of the Musgrave Ritual, and it is
to the interest which was aroused by that singular
chain of events, and the large issues which proved to
be at stake, that I trace my first stride towards to
position which I now hold.
"Reginald Musgrave had been in the same college as
myself, and I had some slight acquaintance with him.
He was not generally popular among the undergraduates,
though it always seemed to me that what was set down
as pride was really an attempt to cover extreme
natural diffidence. In appearance he was a man of
exceedingly aristocratic type, thin, high-nosed, and
large-eyed, with languid and yet courtly manners. He
was indeed a scion of one of the very oldest families
in the kingdom, though his branch was a cadet one
which had separated from the northern Musgraves some
time in the sixteenth century, and had established
itself in western Sussex, where the Manor House of
Hurlstone is perhaps the oldest inhabited building in
the county. Something of his birth place seemed to
cling to the man, and I never looked at his pale, keen
face or the poise of his head without associating him
with gray archways and mullioned windows and all the
venerable wreckage of a feudal keep. Once or twice we
drifted into talk, and I can remember that more than
once he expressed a keen interest in my methods of
observation and inference.
"For four years I had seen nothing of him until one
morning he walked into my room in Montague Street. He
had changed little, was dressed like a young man of
fashion--he was always a bit of a dandy--and preserved
the same quiet, suave manner which had formerly
distinguished him.
"'How has all gone wit you Musgrave?" I asked, after
we had cordially shaken hands.
"'You probably heard of my poor father's death,' said
he; 'he was carried off about two years ago. Since
then I have of course had the Hurlstone estates to
manage, and as I am member for my district as well, my
life has been a busy one. But I understand, Holmes,
that you are turning to practical ends those powers
with which you used to amaze us?"
"'Yes,' said I, 'I have taken to living by my wits.'
"'I am delighted to hear it, for your advice at
present would be exceedingly valuable to me. We have
had some very strange doings at Hurlstone, and the
police have been able to throw no light upon the
matter. It is really the most extraordinary and
inexplicable business.'
"You can imagine with what eagerness I listened to
him, Watson, for the very chance for which I had been
panting during all those months of inaction seemed to
have come within my reach. In my inmost heart I
believed that I could succeed where others failed, and
now I had the opportunity to test myself.
"'Pray, let me have the details,' I cried.
"Reginald Musgrave sat down opposite to me, and lit
the cigarette which I had pushed towards him.
"'You must know,' said he, 'that though I am a
bachelor, I have to keep up a considerable staff of
servants at Hurlstone, for it is a rambling old place,
and takes a good deal of looking after. I preserve,
too, and in the pheasant months I usually have a
house-party, so that it would not do to be
short-handed. Altogether there are eight maids, the
cook, the butler, two footmen, and a boy. The garden
and the stables of course have a separate staff.
"'Of these servants the one who had been longest in
our service was Brunton the butler. He was a young
school-master out of place when he was first taken up
by my father, but he was a man of great energy and
character, and he soon became quite invaluable in the
household. He was a well-grown, handsome man, with a
splendid forehead, and though he has been with us for
twenty years he cannot be more than forty now. With
his personal advantages and his extraordinary
gifts--for he can speak several languages and play
nearly every musical instrument--it is wonderful that
he should have been satisfied so long in such a
position, but I suppose that he was comfortable, and
lacked energy to make any change. The butler of
Hurlstone is always a thing that is remembered by all
who visit us.
"'But this paragon has one fault. He is a bit of a
Don Juan, and you can imagine that for a man like him
it is not a very difficult part to play in a quiet
country district. When he was married it was all
right, but since he has been a widower we have had no
end of trouble with him. A few months ago we were in
hopes that he was about to settle down again for he
became engaged to Rachel Howells, our second
house-maid; but he has thrown her over since then and
taken up with Janet Tregellis, the daughter of the
head game-keeper. Rachel--who is a very good girl,
but of an excitable Welsh temperament--had a sharp
touch of brain-fever, and goes about the house now--or
did until yesterday--like a black-eyed shadow of her
former self. That was our first drama at Hurlstone;
but a second one came to drive it from our minds, and
it was prefaced by the disgrace and dismissal of
butler Brunton.
"'This was how it came about. I have said that the
man was intelligent, and this very intelligence has
caused his ruin, for it seems to have led to an
insatiable curiosity about things which did not in the
least concern him. I had no idea of the lengths to
which this would
carry him, until the merest accident
opened my eyes to it.
"'I have said that the house is a rambling one. One
day last week--on Thursday night, to be more exact--I
found that I could not sleep, having foolishly taken a
cup of strong caf?? noir after my dinner. After
struggling against it until two in the morning, I felt
that it was quite hopeless, so I rose and lit the
candle with the intention of continuing a novel which
I was reading. The book, however, had been left in
the billiard-room, so I pulled on my dressing-gown and
started off to get it.
"'In order to reach the billiard-room I had to descend
a flight of stairs and then to cross the head of a
passage which led to the library and the gun-room.
You can imagine my surprise when, as I looked down
this corridor, I saw a glimmer of light coming from
the open door of the library. I had myself
extinguished the lamp and closed the door before
coming to bed. Naturally my first thought was of
burglars. The corridors at Hurlstone have their walls
largely decorated with trophies of old weapons. From
one of these I picked a battle-axe, and then, leaving
my candle behind me, I crept on tiptoe down the
passage and peeped in at the open door.
"'Brunton, the butler, was in the library. He was
sitting, fully dressed, in an easy-chair, with a slip
of paper which looked lake a map upon his knee, and
his forehead sunk forward upon his hand in deep
thought. I stood dumb with astonishment, watching him
from the darkness. A small taper on the edge of the
table shed a feeble light which sufficed to show me
that he was fully dressed. Suddenly, as I looked, he
rose from his chair, and walking over to a bureau at
the side, he unlocked it and drew out one of the
drawers. From this he took a paper, and returning to
his seat he flattened it out beside the taper on the
edge of the table, and began to study it with minute
attention. My indignation at this calm examination of
our family documents overcame me so far that I took a
step forward, and Brunton, looking up, saw me standing
in the doorway. He sprang to his feet, his face
turned livid with fear, and he thrust into his breast
the chart-like paper which he had been originally
studying.
"'"So!" said I. "This is how you repay the trust
which we have reposed in you. You will leave my
service to-morrow."
"'He bowed with the look of a man who is utterly
crushed, and slunk past me without a word. The taper
was still on the table, and by its light I glanced to
see what the paper was which Brunton had taken from
the bureau. To my surprise it was nothing of any
importance at all, but simply a copy of the questions
and answers in the singular old observance called the
Musgrave Ritual. It is a sort of ceremony peculiar to
our family, which each Musgrave for centuries past has
gone through on his coming of age--a thing of private
interest, and perhaps of some little importance to the
archaeologist, like our own blazonings and charges,
but of no practical use whatever.'
"'We had better come back to the paper afterwards,'
said I.
"'If you think it really necessary,' he answered, with
some hesitation. 'To continue my statement, however:
I relocked the bureau, using the key which Brunton had
left, and I had turned to go when I was surprised to
find that the butler had returned, and was standing
before me.
"'"Mr. Musgrave, sir," he cried, in a voice which was
hoarse with emotion, "I can't bear disgrace, sir.
I've always been proud above my station in life, and
disgrace would kill me. My blood will be on your
head, sir--it will, indeed--if you drive me to
despair. If you cannot keep me after what has passed,
then for God's sake let me give you notice and leave
in a month, as if of my own free will. I could stand
that, Mr. Musgrave, but not to be cast out before all
the folk that I know so well."
"'"You don't deserve much consideration, Brunton," I
answered. "Your conduct has been most infamous.
However, as you have been a long time in the family, I
have no wish to bring public disgrace upon you. A
month, however is too long. Take yourself away in a
week, and give what reason you like for going."