“ ‘It seemed that after we had left, Prendergast and his gang hadproceeded to put to death the five remaining prisoners. The twowarders had been shot and thrown overboard, and so also had thethird mate. Prendergast then descended into the ’tween-decksand with his own hands cut the throat of the unfortunate surgeon.
There only remained the first mate, who was a bold and activeman. When he saw the convict approaching him with the bloodyknife in his hand he kicked off his bonds, which he had somehowcontrived to loosen, and rushing down the deck he plunged intothe after-hold. A dozen convicts, who descended with their pistolsin search of him, found him with a match-box in his hand seatedbeside an open powder-barrel, which was one of a hundred carriedon board, and swearing that he would blow all hands up if he werein any way molested. An instant later the explosion occurred,though Hudson thought it was caused by the misdirected bulletof one of the convicts rather than the mate’s match. Be the causeMemoirs of Sherlock Holmes 729
what it may, it was the end of the Gloria Scott and of the rabblewho held command of her.
“ ‘Such, in a few words, my dear boy, is the history of thisterrible business in which I was involved. Next day we were pickedup by the brig Hotspur, bound for Australia, whose captain foundno difficulty in believing that we were the survivors of a passengership which had foundered. The transport ship Gloria Scott wasset down by the Admiralty as being lost at sea, and no word hasever leaked out as to her true fate. After an excellent voyagethe Hotspur landed us at Sydney, where Evans and I changedour names and made our way to the diggings, where, among thecrowds who were gathered from all nations, we had no difficultyin losing our former identities. The rest I need not relate. Weprospered, we traveled, we came back as rich colonials to England,and we bought country estates. For more than twenty years wehave led peaceful and useful lives, and we hoped that our past wasforever buried. Imagine, then, my feelings when in the seamanwho came to us I recognized instantly the man who had beenpicked off the wreck. He had tracked us down somehow, and hadset himself to live upon our fears. You will understand now how itwas that I strove to keep the peace with him, and you will in somemeasure sympathize with me in the fears which fill me, now thathe has gone from me to his other victim with threats upon histongue.’
“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, havemercy on our souls!’
“That was the narrative which I read that night to youngTrevor, and I think, Watson, that under the circumstances it wasa dramatic one. The good fellow was heart-broken at it, and wentout to the Terai tea planting, where I hear that he is doing well. Asto the sailor and Beddoes, neither of them was ever heard of againafter that day on which the letter of warning was written. Theyboth disappeared utterly and completely. No complaint had beenlodged with the police, so that Beddoes had mistaken a threat fora deed. Hudson had been seen lurking about, and it was believedby the police that he had done away with Beddoes and had fled.
For myself I believe that the truth was exactly the opposite. Ithink that it is most probable that Beddoes, pushed to desperationand believing himself to have been already betrayed, had revengedhimself upon Hudson, and had fled from the country with asmuch money as he could lay his hands on. Those are the facts ofthe case, Doctor, and if they are of any use to your collection, I amsure that they are very heartily at your service.”
730 The Complete Sherlock Holmes
The Musgrave Ritual
An anomaly which often struck me in the character of myfriend Sherlock Holmes was that, although in his methods ofthought he was the neatest and most methodical of mankind, andalthough also he affected a certain quiet primness of dress, he wasnone the less in his personal habits one of the most untidy menthat ever drove a fellow-lodger to distraction. Not that I am in theleast conventional in that respect myself. The rough-and-tumblework in Afghanistan, coming on the top of natural Bohemianismof disposition, has made me rather more lax than befits a medicalman. But with me there is a limit, and when I find a man whokeeps his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end ofPersian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixedby 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; andwhen Holmes, in one of his queer humors, would sit in an armchairwith his hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer cartridges, andproceed to adorn the opposite wall with a patriotic V. R. done inbullet-pocks, I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor theappearance of our room was improved by it.
Our chambers were always full of chemicals and of criminalrelics which had a way of wandering into unlikely positions, andof turning up in the butter-dish or in even less desirable places.
