“No, I asked her; but she wouldn’t tell.”

“I dare say not, the leetle baggage! Perhaps she did not vish to frighten you avay.”

“Frighten!” McMurdo was on fire in a moment.

“Ah, yes, my friend! You need not be ashamed to be frightened of him. It is Teddy Baldwin.”

“And who the devil is he?”

“He is a boss of Scowrers.”

“Scowrers! I’ve heard of them before. It’s Scowrers here and Scowrers there, and always in a whisper! What are you all afraid of? Who are the Scowrers?”

The boarding-house keeper instinctively sank his voice, as everyone did who talked about that terrible society. “The Scowrers,” said he, “are the Eminent Order of Freemen!”

The young man stared. “Why, I am a member of that order myself.”

“You! I vould never have had you in my house if I had known it — not if you vere to pay me a hundred dollar a veek.”

“What’s wrong with the order? It’s for charity and good fellowship. The rules say so.”

“Maybe in some places. Not here!”

“What is it here?”

“It’s a murder society, that’s that vat it is.”

McMurdo laughed incredulously. “How can you prove that?” he asked.

“Prove it! Are there not fifty murders to prove it? Vat about Milman and Van Shorst, and the Nicholson family, and old Mr. Hyam, and little Billy James, and the others? Prove it! Is there a man or a voman in this valley vat does not know it?”

“See here!” said McMurdo earnestly. “I want you to take back what you’ve said, or else make it good. One or the other you must do before I quit this room. Put yourself in my place. Here am I, a stranger in the town. I belong to a society that I know only as an innocent one. You’ll find it through the length and breadth of the States, but always as an innocent one. Now when I am counting upon joining it here, you tell me that it is the same as a murder society called the Scowrers. I guess you owe me either an apology or else an explanation, Mr. Shafter.”

“I can but but tell you vat the whole vorld knows, mister. The bosses of the one are the bosses of the other. If you offend the one, it is the other vat vill strike you. We have proved it too often.”

“That’s just gossip — I want proof!” said McMurdo.

“If you live here long you vill get your proof. But I forget that you are yourself one of them. You vill soon be as bad as the rest. But you vill find other lodgings, mister. I cannot have you here. Is it not bad enough that one of these people come courting my Ettie, and that I dare not turn him down, but that I should have another for my boarder? Yes, indeed, you shall not sleep here after to-night!”

McMurdo found himself under sentence of banishment both from his comfortable quarters and from the girl whom he loved. He found her alone in the sitting-room that same evening, and he poured his troubles into her ear.

I did not pause to argue over this atrocious sentiment.

“I shall be back in an hour or two,” I remarked.

“All right! Good luck! But, I say, if you are crossing the river you may as well return Toby, for I don’t think it is at all likely that we shall have any use for him now.”

I took our mongrel accordingly and left him, together with a half-sovereign, at the old naturalist’s in Pinchin Lane. At Camberwell I found Miss Morstan a little weary after her night’s adventures but very eager to hear the news. Mrs. Forrester, too, was full of curiosity. I told them all that we had done, suppressing, however, the more dreadful parts of the tragedy. Thus although I spoke of Mr. Sholto’s death, I said nothing of the exact manner and method of it. With all my omissions, however, there was enough to startle and amaze them.

“It is a romance!” cried Mrs. Forrester. “An injured lady, half a million in treasure, a black cannibal, and a wooden-legged ruffian. They take the place of the conventional dragon or wicked earl.”

“And two knight-errants to the rescue,” added Miss Morstan with a bright glance at me.

“Why, Mary, your fortune depends upon the issue of this search. I don’t think that you are nearly excited enough. Just imagine what it must be to be so rich and to have the world at your feet!”

It sent a little thrill of joy to my heart to notice that she showed no sign of elation at the prospect. On the contrary, she gave a toss of her proud head, as though the matter were one in which she took small interest.

“It is for Mr. Thaddeus Sholto that I am anxious,” she said. “Nothing else is of any consequence; but I think that he has behaved most kindly and honourably throughout. It is our duty to clear him of this dreadful and unfounded charge.”

It was evening before I left Camberwell, and quite dark by the time I reached home. My companion’s book and pipe lay by his chair, but he had disappeared. I looked about in the hope of seeing a note, but there was none.

“I suppose that Mr. Sherlock Holmes has gone out,” I said to Mrs. Hudson as she came up to lower the blinds.

“No, sir. He has gone to his room, sir. Do you know, sir,” sinking her voice into an impressive whisper, “I am afraid for his health.”

“Why so, Mrs. Hudson?”

“Well, he’s that strange, sir. After you was gone he walked and he walked, up and down, and up and down, until I was weary of the sound of his footstep. Then I heard him talking to himself and muttering, and every time the bell rang out he came on the stairhead, with ‘What is that, Mrs. Hudson?’ And now he has slammed off to his room, but I can hear him walking away the same as ever. I hope he’s not going to be ill, sir. I ventured to say something to him about cooling medicine, but he turned on me, sir, with such a look that I don’t know how ever I got out of the room.”