Datasets:
DarqueDante
/
test2

Dataset card Data Studio Files
xet
Community
1
text
stringlengths
0
74
uncle's life, and that the danger would be as pressing in one house
as in another.
"It was in January, '85, that my poor father met his end, and two
years and eight months have elapsed since then. During that time I
have lived happily at Horsham, and I had begun to hope that this
curse had passed away from the family, and that it had ended with the
last generation. I had begun to take comfort too soon, however;
yesterday morning the blow fell in the very shape in which it had
come upon my father."
The young man took from his waistcoat a crumpled envelope, and
turning to the table he shook out upon it five little dried orange
pips.
"This is the envelope," he continued. "The postmark is
London--eastern division. Within are the very words which were upon
my father's last message: 'K. K. K.'; and then 'Put the papers on the
sundial.'"
"What have you done?" asked Holmes.
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"To tell the truth"--he sank his face into his thin, white hands--"I
have felt helpless. I have felt like one of those poor rabbits when
the snake is writhing towards it. I seem to be in the grasp of some
resistless, inexorable evil, which no foresight and no precautions
can guard against."
"Tut! tut!" cried Sherlock Holmes. "You must act, man, or you are
lost. Nothing but energy can save you. This is no time for despair."
"I have seen the police."
"Ah!"
"But they listened to my story with a smile. I am convinced that the
inspector has formed the opinion that the letters are all practical
jokes, and that the deaths of my relations were really accidents, as
the jury stated, and were not to be connected with the warnings."
Holmes shook his clenched hands in the air. "Incredible imbecility!"
he cried.
"They have, however, allowed me a policeman, who may remain in the
house with me."
"Has he come with you to-night?"
"No. His orders were to stay in the house."
Again Holmes raved in the air.
"Why did you come to me," he cried, "and, above all, why did you not
come at once?"
"I did not know. It was only to-day that I spoke to Major Prendergast
about my troubles and was advised by him to come to you."
"It is really two days since you had the letter. We should have acted
before this. You have no further evidence, I suppose, than that which
you have placed before us--no suggestive detail which might help us?"
"There is one thing," said John Openshaw. He rummaged in his coat
pocket, and, drawing out a piece of discoloured, blue-tinted paper,
he laid it out upon the table. "I have some remembrance," said he,
"that on the day when my uncle burned the papers I observed that the
small, unburned margins which lay amid the ashes were of this
particular colour. I found this single sheet upon the floor of his
room, and I am inclined to think that it may be one of the papers
which has, perhaps, fluttered out from among the others, and in that
way has escaped destruction. Beyond the mention of pips, I do not see
that it helps us much. I think myself that it is a page from some
private diary. The writing is undoubtedly my uncle's."
Holmes moved the lamp, and we both bent over the sheet of paper,
which showed by its ragged edge that it had indeed been torn from a
book. It was headed, "March, 1869," and beneath were the following
enigmatical notices:
4th. Hudson came. Same old platform.
7th. Set the pips on McCauley, Paramore, and John Swain, of St.
Augustine.
9th. McCauley cleared.
10th. John Swain cleared.
12th. Visited Paramore. All well.
"Thank you!" said Holmes, folding up the paper and returning it to
our visitor. "And now you must on no account lose another instant. We
cannot spare time even to discuss what you have told me. You must get
home instantly and act."
"What shall I do?"
"There is but one thing to do. It must be done at once. You must put
this piece of paper which you have shown us into the brass box which