“Shall I sign here?” he asked, stooping over the table.
Holmes leaned over his shoulder and passed both hands over hisneck.
“This will do,” said he.
I heard a click of steel and a bellow like an enraged bull. Thenext instant Holmes and the seaman were rolling on the groundtogether. He was a man of such gigantic strength that, even withthe handcuffs which Holmes had so deftly fastened upon hiswrists, he would have very quickly overpowered my friend hadHopkins and I not rushed to his rescue. Only when I pressed thecold muzzle of the revolver to his temple did he at last understandthat resistance was vain. We lashed his ankles with cord, and rosebreathless from the struggle.
“I must really apologize, Hopkins,” said Sherlock Holmes. “Ifear that the scrambled eggs are cold. However, you will enjoy therest of your breakfast all the better, will you not, for the thoughtthat you have brought your case to a triumphant conclusion.”
Stanley Hopkins was speechless with amazement.
“I don’t know what to say, Mr. Holmes,” he blurted out at last,with a very red face. “It seems to me that I have been makinga fool of myself from the beginning. I understand now, what Ishould never have forgotten, that I am the pupil and you are themaster. Even now I see what you have done, but I don’t know howyou did it or what it signifies.”
“Well, well,” said Holmes, good-humouredly. “We all learn byexperience, and your lesson this time is that you should never losesight of the alternative. You were so absorbed in young Neliganthat you could not spare a thought to Patrick Cairns, the truemurderer of Peter Carey.”
The hoarse voice of the seaman broke in on our conversation.
“See here, mister,” said he, “I make no complaint of being manhandledin this fashion, but I would have you call things by theirright names. You say I murdered Peter Carey, I say I killed PeterCarey, and there’s all the difference. Maybe you don’t believe whatI say. Maybe you think I am just slinging you a yarn.”
“Not at all,” said Holmes. “Let us hear what you have to say.”
“It’s soon told, and, by the Lord, every word of it is truth. Iknew Black Peter, and when he pulled out his knife I whippeda harpoon through him sharp, for I knew that it was him or me.
That’s how he died. You can call it murder. Anyhow, I’d as soondie with a rope round my neck as with Black Peter’s knife in myheart.”
“How came you there?” asked Holmes.
“I’ll tell it you from the beginning. Just sit me up a little, so as Ican speak easy. It was in ‘83 that it happened—August of that year.
Peter Carey was master of the SEA UNICORN, and I was spareharpooner. We were coming out of the ice-pack on our way home,with head winds and a week’s southerly gale, when we picked upa little craft that had been blown north. There was one man onher—a landsman. The crew had thought she would founder andhad made for the Norwegian coast in the dinghy. I guess they wereall drowned. Well, we took him on board, this man, and he and theskipper had some long talks in the cabin. All the baggage we tookoff with him was one tin box. So far as I know, the man’s namewas never mentioned, and on the second night he disappeared asif he had never been. It was given out that he had either thrownhimself overboard or fallen overboard in the heavy weather thatwe were having. Only one man knew what had happened to him,and that was me, for, with my own eyes, I saw the skipper tip uphis heels and put him over the rail in the middle watch of a darknight, two days before we sighted the Shetland Lights. Well, Ikept my knowledge to myself, and waited to see what would comeof it. When we got back to Scotland it was easily hushed up, andnobody asked any questions. A stranger died by accident and itwas nobody’s business to inquire. Shortly after Peter Carey gave upthe sea, and it was long years before I could find where he was. Iguessed that he had done the deed for the sake of what was in thattin box, and that he could afford now to pay me well for keepingmy mouth shut. I found out where he was through a sailor manthat had met him in London, and down I went to squeeze him.
The first night he was reasonable enough, and was ready to giveme what would make me free of the sea for life. We were to fix itall two nights later. When I came, I found him three parts drunkand in a vile temper. We sat down and we drank and we yarnedabout old times, but the more he drank the less I liked the lookon his face. I spotted that harpoon upon the wall, and I thoughtI might need it before I was through. Then at last he broke out atme, spitting and cursing, with murder in his eyes and a great claspknifein his hand. He had not time to get it from the sheath beforeI had the harpoon through him. Heavens! what a yell he gave! andhis face gets between me and my sleep. I stood there, with hisblood splashing round me, and I waited for a bit, but all was quiet,so I took heart once more. I looked round, and there was the tinbox on the shelf. I had as much right to it as Peter Carey, anyhow,so I took it with me and left the hut. Like a fool I left my baccypouchupon the table.
“Now I’ll tell you the queerest part of the whole story. I hadhardly got outside the hut when I heard someone coming, and Ihid among the bushes. A man came slinking along, went into thehut, gave a cry as if he had seen a ghost, and legged it as hard ashe could run until he was out of sight. Who he was or what hewanted is more than I can tell. For my part I walked ten miles, gota train at Tunbridge Wells, and so reached London, and no one thewiser.
“Well, when I came to examine the box I found there was nomoney in it, and nothing but papers that I would not dare to sell.
I had lost my hold on Black Peter and was stranded in Londonwithout a shilling. There was only my trade left. I saw theseadvertisements about harpooners, and high wages, so I went tothe shipping agents, and they sent me here. That’s all I know,and I say again that if I killed Black Peter, the law should give methanks, for I saved them the price of a hempen rope.”