Robert Louis Stevenson - "The Sea Fogs"

Carl Becker - "The Eve of the Revolution,"

Edith Wharton - "The Valley Of Decision"

E. Phillips Oppenheim - "The Tempting of Tavernake"

The Valley of Fear

A >> Arthur Conan Doyle >> The Valley of Fear




There was no possible resistance under the menace of those
rifles. The men were disarmed. Sulky, sheepish, and amazed,
they still sat round the table.

"I'd like to say a word to you before we separate," said the
man who had trapped them. "I guess we may not meet again
until you see me on the stand in the courthouse. I'll give you
something to think over between now and then. You know me
now for what I am. At last I can put my cards on the table. I am
Birdy Edwards of Pinkerton's. I was chosen to break up your
gang. I had a hard and dangerous game to play. Not a soul, not
one soul, not my nearest and dearest, knew that I was playing it.
Only Captain Marvin here and my employers knew that. But it's
over to-night, thank God, and I am the winner!"

The seven pale, rigid faces looked up at him. There was
unappeasable hatred in their eyes. He read the relentless threat.

"Maybe you think that the game is not over yet. Well, I take
my chance of that. Anyhow, some of you will take no further
hand, and there are sixty more besides yourselves that will see a
jail this night. I'll tell you this, that when I was put upon this job
I never believed there was such a society as yours. I thought it
was paper talk, and that I would prove it so. They told me it was
to do with the Freemen; so I went to Chicago and was made one.
Then I was surer than ever that it was just paper talk; for I found
no harm in the society, but a deal of good.

"Still, I had to carry out my job, and I came to the coal
valleys. When I reached this place I learned that I was wrong
and that it wasn't a dime novel after all. So I stayed to look after
it. I never killed a man in Chicago. I never minted a dollar in my
life. Those I gave you were as good as any others; but I never
spent money better. But I knew the way into your good wishes
and so l pretended to you that the law was after me. It all worked
just as I thought.

"So I joined your infernal lodge, and I took my share in your
councils. Maybe they will say that I was as bad as you. They can
say what they like, so long as I get you. But what is the truth?
The night I joined you beat up old man Stanger. I could not warn
him, for there was no time; but I held your hand, Baldwin, when
you would have killed him. If ever I have suggested things, so as
to keep my place among you, they were things which I knew I
could prevent. I could not save Dunn and Menzies, for I did not
know enough; but I will see that their murderers are hanged. I
gave Chester Wilcox warning, so that when I blew his house in
he and his folk were in hiding. There was many a crime that I
could not stop; but if you look back and think how often your
man came home the other road, or was down in town when you
went for him, or stayed indoors when you thought he would
come out, you'll see my work."

"You blasted traitor!" hissed McGinty through his closed
teeth.

"Ay, John McGinty, you may call me that if it eases your
smart. You and your like have been the enemy of God and man
in these parts. It took a man to get between you and the poor
devils of men and women that you held under your grip. There
was just one way of doing it, and I did it. You call me a traitor;
but I guess there's many a thousand will call me a deliverer that
went down into hell to save them. I've had three months of it. I
wouldn't have three such months again if they let me loose in the
treasury at Washington for it. I had to stay till I had it all, every
man and every secret right here in this hand. I'd have waited a
little longer if it hadn't come to my knowledge that my secret
was coming out. A letter had come into the town that would
have set you wise to it all. Then I had to act and act quickly.

"I've nothing more to say to you, except that when my time
comes I'll die the easier when I think of the work I have done in
this valley. Now, Marvin, I'll keep you no more. Take them in
and get it over."

There is little more to tell. Scanlan had been given a sealed
note to be left at the address of Miss Ettie Shafter, a mission
which he had accepted with a wink and a knowing smile. In the
early hours of the morning a beautiful woman and a much
muffled man boarded a special train which had been sent by the
railroad company, and made a swift, unbroken journey out of the
land of danger. It was the last time that ever either Ettie or her
lover set foot in the Valley of Fear. Ten days later they were
married in Chicago, with old Jacob Shafter as witness of the
wedding.

The trial of the Scowrers was held far from the place where
their adherents might have terrified the guardians of the law.
In vain they struggled. In vain the money of the lodge -- money
squeezed by blackmail out of the whole countryside -- was spent
like water in the attempt to save them. That cold, clear,
unimpassioned statement from one who knew every detail of their
lives, their organization, and their crimes was unshaken by all
the wiles of their defenders. At last after so many years they
were broken and scattered. The cloud was lifted forever from the
valley.

McGinty met his fate upon the scaffold, cringing and whining
when the last hour came. Eight of his chief followers shared his
fate. Fifty-odd had various degrees of imprisonment. The work
of Birdy Edwards was complete.

And yet, as he had guessed, the game was not over yet. There
was another hand to be played, and yet another and another.
Ted Baldwin, for one, had escaped the scaffold; so had the Willabys;
so had several others of the fiercest spirits of the gang. For ten
years they were out of the world, and then came a day when they
were free once more -- a day which Edwards, who knew his men,
was very sure would be an end of his life of peace. They had
sworn an oath on all that they thought holy to have his blood as a
vengeance for their comrades. And well they strove to keep their
vow!

From Chicago he was chased, after two attempts so near
success that it was sure that the third would get him. From Chicago
he went under a changed name to California, and it was there
that the light went for a time out of his life when Ettie Edwards
died. Once again he was nearly killed, and once again under the
name of Douglas he worked in a lonely canyon, where with an
English partner named Barker he amassed a fortune. At last there
came a warning to him that the bloodhounds were on his track
once more, and he cleared -- only just in time -- for England. And
thence came the John Douglas who for a second time married a worthy
mate, and lived for five years as a Sussex county gentleman, a life
which ended with the strange happenings of which we have heard.


Epilogue



The police trial had passed, in which the case of John Douglas
was referred to a higher court. So had the Quarter Sessions, at
which he was acquitted as having acted in self-defense.

"Get him out of England at any cost," wrote Holmes to the
wife. "There are forces here which may be more dangerous than
those he has escaped. There is no safety for your husband in
England."

Two months had gone by, and the case had to some extent
passed from our minds. Then one morning there came an enigmatic
note slipped into our letter box. "Dear me, Mr. Holmes.
Dear me!" said this singular epistle. There was neither
superscription nor signature. I laughed at the quaint message;
but Holmes showed unwonted seriousness.

"Deviltry, Watson!" he remarked, and sat long with a clouded
brow.

Late last night Mrs. Hudson, our landlady, brought up a
message that a gentleman wished to see Holmes, and that the
matter was of the utmost importance. Close at the heels of his
messenger came Cecil Barker, our friend of the moated Manor
House. His face was drawn and haggard.

"I've had bad news -- terrible news, Mr. Holmes," said he.

"I feared as much," said Holmes.

"You have not had a cable, have you?"

"I have had a note from someone who has."

"It's poor Douglas. They tell me his name is Edwards; but he
will always be Jack Douglas of Benito Canyon to me. I told you
that they started together for South Africa in the Palmyra three
weeks ago."

"Exactly."

"The ship reached Cape Town last night.I received this cable from Mrs
Douglas this morning: --

"Jack has been lost overboard in gale off St Helena.No one knows how
accident occurred. -- Ivy Douglas."

"Ha!It came like that, did it?" said Holmes, thoughtfully. "Well, I've
no doubt it was well stage-managed."

"You mean that you think there was no accident?"

"None in the world."

"He was murdered?"

"Surely!"

"So I think also.These infernal Scowrers, this cursed vindictive nest of
criminals --"

"No, no, my good sir," said Holmes. "There is a master hand here. It is no
case of sawed-off shot-guns and clumsy six-shooters. You can tell an old
master by the sweep of his brush. I can tell a Moriarty when I see one. This
crime is from London, not from America."

"But for what motive?"

"Because it is done by a man who cannot afford to fail -- one whose whole
unique position depends upon the fact that all he does must succeed. A
great brain and a huge organization have been turned to the extinction of
one man. It is crushing the nut with the hammer -- an absurd extravagance
of energy -- but the nut is very effectually crushed all the same."

"How came this man to have anything to do with it?"

"I can only say that the first word that ever came to us of the business was
from one of his lieutenants.These Americans were well advised.Having an
English job to do, they took into partnership, as any foreign criminal
could do, this great consultant in crime.From that moment their man was
doomed. At first he would content himself by using his machinery in order
to find their victim. Then he would indicate how the matter might be
treated. Finally, when he read in the reports of the failure of this agent, he
would step in himself with a master touch. You heard me warn this man at
Birlstone Manor House that the coming danger was greater than the past.
Was I right?"

Barker beat his head with his clenched fist in his impotent anger.

"Do you tell me that we have to sit down under this? Do you say that
no one can ever get level with this king-devil?"

"No, I don't say that," said Holmes, and his eyes seemed to be looking far
into the future. "I don't say that he can't be beat. But you must give me
time -- you must give me time!"

We all sat in silence for some minutes, while those fateful eyes still
strained to pierce the veil.

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