Все приключения Шерлока Холмса. Сборник. Уровень 2

”

“The old handcuffs are good enough,” remarked Lestrade.

“Very good, very good,” said Holmes. “The cabman will help me with my boxes. Ask him to come, Wiggins.”

I was surprised. Holmes was going to travel somewhere, and he did not say anything to me about it. There was a small portmanteau in the room. The cabman entered the room.

“Please help me with this buckle, cabman,” Holmes said.

The fellow came forward and put down his hands to assist. At that instant there was a sharp click, the jangling of metal, and Sherlock Holmes sprang to his feet again.

“Gentlemen,” he cried, “let me introduce you to Mr. Jefferson Hope, the murderer of Enoch Drebber and of Joseph Stangerson.”

For a second or two we were a group of statues. Then, with a roar of fury, the cabman hurled himself through the window. Gregson, Lestrade, and Holmes sprang upon him like staghounds. They dragged him back into the room. The man was very powerful and fierce. Finally Lestrade got his hand inside his neckcloth and half-strangled him.

We pinioned his feet as well as his hands.

“We have his cab,” said Sherlock Holmes. “It will take him to Scotland Yard. And now, gentlemen,” he continued, with a pleasant smile, “we see the end of our little mystery. Welcome to put any questions, and I will answer them.”

Part II

Chapter I

On the Great Alkali Plain

In the central portion of the great North American Continent there lies an arid and repulsive desert.

There are no inhabitants of this land of despair. Coyotes and grizzly bears are the sole dwellers in the wilderness.

One can see a pathway across the desert, which winds away and is lost in the extreme distance. There stood upon the fourth of May, eighteen hundred and forty-seven, a solitary traveller. It was difficult to say whether he was nearer to forty or to sixty. His face was lean and haggard; his long, brown hair and beard were white.

His hand grasped his rifle. The man was dying-dying from hunger and from thirst.

He deposited upon the ground a large bundle, which he was carrying over his right shoulder. It was too heavy for his strength. Instantly a moaning cry broke from the grey parcel, and from it there protruded a small, scared face, with bright brown eyes.

“You hurt me!” said a childish voice reproachfully.

“I’m sorry,” the man answered penitently.