The Valley of Fear | Page 5

your friends, would surely prevent you from inclosing cipher and message in the same
envelope. Should it miscarry, you are undone. As it is, both have to go wrong before any
harm comes from it. Our second post is now overdue, and I shall be surprised if it does
not bring us either a further letter of explanation, or, as is more probable, the very volume

to which these figures refer."
Holmes's calculation was fulfilled within a very few minutes by the appearance of Billy,
the page, with the very letter which we were expecting.
"The same writing," remarked Holmes, as he opened the envelope, "and actually signed,"
he added in an exultant voice as he unfolded the epistle. "Come, we are getting on,
Watson." His brow clouded, however, as he glanced over the contents.
"Dear me, this is very disappointing! I fear, Watson, that all our expectations come to
nothing. I trust that the man Porlock will come to no harm.
"DEAR MR. HOLMES [he says]:
"I will go no further in this matter. It is too dangerous--he suspects me. I can see that he
suspects me. He came to me quite unexpectedly after I had actually addressed this
envelope with the intention of sending you the key to the cipher. I was able to cover it up.
If he had seen it, it would have gone hard with me. But I read suspicion in his eyes.
Please burn the cipher message, which can now be of no use to you.
FRED PORLOCK."
Holmes sat for some little time twisting this letter between his fingers, and frowning, as
he stared into the fire.
"After all," he said at last, "there may be nothing in it. It may be only his guilty
conscience. Knowing himself to be a traitor, he may have read the accusation in the
other's eyes."
"The other being, I presume, Professor Moriarty."
"No less! When any of that party talk about 'He' you know whom they mean. There is one
predominant 'He' for all of them."
"But what can he do?"
"Hum! That's a large question. When you have one of the first brains of Europe up
against you, and all the powers of darkness at his back, there are infinite possibilities.
Anyhow, Friend Porlock is evidently scared out of his senses--kindly compare the writing
in the note to that upon its envelope; which was done, he tells us, before this ill-omened
visit. The one is clear and firm. The other hardly legible."
"Why did he write at all? Why did he not simply drop it?"
"Because he feared I would make some inquiry after him in that case, and possibly bring
trouble on him."
"No doubt," said I. "Of course." I had picked up the original cipher message and was

bending my brows over it. "It's pretty maddening to think that an important secret may lie
here on this slip of paper, and that it is beyond human power to penetrate it."
Sherlock Holmes had pushed away his untasted breakfast and lit the unsavoury pipe
which was the companion of his deepest meditations. "I wonder!" said he, leaning back
and staring at the ceiling. "Perhaps there are points which have escaped your
Machiavellian intellect. Let us consider the problem in the light of pure reason. This
man's reference is to a book. That is our point of departure."
"A somewhat vague one."
"Let us see then if we can narrow it down. As I focus my mind upon it, it seems rather
less impenetrable. What indications have we as to this book?"
"None."
"Well, well, it is surely not quite so bad as that. The cipher message begins with a large
534, does it not? We may take it as a working hypothesis that 534 is the particular page to
which the cipher refers. So our book has already become a LARGE book, which is surely
something gained. What other indications have we as to the nature of this large book?
The next sign is C2. What do you make of that, Watson?"
"Chapter the second, no doubt."
"Hardly that, Watson. You will, I am sure, agree with me that if the page be given, the
number of the chapter is immaterial. Also that if page 534 finds us only in the second
chapter, the length of the first one must have been really intolerable."
"Column!" I cried.
"Brilliant, Watson. You are scintillating this morning. If it is not column, then I am very
much deceived. So now, you see, we begin to visualize a large book printed in double
columns which are each of a considerable length, since one of the words is numbered in
the document as the two hundred and ninety-third. Have we reached the limits of what
reason can supply?"
"I fear that