A littie while later Inspector MacLeod and two constables came in. Strickland gave them a number of instructions, after which they left with the wretched prisoner.
'The power of fear,' said Holmes gravely, settling himself in an armchair. 'I should not have underestimated it. Observe how even such a piteous wretch as our Portuguese clerk could steel himself to defy us, when the fear of Moriarty's retribution cast its dark shadow over his heart.'
'But he is dead,' I argued. 'You said…'
'The man is dead,' corrected Holmes, 'his work lives. The Professor may lie at the bottom of the Reichenbach Falls but his charming society still has the power to reward, and, what is more relevant to our case, to punish those who betray it. Here in India, over a vast criminal empire, rules a bosom friend of Moriarty. That is the man who has inherited his dark mantie. That is the man who is after me now.'
'Give me his name, Mr Holmes,' said Strickland, 'and I'll soon have him sweating behind steel bars.'
'I commend your energy, Strickland. But I fear that such a direct course of action would prove futile. Colonel Sebastian Moran is a most cunning and dangerous adversary. At the moment the only net we have is too frail to hold such a formidable prey.'
'But, dash it all!' cried Strickland. 'The man is an honourable soldier.'
Holmes threw up his hands in resignation. 'Our net is indeed weak when a representative of the law fails to recognise his foremost adversary.'
'You astonish me, Mr Holmes,' Strickland remonstrated. 'You expect me to believe that an English gendeman, a former member of Her Majesty's Indian Army, the best heavy-game shot in India, a man with a still unrivalled bag of tigers, is a dangerous criminal. Why, I was with him just two nights ago at the Old Shikari Club. We played a rubber of whist together.'
'Well,' shrugged Sherlock Holmes,'I suppose you cannot really be expected to have seen through the fellow's masquerade. After all, a couple of months ago Scotland Yard didn't even know of the existence of Professor James Moriarty. But believe me when I tell you that after the Professor, our Colonel Moran is probably the most dangerous criminal alive.'
He reached into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a slim morocco-bound notebook. 'Humm. Let's see what we have here on him. Just a few items I've copied out from my index of biographies. Ah! Here it is.'
He handed over a. card tcr Strickland. I rose, and, standing behind Strickland, studied it over his shoulder:
Moran, Sebastian, Colonel. Unemployed. Formerly 1st Bangalore Pioneers. Born London, 1840. Son of Sir Augustus Moran, C.B., once British Minister to Persia. Educated Eton and Oxford. Served in Jowaki Campaign, Afghan Campaign, Charasiab (despatches), Sherpur, Cabul. Author of Heavy Games of the Western Himalayas (1881); Three Months in the Jungle (1884). London Address: Conduit Street. Clubs: The Anglo-Indian, The Tankerville, The Bagatelle Card Club. Address in India: Auckland Villa, Lahore Cantonment, Clubs: The Punjab (Lahore), The Old Shikari (Bombay), The Black Hearts (Simla).
'But Mr Holmes,' I objected, 'the gendeman's career is that of an honourable soldier.'
'It is true,' Holmes answered. 'Up to a certain point he did well. He was always a man of iron nerve, and no doubt you, Strickland, have heard the story of how he crawled down a drain after a wounded man-eating tiger. There are some trees, Huree, which grow to a certain height, and then suddenly develop flaws. You will see it often in humans. I have a theory that the individual represents in his development the whole procession of his ancestors, and that such a sudden turn to good or evil stands for some strong influence which came into the line of his pedigree. The person becomes, as it were, the epitome of the history of his own family.'
'That is surely rather fanciful,' Strickland reproached.
'Well, I don't insist upon it. Whatever the cause, Colonel Moran began to go wrong. Surely, Strickland, that if the Hyderabad card scandal did nothing to sully the good Colonel's reputation, then the mysterious death of his native butler must have at least given the police force some doubt as to his continence.'
'Mr Holmes, we are aware of certain blemishes on Colonel Moran's record, but it takes more than some suspicious occurrences to charge a man with being the leader of a dangerous criminal gang.'
'No doubt you are right,' said Holmes testily. He took a cigar from a box on the table and lit it. He then leaned back on his armchair, and, gazing at the ceiling, began to blow great clouds of smoke into the air. 'Well, it is a very long shot, but I must play it if my poor littie reputation, such as it is, is not to suffer shipwreck. Now Strickland, since you happen to play cards with Moran, you will surely have noticed a peculiarity in his right thumb.'
'He has a long, heavy scar running diagonally across his thumb. The result of some accident with a hunting knife.'
'Actually he received the injury in a struggle with a knife-wielding woman whom he had foully betrayed and ruined. But that does not concern us at present. Now, Huree, if you could kindly spare me a lead pencil from that fine array of writing paraphernalia you have displayed in your breast pocket, I will attempt to provide a demonstration of my claim that Colonel Sebastian Moran was the real perpetrator of this dreadful crime.'
Mr Holmes took a penknife out of his pocket and began to sharpen my pencil. He shaved off the wood and exposed more than a couple of inches of the soft lead, which he then delicately scraped with the knife over a clean sheet of paper. After about ten minutes he had a small pile of very fine black powder. Then going over to the elephant, he began to examine it minutely with the aid of his lens. The elephant glittered as Mr Holmes turned it this way and that, inspecting it under the gas; but I noticed that he was careful not to handle it except with a handkerchief.
'Mr Carvallo. Mr Carvallo,' he muttered to himself,'you should not have fondled this thing so much with your sweaty hands.'
After a good twenty minutes, during which his brow seemed to furrow deeply with mounting frustration and annoyance, he sprang up from his chair with a cry of satisfaction. 'Ha! Ha! Capital. Now if I could trouble you gentlemen to come closer, I may be able to amuse you with this parlour-trick.'
As we gathered around him Sherlock Holmes picked up the sheet of paper and gently blew some of the fine graphite powder onto the surface of the elephant, on its left flank. He then tapped the elephant lightiy with the penknife, till all the excess graphite powder fell off on the table. As if by magic a number of finger and thumb prints appeared on the part of the elephant which had received the powder. The black lines and whorls of the impression stood out clearly against the light yellow of the brass lamp.
'Now,' said Holmes,'most of these belong to the sweaty fingers of our Portuguese friend, but if you will observe here closely…'
Using the tip of the penknife as a pointer he indicated a large clear impression – a rough ridged thumb print with a diagonal line running across it.
'It is not conclusive evidence; said Sherlock Holmes, folding the penknife and putting it back in his pocket, 'but it may serve to demonstrate that Colonel Sebastian Moran did, at sometime, handle this object.'
'This is most wonderful verification, Sir; quod erat demonstrandum, if I may be pardoned the expression,' I exclaimed in admiration.
'I owe you an apology, Mr Holmes,' said Strickland ruefully. 'I should have had more faith in your marvellous faculty.'