ADVENTURE V. THE FIVE ORANGE PIPS

When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock Holmes cases between the years

'82 and '90, I am faced by so many which present strange and interesting features

that it is no easy matter to know which to choose and which to leave.

Some, however, have already gained publicity through the papers, and others

have not offered a field for those peculiar qualities which my friend possessed in so

high a degree, and which it is the object of these papers to illustrate.

Some, too, have baffled his analytical skill, and would be, as narratives,

beginnings without an ending, while others have been but partially cleared up, and

have their explanations founded rather upon

conjecture and surmise than on that absolute logical proof which was so dear to

him.

There is, however, one of these last which was so remarkable in its details and so

startling in its results that I am tempted to give some account of it in spite of the

fact that there are points in connection

with it which never have been, and probably never will be, entirely cleared up.

The year '87 furnished us with a long series of cases of greater or less

interest, of which I retain the records.

Among my headings under this one twelve months I find an account of the adventure

of the Paradol Chamber, of the Amateur Mendicant Society, who held a luxurious

club in the lower vault of a furniture

warehouse, of the facts connected with the loss of the British barque "Sophy

Anderson", of the singular adventures of the Grice Patersons in the island of Uffa,

and finally of the Camberwell poisoning case.

In the latter, as may be remembered, Sherlock Holmes was able, by winding up the

dead man's watch, to prove that it had been wound up two hours before, and that

therefore the deceased had gone to bed

within that time--a deduction which was of the greatest importance in clearing up the

case.

All these I may sketch out at some future date, but none of them present such

singular features as the strange train of circumstances which I have now taken up my

pen to describe.

It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales had set in with

exceptional violence.

All day the wind had screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that

even here in the heart of great, hand-made London we were forced to raise our minds

for the instant from the routine of life

and to recognise the presence of those great elemental forces which shriek at

mankind through the bars of his civilisation, like untamed beasts in a

cage.

As evening drew in, the storm grew higher and louder, and the wind cried and sobbed

like a child in the chimney.

Sherlock Holmes sat moodily at one side of the fireplace cross-indexing his records of

crime, while I at the other was deep in one of Clark Russell's fine sea-stories until

the howl of the gale from without seemed to

blend with the text, and the splash of the rain to lengthen out into the long swash of

the sea waves.

My wife was on a visit to her mother's, and for a few days I was a dweller once more in

my old quarters at Baker Street. "Why," said I, glancing up at my companion,

"that was surely the bell.

Who could come to-night? Some friend of yours, perhaps?"

"Except yourself I have none," he answered. "I do not encourage visitors."

"A client, then?"

"If so, it is a serious case. Nothing less would bring a man out on such

a day and at such an hour. But I take it that it is more likely to be

some crony of the landlady's."

Sherlock Holmes was wrong in his conjecture, however, for there came a step

in the passage and a tapping at the door.

He stretched out his long arm to turn the lamp away from himself and towards the

vacant chair upon which a newcomer must sit.

"Come in!" said he.

The man who entered was young, some two- and-twenty at the outside, well-groomed and

trimly clad, with something of refinement and delicacy in his bearing.

The streaming umbrella which he held in his hand, and his long shining waterproof told

of the fierce weather through which he had come.

He looked about him anxiously in the glare of the lamp, and I could see that his face

was pale and his eyes heavy, like those of a man who is weighed down with some great

anxiety.

"I owe you an apology," he said, raising his golden pince-nez to his eyes.

"I trust that I am not intruding. I fear that I have brought some traces of

the storm and rain into your snug chamber."

"Give me your coat and umbrella," said Holmes.

"They may rest here on the hook and will be dry presently.

You have come up from the south-west, I see."

"Yes, from Horsham." "That clay and chalk mixture which I see

upon your toe caps is quite distinctive."

"I have come for advice." "That is easily got."

"And help." "That is not always so easy."

"I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes.

I heard from Major Prendergast how you saved him in the Tankerville Club scandal."

"Ah, of course. He was wrongfully accused of cheating at

cards."

"He said that you could solve anything." "He said too much."

"That you are never beaten." "I have been beaten four times--three times

by men, and once by a woman."

"But what is that compared with the number of your successes?"

"It is true that I have been generally successful."

"Then you may be so with me."

"I beg that you will draw your chair up to the fire and favour me with some details as

to your case." "It is no ordinary one."

"None of those which come to me are.

I am the last court of appeal."

"And yet I question, sir, whether, in all your experience, you have ever listened to

a more mysterious and inexplicable chain of events than those which have happened in my

own family."

"You fill me with interest," said Holmes. "Pray give us the essential facts from the

commencement, and I can afterwards question you as to those details which seem to me to

be most important."

The young man pulled his chair up and pushed his wet feet out towards the blaze.

"My name," said he, "is John Openshaw, but my own affairs have, as far as I can

understand, little to do with this awful business.

It is a hereditary matter; so in order to give you an idea of the facts, I must go

back to the commencement of the affair. "You must know that my grandfather had two

sons--my uncle Elias and my father Joseph.

My father had a small factory at Coventry, which he enlarged at the time of the

invention of bicycling.

He was a patentee of the Openshaw unbreakable tire, and his business met with

such success that he was able to sell it and to retire upon a handsome competence.

"My uncle Elias emigrated to America when he was a young man and became a planter in

Florida, where he was reported to have done very well.

At the time of the war he fought in Jackson's army, and afterwards under Hood,

where he rose to be a colonel.

When Lee laid down his arms my uncle returned to his plantation, where he

remained for three or four years.

About 1869 or 1870 he came back to Europe and took a small estate in Sussex, near

Horsham.

He had made a very considerable fortune in the States, and his reason for leaving them

was his aversion to the negroes, and his dislike of the Republican policy in

extending the franchise to them.

He was a singular man, fierce and quick- tempered, very foul-mouthed when he was

angry, and of a most retiring disposition.

During all the years that he lived at Horsham, I doubt if ever he set foot in the

town.

He had a garden and two or three fields round his house, and there he would take

his exercise, though very often for weeks on end he would never leave his room.

He drank a great deal of brandy and smoked very heavily, but he would see no society

and did not want any friends, not even his own brother.

"He didn't mind me; in fact, he took a fancy to me, for at the time when he saw me

first I was a youngster of twelve or so. This would be in the year 1878, after he

had been eight or nine years in England.

He begged my father to let me live with him and he was very kind to me in his way.

When he was sober he used to be fond of playing backgammon and draughts with me,

and he would make me his representative both with the servants and with the

tradespeople, so that by the time that I

was sixteen I was quite master of the house.

I kept all the keys and could go where I liked and do what I liked, so long as I did

not disturb him in his privacy.

There was one singular exception, however, for he had a single room, a lumber-room up

among the attics, which was invariably locked, and which he would never permit

either me or anyone else to enter.

With a boy's curiosity I have peeped through the keyhole, but I was never able

to see more than such a collection of old trunks and bundles as would be expected in

such a room.

"One day--it was in March, 1883--a letter with a foreign stamp lay upon the table in

front of the colonel's plate.

It was not a common thing for him to receive letters, for his bills were all

paid in ready money, and he had no friends of any sort.

'From India!' said he as he took it up, 'Pondicherry postmark!

What can this be?'

Opening it hurriedly, out there jumped five little dried orange pips, which pattered

down upon his plate.

I began to laugh at this, but the laugh was struck from my lips at the sight of his

face.

His lip had fallen, his eyes were protruding, his skin the colour of putty,

and he glared at the envelope which he still held in his trembling hand, 'K. K.

K.!' he shrieked, and then, 'My God, my God, my sins have overtaken me!'

"'What is it, uncle?' I cried.

"'Death,' said he, and rising from the table he retired to his room, leaving me

palpitating with horror.

I took up the envelope and saw scrawled in red ink upon the inner flap, just above the

gum, the letter K three times repeated. There was nothing else save the five dried

pips.

What could be the reason of his overpowering terror?

I left the breakfast-table, and as I ascended the stair I met him coming down

with an old rusty key, which must have belonged to the attic, in one hand, and a

small brass box, like a cashbox, in the other.

"'They may do what they like, but I'll checkmate them still,' said he with an

oath.

'Tell Mary that I shall want a fire in my room to-day, and send down to Fordham, the

Horsham lawyer.' "I did as he ordered, and when the lawyer

arrived I was asked to step up to the room.

The fire was burning brightly, and in the grate there was a mass of black, fluffy

ashes, as of burned paper, while the brass box stood open and empty beside it.

As I glanced at the box I noticed, with a start, that upon the lid was printed the

treble K which I had read in the morning upon the envelope.

"'I wish you, John,' said my uncle, 'to witness my will.

I leave my estate, with all its advantages and all its disadvantages, to my brother,

your father, whence it will, no doubt, descend to you.

If you can enjoy it in peace, well and good!

If you find you cannot, take my advice, my boy, and leave it to your deadliest enemy.

I am sorry to give you such a two-edged thing, but I can't say what turn things are

going to take. Kindly sign the paper where Mr. Fordham

shows you.'

"I signed the paper as directed, and the lawyer took it away with him.

The singular incident made, as you may think, the deepest impression upon me, and

I pondered over it and turned it every way in my mind without being able to make

anything of it.

Yet I could not shake off the vague feeling of dread which it left behind, though the

sensation grew less keen as the weeks passed and nothing happened to disturb the

usual routine of our lives.

I could see a change in my uncle, however. He drank more than ever, and he was less

inclined for any sort of society.

Most of his time he would spend in his room, with the door locked upon the inside,

but sometimes he would emerge in a sort of drunken frenzy and would burst out of the

house and tear about the garden with a

revolver in his hand, screaming out that he was afraid of no man, and that he was not

to be cooped up, like a sheep in a pen, by man or devil.

When these hot fits were over, however, he would rush tumultuously in at the door and

lock and bar it behind him, like a man who can brazen it out no longer against the

terror which lies at the roots of his soul.

At such times I have seen his face, even on a cold day, glisten with moisture, as

though it were new raised from a basin.

"Well, to come to an end of the matter, Mr. Holmes, and not to abuse your patience,

there came a night when he made one of those drunken sallies from which he never

came back.

We found him, when we went to search for him, face downward in a little green-

scummed pool, which lay at the foot of the garden.

There was no sign of any violence, and the water was but two feet deep, so that the

jury, having regard to his known eccentricity, brought in a verdict of

'suicide.'

But I, who knew how he winced from the very thought of death, had much ado to persuade

myself that he had gone out of his way to meet it.

The matter passed, however, and my father entered into possession of the estate, and

of some 14,000 pounds, which lay to his credit at the bank."

"One moment," Holmes interposed, "your statement is, I foresee, one of the most

remarkable to which I have ever listened.

Let me have the date of the reception by your uncle of the letter, and the date of

his supposed suicide." "The letter arrived on March 10, 1883.

His death was seven weeks later, upon the night of May 2nd."

"Thank you. Pray proceed."

"When my father took over the Horsham property, he, at my request, made a careful