The Complete Sherlock Holmes

Ted Baldwin looked at McMurdo with eyes
which showed that he had not forgotten nor forgiven.
“Well, he can come if he wants,” he said in
a surly voice. “That’s enough. The sooner we get
to work the better.”
The company broke up with shouts and yells
and snatches of drunken song. The bar was still
crowded with revellers, and many of the brethren
remained there. The little band who had been told
off for duty passed out into the street, proceeding
in twos and threes along the sidewalk so as not
to provoke attention. It was a bitterly cold night,
with a half-moon shining brilliantly in a frosty,
star-spangled sky. The men stopped and gathered
in a yard which faced a high building. The words
“Vermissa Herald” were printed in gold lettering
between the brightly lit windows. From within
came the clanking of the printing press.
“Here, you,” said Baldwin to McMurdo, “you
can stand below at the door and see that the road
is kept open for us. Arthur Willaby can stay with
you. You others come with me. Have no fears,
boys; for we have a dozen witnesses that we are in
the Union Bar at this very moment.”
It was nearly midnight, and the street was deserted
save for one or two revellers upon their way
home. The party crossed the road, and, pushing
open the door of the newspaper office, Baldwin
and his men rushed in and up the stair which
faced them. McMurdo and another remained below.
From the room above came a shout, a cry for
help, and then the sound of trampling feet and of
falling chairs. An instant later a gray-haired man
rushed out on the landing.
He was seized before he could get farther, and
his spectacles came tinkling down to McMurdo’s
feet. There was a thud and a groan. He was on
his face, and half a dozen sticks were clattering together
as they fell upon him. He writhed, and his
When McMurdo awoke next morning he had
good reason to remember his initiation into the
lodge. His head ached with the effect of the drink,
and his arm, where he had been branded, was hot
The Valley Of Fear
CHAPTER IV.
The Valley of Fear
718
long, thin limbs quivered under the blows. The
others ceased at last; but Baldwin, his cruel face
set in an infernal smile, was hacking at the man’s
head, which he vainly endeavoured to defend with
his arms. His white hair was dabbled with patches
of blood. Baldwin was still stooping over his victim,
putting in a short, vicious blow whenever he
could see a part exposed, when McMurdo dashed
up the stair and pushed him back.
“You’ll kill the man,” said he. “Drop it!”
Baldwin looked at him in amazement. “Curse
you!” he cried. “Who are you to interfere—you
that are new to the lodge? Stand back!” He raised
his stick; but McMurdo had whipped his pistol out
of his hip pocket.
“Stand back yourself!” he cried. “I’ll blow your
face in if you lay a hand on me. As to the lodge,
wasn’t it the order of the Bodymaster that the man
was not to be killed—and what are you doing but
killing him?”
“It’s truth he says,” remarked one of the men.
“By Gar! you’d best hurry yourselves!” cried
the man below. “The windows are all lighting up,
and you’ll have the whole town here inside of five
minutes.”
There was indeed the sound of shouting in the
street, and a little group of compositors and pressmen
was forming in the hall below and nerving
itself to action. Leaving the limp and motionless
body of the editor at the head of the stair,
the criminals rushed down and made their way
swiftly along the street. Having reached the Union
House, some of them mixed with the crowd in
McGinty’s saloon, whispering across the bar to the
Boss that the job had been well carried through.
Others, and among them McMurdo, broke away
into side streets, and so by devious paths to their
own homes.
and swollen. Having his own peculiar source of
income, he was irregular in his attendance at his
work; so he had a late breakfast, and remained at
home for the morning writing a long letter to a