The Complete Sherlock Holmes

friend. Afterwards he read the Daily Herald. In a
special column put in at the last moment he read:
Outrage at the herald office —
Editor seriously injured
It was a short account of the facts with which he
was himself more familiar than the writer could
have been. It ended with the statement:
The matter is now in the hands of the police;
but it can hardly be hoped that their
exertions will be attended by any better results
than in the past. Some of the men
were recognized, and there is hope that a
conviction may be obtained. The source
of the outrage was, it need hardly be said,
that infamous society which has held this
community in bondage for so long a period,
and against which the Herald has
taken so uncompromising a stand. Mr.
Stanger’s many friends will rejoice to hear
that, though he has been cruelly and brutally
beaten, and though he has sustained
severe injuries about the head, there is no
immediate danger to his life.
Below it stated that a guard of police, armed with
Winchester rifles, had been requisitioned for the
defense of the office.
McMurdo had laid down the paper, and was
lighting his pipe with a hand which was shaky
from the excesses of the previous evening, when
there was a knock outside, and his landlady
brought to him a note which had just been handed
in by a lad. It was unsigned, and ran thus:
I should wish to speak to you, but
would rather not do so in your house.
You will find me beside the flagstaff
upon Miller Hill. If you will come there
now, I have something which it is important
for you to hear and for me to
say.
McMurdo read the note twice with the utmost
surprise; for he could not imagine what it meant
or who was the author of it. Had it been in a feminine
hand, he might have imagined that it was the
beginning of one of those adventures which had
been familiar enough in his past life. But it was
the writing of a man, and of a well educated one,
too. Finally, after some hesitation, he determined
to see the matter through.
Miller Hill is an ill-kept public park in the very
centre of the town. In summer it is a favourite
resort of the people; but in winter it is desolate
enough. From the top of it one has a view not only
of the whole straggling, grimy town, but of the
The Valley Of Fear
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winding valley beneath, with its scattered mines
and factories blackening the snow on each side of
it, and of the wooded and white-capped ranges
flanking it.
McMurdo strolled up the winding path hedged
in with evergreens until he reached the deserted
restaurant which forms the centre of summer gaiety.
Beside it was a bare flagstaff, and underneath
it a man, his hat drawn down and the collar of his
overcoat turned up. When he turned his face Mc-
Murdo saw that it was Brother Morris, he who had
incurred the anger of the Bodymaster the night before.
The lodge sign was given and exchanged as
they met.
“I wanted to have a word with you, Mr. Mc-
Murdo,” said the older man, speaking with a
hesitation which showed that he was on delicate
ground. “It was kind of you to come.”
“Why did you not put your name to the note?”
“One has to be cautious, mister. One never
knows in times like these how a thing may come
back to one. One never knows either who to trust
or who not to trust.”
“Surely one may trust brothers of the lodge.”
“No, no, not always,” cried Morris with vehemence.
“Whatever we say, even what we think,
seems to go back to that man McGinty.”
“Look here!” said McMurdo sternly. “It was
only last night, as you know well, that I swore
good faith to our Bodymaster. Would you be asking
me to break my oath?”
“If that is the view you take,” said Morris sadly,
“I can only say that I am sorry I gave you the trouble
to come and meet me. Things have come to a
bad pass when two free citizens cannot speak their
thoughts to each other.”
McMurdo, who had been watching his companion
very narrowly, relaxed somewhat in his
bearing. “Sure I spoke for myself only,” said he.
“I am a newcomer, as you know, and I am strange
to it all. It is not for me to open my mouth, Mr.
Morris, and if you think well to say anything to
me I am here to hear it.”
“And to take it back to Boss McGinty!” said
Morris bitterly.
“Indeed, then, you do me injustice there,” cried
McMurdo. “For myself I am loyal to the lodge, and
so I tell you straight; but I would be a poor creature
if I were to repeat to any other what you might say
to me in confidence. It will go no further than me;
though I warn you that you may get neither help
nor sympathy.”
“I have given up looking for either the one or
the other,” said Morris. “I may be putting my very