The Complete Sherlock Holmes

life in your hands by what I say; but, bad as you
are—and it seemed to me last night that you were
shaping to be as bad as the worst—still you are
new to it, and your conscience cannot yet be as
hardened as theirs. That was why I thought to
speak with you.”
“Well, what have you to say?”
“If you give me away, may a curse be on you!”
“Sure, I said I would not.”
“I would ask you, then, when you joined the
Freeman’s society in Chicago and swore vows of
charity and fidelity, did ever it cross your mind
that you might find it would lead you to crime?”
“If you call it crime,” McMurdo answered.
“Call it crime!” cried Morris, his voice vibrating
with passion. “You have seen little of it if you can
call it anything else. Was it crime last night when
a man old enough to be your father was beaten till
the blood dripped from his white hairs? Was that
crime—or what else would you call it?”
“There are some would say it was war,” said
McMurdo, “a war of two classes with all in, so
that each struck as best it could.”
“Well, did you think of such a thing when you
joined the Freeman’s society at Chicago?”
“No, I’m bound to say I did not.”
“Nor did I when I joined it at Philadelphia. It
was just a benefit club and a meeting place for
one’s fellows. Then I heard of this place—curse the
hour that the name first fell upon my ears!—and I
came to better myself! My God! to better myself!
My wife and three children came with me. I
started a dry goods store on Market Square, and I
prospered well. The word had gone round that I
was a Freeman, and I was forced to join the local
lodge, same as you did last night. I’ve the badge
of shame on my forearm and something worse
branded on my heart. I found that I was under
the orders of a black villain and caught in a meshwork
of crime. What could I do? Every word I said
to make things better was taken as treason, same
as it was last night. I can’t get away; for all I have
in the world is in my store. If I leave the society,
I know well that it means murder to me, and God
knows what to my wife and children. Oh, man,
it is awful—awful!” He put his hands to his face,
and his body shook with convulsive sobs.
McMurdo shrugged his shoulders. “You were
too soft for the job,” said he. “You are the wrong
sort for such work.”
“I had a conscience and a religion; but they
made me a criminal among them. I was chosen for
The Valley Of Fear
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a job. If I backed down I knew well what would
come to me. Maybe I’m a coward. Maybe it’s the
thought of my poor little woman and the children
that makes me one. Anyhow I went. I guess it will
haunt me forever.
“It was a lonely house, twenty miles from here,
over the range yonder. I was told off for the door,
same as you were last night. They could not trust
me with the job. The others went in. When they
came out their hands were crimson to the wrists.
As we turned away a child was screaming out of
the house behind us. It was a boy of five who had
seen his father murdered. I nearly fainted with
the horror of it, and yet I had to keep a bold and
smiling face; for well I knew that if I did not it
would be out of my house that they would come
next with their bloody hands and it would be my
little Fred that would be screaming for his father.
“But I was a criminal then, part sharer in a murder,
lost forever in this world, and lost also in the
next. I am a good Catholic; but the priest would
have no word with me when he heard I was a
Scowrer, and I am excommunicated from my faith.
That’s how it stands with me. And I see you going
down the same road, and I ask you what the
end is to be. Are you ready to be a cold-blooded
murderer also, or can we do anything to stop it?”
“What would you do?” asked McMurdo
abruptly. “You would not inform?”
“God forbid!” cried Morris. “Sure, the very
thought would cost me my life.”
“That’s well,” said McMurdo. “I’m thinking
that you are a weak man and that you make too
much of the matter.”
“Too much! Wait till you have lived here longer.
Look down the valley! See the cloud of a hundred
chimneys that overshadows it! I tell you that
the cloud of murder hangs thicker and lower than
that over the heads of the people. It is the Valley
of Fear, the Valley of Death. The terror is in the
hearts of the people from the dusk to the dawn.
Wait, young man, and you will learn for yourself.”
“Well, I’ll let you know what I think when I
have seen more,” said McMurdo carelessly. “What
is very clear is that you are not the man for the
place, and that the sooner you sell out—if you
only get a dime a dollar for what the business is
worth—the better it will be for you. What you have
said is safe with me; but, by Gar! if I thought you
were an informer—”
“No, no!” cried Morris piteously.
“Well, let it rest at that. I’ll bear what you have
said in mind, and maybe some day I’ll come back