He had told me that no soul upon earth knew where he had gone. There seemed to be no necessity why any soul ever should know.
04_055
««I was still pondering over the matter, when, looking up, I saw my servant, Lal Chowdar, in the doorway. He stole in and bolted the door behind him. «Do not fear, Sahib,» he said. «No one need know that you have killed him. Let us hide him away, and who is the wiser?» «I did not kill him,» said I.
04_056
Lal Chowdar shook his head and smiled. «I heard it all, Sahib,» said he. «I heard you quarrel, and I heard the blow. But my lips are sealed. All are asleep in the house. Let us put him away together.» That was enough to decide me.
04_057
If my own servant could not believe my innocence, how could I hope to make it good before twelve foolish tradesmen in a jury-box? Lal Chowdar and I disposed of the body that night, and within a few days the London papers were full of the mysterious disappearance of Captain Morstan.
04_058
You will see from what I say that I can hardly be blamed in the matter. My fault lies in the fact that we concealed not only the body, but also the treasure, and that I have clung to Morstan’s share as well as to my own. I wish you, therefore, to make restitution.
04_059
Put your ears down to my mouth. The treasure is hidden in – » At this instant a horrible change came over his expression; his eyes stared wildly, his jaw dropped, and he yelled, in a voice which I can never forget, «Keep him out! For Christ’s sake keep him out!»
04_060
We both stared round at the window behind us upon which his gaze was fixed. A face was looking in at us out of the darkness. We could see the whitening of the nose where it was pressed against the glass. It was a bearded, hairy face, with wild cruel eyes and an expression of concentrated malevolence.
04_061
My brother and I rushed towards the window, but the man was gone. When we returned to my father his head had dropped and his pulse had ceased to beat.
04_062
«We searched the garden that night, but found no sign of the intruder, save that just under the window a single footmark was visible in the flower-bed. But for that one trace, we might have thought that our imaginations had conjured up that wild, fierce face.
04_063
We soon, however, had another and a more striking proof that there were secret agencies at work all round us.
04_064
The window of my father’s room was found open in the morning, his cupboards and boxes had been rifled, and upon his chest was fixed a torn piece of paper, with the words «The sign of the four’ scrawled across it. What the phrase meant, or who our secret visitor may have been, we never knew.
04_065
As far as we can judge, none of my father’s property had been actually stolen, though everything had been turned out. My brother and I naturally associated this peculiar incident with the fear which haunted my father during his life; but it is still a complete mystery to us.»
04_066
The little man stopped to relight his hookah and puffed thoughtfully for a few moments. We had all sat absorbed, listening to his extraordinary narrative. At the short account of her father’s death Miss Morstan had turned deadly white, and for a moment I feared that she was about to faint.
04_067
She rallied however, on drinking a glass of water which I quietly poured out for her from a Venetian carafe upon the side-table. Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his chair with an abstracted expression and the lids drawn low over his glittering eyes.
