The Adventure of the Devil's Foot


By

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle




In recording from time to time some of the curious experiences and
interesting recollections which I associate with my long and intimate
friendship with Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I have continually been faced by
difficulties caused by his own aversion to publicity.  To his sombre
and cynical spirit all popular applause was always abhorrent, and
nothing amused him more at the end of a successful case than to hand
over the actual exposure to some orthodox official, and to listen with
a mocking smile to the general chorus of misplaced congratulation.  It
was indeed this attitude upon the part of my friend and certainly not
any lack of interesting material which has caused me of late years to
lay very few of my records before the public.  My participation in some
if his adventures was always a privilege which entailed discretion and
reticence upon me.

It was, then, with considerable surprise that I received a telegram
from Homes last Tuesday--he has never been known to write where a
telegram would serve--in the following terms:

Why not tell them of the Cornish horror--strangest case I have handled.

I have no idea what backward sweep of memory had brought the matter
fresh to his mind, or what freak had caused him to desire that I should
recount it; but I hasten, before another cancelling telegram may
arrive, to hunt out the notes which give me the exact details of the
case and to lay the narrative before my readers.

It was, then, in the spring of the year 1897 that Holmes's iron
constitution showed some symptoms of giving way in the face of constant
hard work of a most exacting kind, aggravated, perhaps, by occasional
indiscretions of his own.  In March of that year Dr. Moore Agar, of
Harley Street, whose dramatic introduction to Holmes I may some day
recount, gave positive injunctions that the famous private agent lay
aside all his cases and surrender himself to complete rest if he wished
to avert an absolute breakdown.  The state of his health was not a
matter in which he himself took the faintest interest, for his mental
detachment was absolute, but he was induced at last, on the threat of
being permanently disqualified from work, to give himself a complete
change of scene and air.  Thus it was that in the early spring of that
year we found ourselves together in a small cottage near Poldhu Bay, at
the further extremity of the Cornish peninsula.

It was a singular spot, and one peculiarly well suited to the grim
humour of my patient.  From the windows of our little whitewashed
house, which stood high upon a grassy headland, we looked down upon the
whole sinister semicircle of Mounts Bay, that old death trap of sailing
vessels, with its fringe of black cliffs and surge-swept reefs on which
innumerable seamen have met their end.  With a northerly breeze it lies
placid and sheltered, inviting the storm-tossed craft to tack into it
for rest and protection.

Then come the sudden swirl round of the wind, the blistering gale from
the south-west, the dragging anchor, the lee shore, and the last battle
in the creaming breakers.  The wise mariner stands far out from that
evil place.

On the land side our surroundings were as sombre as on the sea. It was
a country of rolling moors, lonely and dun-colored, with an occasional
church tower to mark the site of some old-world village.  In every
direction upon these moors there were traces of some vanished race
which had passed utterly away, and left as it sole record strange
monuments of stone, irregular mounds which contained the burned ashes
of the dead, and curious earthworks which hinted at prehistoric strife.
The glamour and mystery of the place, with its sinister atmosphere of
forgotten nations, appealed to the imagination of my friend, and he
spent much of his time in long walks and solitary meditations upon the
moor. The ancient Cornish language had also arrested his attention, and
he had, I remember, conceived the idea that it was akin to the
Chaldean, and had been largely derived from the Phoenician traders in
tin.  He had received a consignment of books upon philology and was
settling down to develop this thesis when suddenly, to my sorrow and to
his unfeigned delight, we found ourselves, even in that land of dreams,
plunged into a problem at our very doors which was more intense, more
engrossing, and infinitely more mysterious than any of those which had
driven us from London.  Our simple life and peaceful, healthy routine
were violently interrupted, and we were precipitated into the midst of
a series of events which caused the utmost excitement not only in
Cornwall but throughout the whole west of England. Many of my readers
may retain some recollection of what was called at the time "The
Cornish Horror," though a most imperfect account of the matter reached
the London press. Now, after thirteen years, I will give the true
details of this inconceivable affair to the public.

I have said that scattered towers marked the villages which dotted this
part of Cornwall.  The nearest of these was the hamlet of Tredannick
Wollas, where the cottages of a couple of hundred inhabitants clustered
round an ancient, moss-grown church.  The vicar of the parish, Mr.
Roundhay, was something of an archaeologist, and as such Holmes had
made his acquaintance. He was a middle-aged man, portly and affable,
with a considerable fund of local lore.  At his invitation we had taken
tea at the vicarage and had come to know, also, Mr. Mortimer Tregennis,
an independent gentleman, who increased the clergyman's scanty
resources by taking rooms in his large, straggling house.  The vicar,
being a bachelor, was glad to come to such an arrangement, though he
had little in common with his lodger, who was a thin, dark, spectacled
man, with a stoop which gave the impression of actual, physical
deformity.  I remember that during our short visit we found the vicar
garrulous, but his lodger strangely reticent, a sad-faced,
introspective man, sitting with averted eyes, brooding apparently upon
his own affairs.

These were the two men who entered abruptly into our little
sitting-room on Tuesday, March the 16th, shortly after our breakfast
hour, as we were smoking together, preparatory to our daily excursion
upon the moors.

"Mr. Holmes," said the vicar in an agitated voice, "the most
extraordinary and tragic affair has occurred during the night. It is
the most unheard-of business.  We can only regard it as a special
Providence that you should chance to be here at the time, for in all
England you are the one man we need."

I glared at the intrusive vicar with no very friendly eyes; but Holmes
took his pipe from his lips and sat up in his chair like an old hound
who hears the view-halloa.  He waved his hand to the sofa, and our
palpitating visitor with his agitated companion sat side by side upon
it.  Mr. Mortimer Tregennis was more self-contained than the clergyman,
but the twitching of his thin hands and the brightness of his dark eyes
showed that they shared a common emotion.

"Shall I speak or you?" he asked of the vicar.

"Well, as you seem to have made the discovery, whatever it may be, and
the vicar to have had it second-hand, perhaps you had better do the
speaking," said Holmes.

I glanced at the hastily clad clergyman, with the formally dressed
lodger seated beside him, and was amused at the surprise which Holmes's
simple deduction had brought to their faces.

"Perhaps I had best say a few words first," said the vicar, "and then
you can judge if you will listen to the details from Mr. Tregennis, or
whether we should not hasten at once to the scene of this mysterious
affair.  I may explain, then, that our friend here spent last evening
in the company of his two brothers, Owen and George, and of his sister
Brenda, at their house of Tredannick Wartha, which is near the old
stone cross upon the moor.  He left them shortly after ten o'clock,
playing cards round the dining-room table, in excellent health and
spirits. This morning, being an early riser, he walked in that
direction before breakfast and was overtaken by the carriage of Dr.
Richards, who explained that he had just been sent for on a most urgent
call to Tredannick Wartha.  Mr. Mortimer Tregennis naturally went with
him.  When he arrived at Tredannick Wartha he found an extraordinary
state of things.  His two brothers and his sister were seated round the
table exactly as he had left them, the cards still spread in front of
them and the candles burned down to their sockets.  The sister lay back
stone-dead in her chair, while the two brothers sat on each side of her
laughing, shouting, and singing, the senses stricken clean out of them.
All three of them, the dead woman and the two demented men, retained
upon their faces an expression of the utmost horror--a convulsion of
terror which was dreadful to look upon.  There was no sign of the
presence of anyone in the house, except Mrs. Porter, the old cook and
housekeeper, who declared that she had slept deeply and heard no sound
during the night.  Nothing had been stolen or disarranged, and there is
absolutely no explanation of what the horror can be which has
frightened a woman to death and two strong men out of their senses.
There is the situation, Mr. Holmes, in a nutshell, and if you can help
us to clear it up you will have done a great work."

I had hoped that in some way I could coax my companion back into the
quiet which had been the object of our journey; but one glance at his
intense face and contracted eyebrows told me how vain was now the
expectation.  He sat for some little time in silence, absorbed in the
strange drama which had broken in upon our peace.

"I will look into this matter," he said at last.  "On the face of it,
it would appear to be a case of a very exceptional nature. Have you
been there yourself, Mr. Roundhay?"

"No, Mr. Holmes.  Mr. Tregennis brought back the account to the
vicarage, and I at once hurried over with him to consult you."

"How far is it to the house where this singular tragedy occurred?"

"About a mile inland."

"Then we shall walk over together.  But before we start I must ask you
a few questions, Mr. Mortimer Tregennis."

The other had been silent all this time, but I had observed that his
more controlled excitement was even greater than the obtrusive emotion
of the clergyman.  He sat with a pale, drawn face, his anxious gaze
fixed upon Holmes, and his thin hands clasped convulsively together.
His pale lips quivered as he listened to the dreadful experience which
had befallen his family, and his dark eyes seemed to reflect something
of the horror of the scene.

"Ask what you like, Mr. Holmes," said he eagerly.  "It is a bad thing
to speak of, but I will answer you the truth."

"Tell me about last night."

"Well, Mr. Holmes, I supped there, as the vicar has said, and my elder
brother George proposed a game of whist afterwards.  We sat down about
nine o'clock.  It was a quarter-past ten when I moved to go.  I left
them all round the table, as merry as could be."

"Who let you out?"

"Mrs. Porter had gone to bed, so I let myself out.  I shut the hall
door behind me.  The window of the room in which they sat was closed,
but the blind was not drawn down.  There was no change in door or
window this morning, or any reason to think that any stranger had been
to the house.  Yet there they sat, driven clean mad with terror, and
Brenda lying dead of fright, with her head hanging over the arm of the
chair.  I'll never get the sight of that room out of my mind so long as
I live."

"The facts, as you state them, are certainly most remarkable," said
Holmes.  "I take it that you have no theory yourself which can in any
way account for them?"

"It's devilish, Mr. Holmes, devilish!" cried Mortimer Tregennis. "It is
not of this world.  Something has come into that room which has dashed
the light of reason from their minds.  What human contrivance could do
that?"

"I fear," said Holmes, "that if the matter is beyond humanity it is
certainly beyond me.  Yet we must exhaust all natural explanations
before we fall back upon such a theory as this.  As to yourself, Mr.
Tregennis, I take it you were divided in some way from your family,
since they lived together and you had rooms apart?"

"That is so, Mr. Holmes, though the matter is past and done with. We
were a family of tin-miners at Redruth, but we sold our venture to a
company, and so retired with enough to keep us.  I won't deny that
there was some feeling about the division of the money and it stood
between us for a time, but it was all forgiven and forgotten, and we
were the best of friends together."

"Looking back at the evening which you spent together, does anything
stand out in your memory as throwing any possible light upon the
tragedy?  Think carefully, Mr. Tregennis, for any clue which can help
me."

"There is nothing at all, sir."

"Your people were in their usual spirits?"

"Never better."

"Were they nervous people?  Did they ever show any apprehension of
coming danger?"

"Nothing of the kind."

"You have nothing to add then, which could assist me?"

Mortimer Tregennis considered earnestly for a moment.

"There is one thing occurs to me," said he at last.  "As we sat at the
table my back was to the window, and my brother George, he being my
partner at cards, was facing it.  I saw him once look hard over my
shoulder, so I turned round and looked also.  The blind was up and the
window shut, but I could just make out the bushes on the lawn, and it
seemed to me for a moment that I saw something moving among them.  I
couldn't even say if it was man or animal, but I just thought there was
something there.  When I asked him what he was looking at, he told me
that he had the same feeling.  That is all that I can say."

"Did you not investigate?"

"No; the matter passed as unimportant."

"You left them, then, without any premonition of evil?"

"None at all."

"I am not clear how you came to hear the news so early this morning."

"I am an early riser and generally take a walk before breakfast. This
morning I had hardly started when the doctor in his carriage overtook
me.  He told me that old Mrs. Porter had sent a boy down with an urgent
message.  I sprang in beside him and we drove on. When we got there we
looked into that dreadful room.  The candles and the fire must have
burned out hours before, and they had been sitting there in the dark
until dawn had broken.  The doctor said Brenda must have been dead at
least six hours.  There were no signs of violence.  She just lay across
the arm of the chair with that look on her face.  George and Owen were
singing snatches of songs and gibbering like two great apes.  Oh, it
was awful to see!  I couldn't stand it, and the doctor was as white as
a sheet.  Indeed, he fell into a chair in a sort of faint, and we
nearly had him on our hands as well."

"Remarkable--most remarkable!" said Holmes, rising and taking his hat.
"I think, perhaps, we had better go down to Tredannick Wartha without
further delay.  I confess that I have seldom known a case which at
first sight presented a more singular problem."


Our proceedings of that first morning did little to advance the
investigation.  It was marked, however, at the outset by an incident
which left the most sinister impression upon my mind. The approach to
the spot at which the tragedy occurred is down a narrow, winding,
country lane.  While we made our way along it we heard the rattle of a
carriage coming towards us and stood aside to let it pass.  As it drove
by us I caught a glimpse through the closed window of a horribly
contorted, grinning face glaring out at us.  Those staring eyes and
gnashing teeth flashed past us like a dreadful vision.

"My brothers!" cried Mortimer Tregennis, white to his lips. "They are
taking them to Helston."

We looked with horror after the black carriage, lumbering upon its way.
Then we turned our steps towards this ill-omened house in which they
had met their strange fate.

It was a large and bright dwelling, rather a villa than a cottage, with
a considerable garden which was already, in that Cornish air, well
filled with spring flowers.  Towards this garden the window of the
sitting-room fronted, and from it, according to Mortimer Tregennis,
must have come that thing of evil which had by sheer horror in a single
instant blasted their minds.  Holmes walked slowly and thoughtfully
among the flower-plots and along the path before we entered the porch.
So absorbed was he in his thoughts, I remember, that he stumbled over
the watering-pot, upset its contents, and deluged both our feet and the
garden path.  Inside the house we were met by the elderly Cornish
housekeeper, Mrs. Porter, who, with the aid of a young girl, looked
after the wants of the family.  She readily answered all Holmes's
questions.  She had heard nothing in the night.  Her employers had all
been in excellent spirits lately, and she had never known them more
cheerful and prosperous.  She had fainted with horror upon entering the
room in the morning and seeing that dreadful company round the table.
She had, when she recovered, thrown open the window to let the morning
air in, and had run down to the lane, whence she sent a farm-lad for
the doctor.  The lady was on her bed upstairs if we cared to see her.
It took four strong men to get the brothers into the asylum carriage.
She would not herself stay in the house another day and was starting
that very afternoon to rejoin her family at St. Ives.

We ascended the stairs and viewed the body.  Miss Brenda Tregennis had
been a very beautiful girl, though now verging upon middle age.  Her
dark, clear-cut face was handsome, even in death, but there still
lingered upon it something of that convulsion of horror which had been
her last human emotion.  From her bedroom we descended to the
sitting-room, where this strange tragedy had actually occurred.  The
charred ashes of the overnight fire lay in the grate.  On the table
were the four guttered and burned-out candles, with the cards scattered
over its surface.  The chairs had been moved back against the walls,
but all else was as it had been the night before.  Holmes paced with
light, swift steps about the room; he sat in the various chairs,
drawing them up and reconstructing their positions.  He tested how much
of the garden was visible; he examined the floor, the ceiling, and the
fireplace; but never once did I see that sudden brightening of his eyes
and tightening of his lips which would have told me that he saw some
gleam of light in this utter darkness.

"Why a fire?" he asked once.  "Had they always a fire in this small
room on a spring evening?"

Mortimer Tregennis explained that the night was cold and damp. For that
reason, after his arrival, the fire was lit.  "What are you going to do
now, Mr. Holmes?" he asked.

My friend smiled and laid his hand upon my arm.  "I think, Watson, that
I shall resume that course of tobacco-poisoning which you have so often
and so justly condemned," said he.  "With your permission, gentlemen,
we will now return to our cottage, for I am not aware that any new
factor is likely to come to our notice here.  I will turn the facts
over in my mind, Mr. Tregennis, and should anything occur to me I will
certainly communicate with you and the vicar.  In the meantime I wish
you both good-morning."

It was not until long after we were back in Poldhu Cottage that Holmes
broke his complete and absorbed silence.  He sat coiled in his
armchair, his haggard and ascetic face hardly visible amid the blue
swirl of his tobacco smoke, his black brows drawn down, his forehead
contracted, his eyes vacant and far away.  Finally he laid down his
pipe and sprang to his feet.

"It won't do, Watson!" said he with a laugh.  "Let us walk along the
cliffs together and search for flint arrows.  We are more likely to
find them than clues to this problem.  To let the brain work without
sufficient material is like racing an engine.  It racks itself to
pieces.  The sea air, sunshine, and patience, Watson--all else will
come.

"Now, let us calmly define our position, Watson," he continued as we
skirted the cliffs together.  "Let us get a firm grip of the very
little which we DO know, so that when fresh facts arise we may be ready
to fit them into their places.  I take it, in the first place, that
neither of us is prepared to admit diabolical intrusions into the
affairs of men.  Let us begin by ruling that entirely out of our minds.
Very good.  There remain three persons who have been grievously
stricken by some conscious or unconscious human agency.  That is firm
ground.  Now, when did this occur?  Evidently, assuming his narrative
to be true, it was immediately after Mr. Mortimer Tregennis had left
the room.  That is a very important point.  The presumption is that it
was within a few minutes afterwards.  The cards still lay upon the
table. It was already past their usual hour for bed.  Yet they had not
changed their position or pushed back their chairs.  I repeat, then,
that the occurrence was immediately after his departure, and not later
than eleven o'clock last night.

"Our next obvious step is to check, so far as we can, the movements of
Mortimer Tregennis after he left the room.  In this there is no
difficulty, and they seem to be above suspicion. Knowing my methods as
you do, you were, of course, conscious of the somewhat clumsy water-pot
expedient by which I obtained a clearer impress of his foot than might
otherwise have been possible.  The wet, sandy path took it admirably.
Last night was also wet, you will remember, and it was not
difficult--having obtained a sample print--to pick out his track among
others and to follow his movements.  He appears to have walked away
swiftly in the direction of the vicarage.

"If, then, Mortimer Tregennis disappeared from the scene, and yet some
outside person affected the card-players, how can we reconstruct that
person, and how was such an impression of horror conveyed?  Mrs. Porter
may be eliminated.  She is evidently harmless.  Is there any evidence
that someone crept up to the garden window and in some manner produced
so terrific an effect that he drove those who saw it out of their
senses?  The only suggestion in this direction comes from Mortimer
Tregennis himself, who says that his brother spoke about some movement
in the garden.  That is certainly remarkable, as the night was rainy,
cloudy, and dark.  Anyone who had the design to alarm these people
would be compelled to place his very face against the glass before he
could be seen.  There is a three-foot flower-border outside this
window, but no indication of a footmark.  It is difficult to imagine,
then, how an outsider could have made so terrible an impression upon
the company, nor have we found any possible motive for so strange and
elaborate an attempt.  You perceive our difficulties, Watson?"

"They are only too clear," I answered with conviction.

"And yet, with a little more material, we may prove that they are not
insurmountable," said Holmes.  "I fancy that among your extensive
archives, Watson, you may find some which were nearly as obscure.
Meanwhile, we shall put the case aside until more accurate data are
available, and devote the rest of our morning to the pursuit of
neolithic man."

I may have commented upon my friend's power of mental detachment, but
never have I wondered at it more than upon that spring morning in
Cornwall when for two hours he discoursed upon celts, arrowheads, and
shards, as lightly as if no sinister mystery were waiting for his
solution.  It was not until we had returned in the afternoon to our
cottage that we found a visitor awaiting us, who soon brought our minds
back to the matter in hand.  Neither of us needed to be told who that
visitor was.  The huge body, the craggy and deeply seamed face with the
fierce eyes and hawk-like nose, the grizzled hair which nearly brushed
our cottage ceiling, the beard--golden at the fringes and white near
the lips, save for the nicotine stain from his perpetual cigar--all
these were as well known in London as in Africa, and could only be
associated with the tremendous personality of Dr. Leon Sterndale, the
great lion-hunter and explorer.

We had heard of his presence in the district and had once or twice
caught sight of his tall figure upon the moorland paths. He made no
advances to us, however, nor would we have dreamed of doing so to him,
as it was well known that it was his love of seclusion which caused him
to spend the greater part of the intervals between his journeys in a
small bungalow buried in the lonely wood of Beauchamp Arriance.  Here,
amid his books and his maps, he lived an absolutely lonely life,
attending to his own simple wants and paying little apparent heed to
the affairs of his neighbours.  It was a surprise to me, therefore, to
hear him asking Holmes in an eager voice whether he had made any
advance in his reconstruction of this mysterious episode.  "The county
police are utterly at fault," said he, "but perhaps your wider
experience has suggested some conceivable explanation.  My only claim
to being taken into your confidence is that during my many residences
here I have come to know this family of Tregennis very well--indeed,
upon my Cornish mother's side I could call them cousins--and their
strange fate has naturally been a great shock to me.  I may tell you
that I had got as far as Plymouth upon my way to Africa, but the news
reached me this morning, and I came straight back again to help in the
inquiry."

Holmes raised his eyebrows.

"Did you lose your boat through it?"

"I will take the next."

"Dear me! that is friendship indeed."

"I tell you they were relatives."

"Quite so--cousins of your mother.  Was your baggage aboard the ship?"

"Some of it, but the main part at the hotel."

"I see.  But surely this event could not have found its way into the
Plymouth morning papers."

"No, sir; I had a telegram."

"Might I ask from whom?"

A shadow passed over the gaunt face of the explorer.

"You are very inquisitive, Mr. Holmes."
