2 Murder at Pondicherry Lodge

Chapter 2 Murder at Pondicherry Lodge Pondicherry Lodge was a vast, gloomy house surrounded by a high stone wall. The porter, Mr. McMurdo, let us in. We found the housekeeper, Mrs. Bernstone, in a state of distress and very relieved to see us. "Master has locked himself in his room all day, Mr. Thaddeus, sir. You must go up and see what's wrong." Leaving Miss Morstan to comfort Mrs. Bernstone, we went upstairs. Holmes knocked on Bartholomew's door but received no response. The door was bolted on the inside, so Holmes and I flung ourselves against it. On our second attempt, it gave way with a loud crack, and we fell into the room.

Bartholomew was seated in an armchair, a grin frozen on his face. He was stiff and cold and had clearly been dead for many hours. On the table next to him was a torn sheet of paper. Scrawled on it were the words, "The sign of four." "What does it mean?" I asked. Peering more closely at the dead man, Holmes pulled out a long, dark thorn stuck in his skin just above the ear. "It means murder," he said, examining the thorn. "This is poison-tipped." Thaddeus stared at his brother in horror. Then he noticed something else. "The treasure is gone!" he said.

He pointed to a set of steps positioned beneath a hole smashed through the ceiling. "There's the hole through which we lowered it yesterday. It was here when I left him last night. I heard him bolt the door as I departed." "What time was that?" "Ten o'clock. And now he's dead, and the police will think I was responsible." "You need not fear, Mr. Sholto," said Holmes. "Drive down to the police station and report what's happened. We shall wait here until you return." Thaddeus, half in a daze, nodded and left. "Now, Watson," said Holmes, "how do you suppose these intruders got in? The door hasn't been opened since last night." Holmes went to

examine the window, which was locked on the inside. He opened it. "No waterpipe or any footholds for a climber, yet someone got in this way. Luckily, it rained a little last night, for they've left a muddy trail." He pointed out a footprint on the sill, and next to it a circular mark. Similar impressions continued into the room. I studied the round marks. "This isn't a footprint," I said. "No, it's the impression made by a wooden stump," said Holmes. "The wooden-legged man!"

"Quite so. And someone else must have been with him because he couldn't have scaled that wall alone." Holmes pointed out a coil of rope on the floor. "That rope was lowered to him, and that's how he climbed up." "But how did his companion get up here?" Holmes pointed to the hole in the ceiling. "He came from the roof. Let's go and investigate." Using the steps, we hoisted ourselves into the tiny room above. A trapdoor led from here out onto the roof. In the dust on the rafters, we found several small footprints leading from the trapdoor. They were sticky and black as if made from some kind of tar. "Creosote," said Holmes, bending to sniff it. "It's used to preserve wood. The intruder must have trodden in some at some point."

Back in the room below, Holmes found more of these small footprints, also black and sticky. He looked at the position of the body and the hole in the ceiling. "The thorn," he said, "was in a vertical position, as if it had dropped from that hole."