"In this sinister way I came into my inheritance. You will ask
me why I did not dispose of it? I answer, because I was well
convinced that our troubles were in some way dependent upon an
incident in my uncle's life, and that the danger would be as
pressing in one house as in another.

"It was in January, '85, that my poor father met his end, and
two years and eight months have elapsed since then. During that
time I have lived happily at Horsham, and I had begun to hope
that this curse had passed way from the family, and that it had
ended with the last generation. I had begun to take comfort too
soon, however; yesterday morning the blow fell in the very
shape in which it had come upon my father."

The young man took from his waistcoat a crumpled envelope,
and turning to the table he shook out upon it five little dried
orange pips.

"This is the envelope," he continued. "The postmark is
London -- eastern division. Within are the very words which
were upon my father's last message: 'K. K. K.'; and then 'Put
the papers on the sundial.' "
"What have you done?'' asked Holmes.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"To tell the truth" -- he sank his face into his thin, white
hands -- "I have felt helpless. I have felt like one of those poor
rabbits when the snake is writhing towards it. I seem to be in the
grasp of some resistless, inexorable evil, which no foresight and
no precautions can guard against."

"Tut! tut!" cried Sherlock Holmes. "You must act, man, or
you are lost. Nothing but energy can save you. This is no time
for despair."

"I have seen the police."

"Ah!"

"But they listened to my story with a smile. I am convinced
that the inspector has formed the opinion that the letters are all
practical jokes, and that the deaths of my relations were really
accidents, as the jury stated, and were not to be connected with
the warnings."

Holmes shook his clenched hands in the air. "Incredible
imbecility!" he cried.

"They have, however, allowed me a policeman, who may re-
main in the house with me."

"Has he come with you to-night?"

"No. His orders were to stay in the house."

Again Holmes raved in the air.

"Why did you come to me," he cried, "and, above all, why
did you not come at once?"

"I did not know. It was only to-day that I spoke to Major
Prendergast about my troubles and was advised by him to come
to you."

"It is really two days since you had the letter. We should have
acted before this. You have no further evidence, I suppose, than
that which you have placed before us -- no suggestive detail
which might help us?"

"There is one thing," said John Openshaw. He rummaged in
his coat pocket, and, drawing out a piece of discoloured, blue-
tinted paper, he laid it out upon the table. "I have some remem-
brance," said he, "that on the day when my uncle burned the
papers I observed that the small, unburned margins which lay
amid the ashes were of this particular colour. I found this single
sheet upon the floor of his room, and I am inclined to think that
it may be one of the papers which has, perhaps, fluttered out
from among the others, and in that way has escaped destruction.

Beyond the mention of pips, I do not see that it helps us much. I
think myself that it is a page from some private diary. The
writing is undoubtedly my uncle's."

Holmes moved the lamp, and we both bent over the sheet of
paper, which showed by its ragged edge that it had indeed been
torn from a book. It was headed, "March, 1869," and beneath
were the following enigmatical notices:

4th. Hudson came. Same old platform.

7th. Set the pips on McCauley, Paramore, and John Swain,
of St. Augustine.

9th. McCauley cleared.

1Oth. John Swain cleared.

12th. Visited Paramore. All well.

"Thank you!" said Holmes, folding up the paper and return-
ing it to our visitor. "And now you must on no account lose
another instant. We cannot spare time even to discuss what you
have told me. You must get home instantly and act."

"What shall I do?"

"There is but one thing to do. It must be done at once. You
must put this piece of paper which you have shown us into the
brass box which you have described. You must also put in a note
to say that all the other papers were burned by your uncle, and
that this is the only one which remains. You must assert that in
such words as will carry conviction with them. Having done
this, you must at once put the box out upon the sundial, as
directed. Do you understand?"

"Entirely."

"Do not think of revenge, or anything of the sort, at present. I
think that we may gain that by means of the law; but we have
our web to weave, while theirs is already woven. The first
consideration is to remove the pressing danger which threatens
you. The second is to clear up the mystery and to punish the
guilty parties."

"I thank you," said the young man, rising and pulling on his
overcoat. "You have given me fresh life and hope. I shall
certainly do as you advise."

"Do not lose an instant. And, above all, take care of yourself
in the meanwhile, for I do not think that there can be a doubt that
you are threatened by a very real and imminent danger. How do
you go back?

"By train from Waterloo."

"It is not yet nine. The streets will be crowded, so l trust that
you may be in safety. And yet you cannot guard yourself too
closely."

"I am armed."

"That is well. To-morrow I shall set to work upon your case."

"I shall see you at Horsham, then?"

"No, your secret lies in London. It is there that I shall seek
it."

"Then I shall call upon you in a day, or in two days, with
news as to the box and the papers. I shall take your advice in
every particular." He shook hands with us and took his leave.

Outside the wind still screamed and the rain splashed and pat-
tered against the windows. This strange, wild story seemed to
have come to us from amid the mad elements -- blown in upon us
like a sheet of sea-weed in a gale -- and now to have been
reabsorbed by them once more.

Sherlock Holmes sat for some time in silence, with his head
sunk forward and his eyes bent upon the red glow of the fire.

Then he lit his pipe, and leaning back in his chair he watched the
blue smoke-rings as they chased each other up to the ceiling.

"I think, Watson," he remarked at last, "that of all our cases
we have had none more fantastic than this."

"Save, perhaps, the Sign of Four."

"Well, yes. Save, perhaps, that. And yet this John Openshaw
seems to me to be walking amid even greater perils than did the
Sholtos."

"But have you," I asked, "formed any definite conception as
to what these perils are?"

"There can be no question as to their nature," he answered.

"Then what are they? Who is this K. K. K., and why does he
pursue this unhappy family?"

Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes and placed his elbows upon
the arms of his chair, with his finger-tips together. "The ideal
reasoner," he remarked, "would, when he had once been shown
a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the
chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which
would follow from it. As Cuvier could correctly describe a
whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the
observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of
incidents should be able to accurately state all the other ones,
both before and after. We have not yet grasped the results which
the reason alone can attain to. Problems may be solved in the
study which have baffled all those who have sought a solution by
the aid of their senses. To carry the art, however, to its highest
pitch, it is necessary that the reasoner should be able to utilize all
the facts which have come to his knowledge; and this in itself
implies, as you will readily see, a possession of all knowledge,
which, even in these days of free education and encyclopaedias,
is a somewhat rare accomplishment. It is not so impossible,
however, that a man should possess all knowledge which is
likely to be useful to him in his work, and this I have endeav-
oured in my case to do. If I remember rightly, you on one
occasion, in the early days of our friendship, defined my limits
in a very precise fashion."

"Yes," I answered, laughing. "It was a singular document.

Philosophy, astronomy, and politics were marked at zero, I
remember. Botany variable, geology profound as regards the
mud-stains from any region within fifty miles of town, chemistry
eccentric, anatomy unsystematic, sensational literature and crime
records unique, violin-player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and
self-poisoner by cocaine and tobacco. Those, I think, were the
main points of my analysis."

Holmes grinned at the last item. "Well," he said, "I say
now, as I said then, that a man should keep his little brain-attic
stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest
he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can
get it if he wants it. Now, for such a case as the one which has
been submitted to us to-night, we need certainly to muster all our
resources. Kindly hand me down the letter K of the American
Encyclopaedia which stands upon the shelf beside you. Thank
you. Now let us consider the situation and see what may be
deduced from it. In the first place, we may start with a strong
presumption that Colonel Openshaw had some very strong rea-
son for leaving America. Men at his time of life do not change
all their habits and exchange willingly the charming climate of
Florida for the lonely life of an English provincial town. His
extreme love of solitude in England suggests the idea that he was
in fear of someone or something, so we may assume as a
working hypothesis that it was fear of someone or something
which drove him from America. As to what it was he feared, we
can only deduce that by considering the formidable letters which
were received by himself and his successors. Did you remark the
postmarks of those letters?"

"The first was from Pondicherry, the second from Dundee,
and the third from London."

"From East London. What do you deduce from that?"

"They are all seaports. That the writer was on board of a
ship."

"Excellent. We have already a clue. There can be no doubt
that the probability -- the strong probability -- is that the writer
was on board of a ship. And now let us consider another point.

In the case of Pondicherry, seven weeks elapsed between the
threat and its fulfillment, in Dundee it was only some three or
four days. Does that suggest anything?"

"A greater distance to travel."

"But the letter had also a greater distance to come."

"Then I do not see the point."

"There is at least a presumption that the vessel in which the
man or men are is a sailing-ship. It looks as if they always seni
their singular warning or token before them when starting upon
their mission. You see how quickly the deed followed the sign
when it came from Dundee. If they had come from Pondicherry
in a steamer they would have arrived almost as soon as their
letter. But, as a matter of fact, seven weeks elapsed. I think that
those seven weeks represented the difference between the mail-
boat which brought the letter and the sailing vessel which brought
the writer."

"It is possible."

"More than that. It is probable. And now you see the deadly
urgency of this new case, and why I urged young Openshaw to
caution. The blow has always fallen at the end of the time which
it would take the senders to travel the distance. But this one
comes from London, and therefore we cannot count upon delay."

"Good God!" I cried. "What can it mean, this relentless
persecution?"

"The papers which Openshaw carried are obviously of vital
importance to the person or persons in the sailing-ship. I think
that it is quite clear that there must be more than one of them. A
single man could not have carried out two deaths in such a way
as to deceive a coroner's jury. There must have been several in
it, and they must have been men of resource and determination.

Their papers they mean to have, be the holder of them who it
may. In this way you see K. K. K. ceases to be the initials of an
individual and becomes the badge of a society."

"But of what society?"

"Have you never --" said Sherlock Holmes, bending forward
and sinking his voice --"have you never heard of the Ku Klux
Klan?"

"I never have."

Holmes turned over the leaves of the book upon his knee.

"Here it is," said he presently:

"Ku Klux Klan. A name derived from the fanciful resem-
blance to the sound produced by cocking a rifle. This
terrible secret society was formed by some ex-Confederate
soldiers in the Southern states after the Civil War, and it
rapidly formed local branches in different parts of the
country, notably in Tennessee, Louisiana, the Carolinas,
Georgia, and Florida. Its power was used for political
purposes, principally for the terrorizing of the negro vot-
ers and the murdering and driving from the country of
those who were opposed to its views. Its outrages were
usually preceded by a warning sent to the marked man in
some fantastic but generally recognized shape -- a sprig of
oak-leaves in some parts, melon seeds or orange pips in
others. On receiving this the victim might either openly
abjure his former ways, or might fly from the country. If
he braved the matter out, death would unfailingly come
upon him, and usually in some strange and unforeseen
manner. So perfect was the organization of the society,
and so systematic its methods, that there is hardly a case
upon record where any man succeeded in braving it with
impunity, or in which any of its outrages were traced
home to the perpetrators. For some years the organization
flourished in spite of the efforts of the United States
government and of the better classes of the community in
the South. Eventually, in the year 1869, the movement
rather suddenly collapsed, although there have been spo-
radic outbreaks of the same sort since that date.

"You will observe," said Holmes, laying down the volume,
"that the sudden breaking up of the society was coincident with
the disappearance of Openshaw from America with their papers.

It may well have been cause and effect. It is no wonder that he
and his family have some of the more implacable spirits upon
their track. You can understand that this register and diary may
implicate some of the first men in the South, and that there may
be many who will not sleep easy at night until it is recovered."

"Then the page we have seen --"
"Is such as we might expect. It ran, if I remember right, 'sent
the pips to A, B, and C' -- that is, sent the society's warning to
them. Then there are successive entries that A and B cleared, or
left the country, and finally that C was visited, with, I fear, a
sinister result for C. Well, I think, Doctor, that we may let some
light into this dark place, and I believe that the only chance
young Openshaw has in the meantime is to do what I have told
him. There is nothing more to be said or to be done to-night, so
hand me over my violin and let us try to forget for half an hour
the miserable weather and the still more miserable ways of our
fellowmen."

It had cleared in the morning, and the sun was shining with a
subdued brightness through the dim veil which hangs over the
great city. Sherlock Holmes was already at breakfast when I
came down.

"You will excuse me for not waiting for you," said he; "I
have, I foresee, a very busy day before me in looking into this
case of young Openshaw's."

"What steps will you take?" I asked.

"It will very much depend upon the results of my first inquir-
ies. I may have to go down to Horsham, after all."

"You will not go there first?"

"No, I shall commence with the City. Just ring the bell and
the maid will bring up your coffee."

As I waited, I lifted the unopened newspaper from the table
and glanced my eye over it. It rested upon a heading which sent
a chill to my heart.

"Holmes," I cried, "you are too late."

"Ah!" said he, laying down his cup, "I feared as much. How
was it done?" He spoke calmly, but I could see that he was
deeply moved.

"My eye caught the name of Openshaw, and the heading
'Tragedy Near Waterloo Bridge.' Here is the account:

"Between nine and ten last night Police-Constable Cook,
of the H Division, on duty near Waterloo Bridge, heard a
cry for help and a splash in the water. The night, however,
was extremely dark and stormy, so that, in spite of the help
of several passers-by, it was quite impossible to effect a
rescue. The alarm, however, was given, and, by the aid of
the water-police, the body was eventually recovered. It
proved to be that of a young gentleman whose name, as it
appears from an envelope which was found in his pocket,
was John Openshaw, and whose residence is near Horsham.

It is conjectured that he may have been hurrying down to
catch the last train from Waterloo Station, and that in his
haste and the extreme darkness he missed his path and
walked over the edge of one of the small landing-places for
river steamboats. The body exhibited no traces of violence,
and there can be no doubt that the deceased had been the
victim of an unfortunate accident, which should have the
effect of calling the attention of the authorities to the condi-
tion of the riverside landing-stages."

We sat in silence for some minutes, Holmes more depressed
and shaken than I had ever seen him.

"That hurts my pride, Watson," he said at last. "It is a petty
feeling, no doubt, but it hurts my pride. It becomes a personal
matter with me now, and, if God sends me health, I shall set my
hand upon this gang. That he should come to me for help, and
that I should send him away to his death --!" He sprang from his
chair and paced about the room in uncontrollable agitation, with
a flush upon his sallow cheeks and a nervous clasping and
unclasping of his long thin hands.

"They must be cunning devils," he exclaimed at last. "How
could they have decoyed him down there? The Embankment is
not on the direct line to the station. The bridge, no doubt, was
too crowded, even on such a night, for their purpose. Well,
Watson, we shall see who will win in the long run. I am going
out now!"

"To the police?"

"No; I shall be my own police. When I have spun the web
they may take the flies, but not before."

All day I was engaged in my professional work, and it was
late in the evening before I returned to Baker Street. Sherlock
Holmes had not come back yet. It was nearly ten o'clock before
he entered, looking pale and worn. He walked up to the side-
board, and tearing a piece from the loaf he devoured it vora-
ciously, washing it down with a long draught of water.

"You are hungry," I remarked.

"Starving. It had escaped my memory. I have had nothing
since breakfast."

"Nothing?"

"Not a bite. I had no time to think of it."

"And how have you succeeded?"

"Well."

"You have a clue?"

"I have them in the hollow of my hand. Young Openshaw
shall not long remain unavenged. Why, Watson, let us put their
own devilish trade-mark upon them. It is well thought of!"

"What do you mean?"

He took an orange from the cupboard, and tearing it to pieces
he squeezed out the pips upon the table. Of these he took five
and thrust them into an envelope. On the inside of the flap he
wrote "S. H. for J. 0." Then he sealed it and addressed it to
"Captain James Calhoun, Bark Lone Star, Savannah, Georgia."

"That will await him when he enters port," said he, chuck-
ling. "It may give him a sleepless night. He will find it as sure a
precursor of his fate as Openshaw did before him."

"And who is this Captain Calhoun?"

"The leader of the gang. I shall have the others, but he first."

"How did you trace it, then?"

He took a large sheet of paper from his pocket, all covered
with dates and names.

"I have spent the whole day," said he, "over Lloyd's regis-
ters and files of the old papers, following the future career of
every vessel which touched at Pondicherry in January and Febru-
ary in '83. There were thirty-six ships of fair tonnage which
were reported there during those months. Of these, one, the Lone
Star, instantly attracted my attention, since, although it was
reported as having cleared from London, the name is that which
is given to one of the states of the Union."

"Texas, I think."

"I was not and am not sure which; but I knew that the ship
must have an American origin."

"What then?"

"I searched the Dundee records, and when I found that the
bark Lone Star was there in January, '85, my suspicion became a
certainty. I then inquired as to the vessels which lay at present in
the port of London."

"Yes?"

"The Lone Star had arrived here last week. I went down to
the Albert Dock and found that she had been taken down the
river by the early tide this morning, homeward bound to Savan-
nah. I wired to Gravesend and learned that she had passed some
time ago, and as the wind is easterly I have no doubt that she is
now past the Goodwins and not very far from the Isle of Wight."

"What will you do, then?"

"Oh, I have my hand upon him. He and the two mates, are
as I learn, the only native-born Americans in the ship. The others
are Finns and Germans. I know, also, that they were all three
away from the ship last night. I had it from the stevedore who
has been loading their cargo. By the time that their sailing-ship
reaches Savannah the mail-boat will have carried this letter, and
the cable will have informed the police of Savannah that these
three gentlemen are badly wanted here upon a charge of murder."

There is ever a flaw, however, in the best laid of human plans,
and the murderers of John Openshaw were never to receive the
orange pips which would show them that another, as cunning
and as resolute as themselves, was upon their track. Very long
and very severe were the equinoctial gales that year. We waited
long for news of the Lone Star of Savannah, but none ever
reached us. We did at last hear that somewhere far out in the
Atlantic a shattered stern-post of the boat was seen swinging in
the trough of a wave, with the letters "L. S." carved upon it,
and that is all which we shall ever know of the fate of the Lone
Star.