I hurriedly completed the rest of my business, although I would have much rather rushed immediately back to Baker Street with my fresh information. But I could not be sure that I had not been observed returning home and did not want to be responsible for a trail leading directly back to Baker Street. Obviously the men had not yet made the connection between Sherlock Holmes and myself, and I had no intention of making it plainly apparent.
The sudden pressing urgency of matters had given me a burst of energy, and I bounded up the stairs to the sitting room. I don't know what attitude I had expected to find Holmes and Mrs Kendrick in, but I had to admit to my own surprise. Mrs Kendrick was seated on the sofa, one of Holmes's shirts in her lap and a pair of his trousers beside her. Holmes sat in his chair, a book lying ignored in his lap, as he watched Mrs Kendrick doing his mending with a bemused expression on his face.
When I entered, he turned from his observation of her to face me. He caught sight of the look on my face and his expression immediately brightened. "You have brought us fresh news," he declared.
"I have," I replied with not nearly so much eagerness. The news I bore was no doubt of help to Holmes, but it was troubling me deeply.
I sighed and removed both coat and hat. "I have brought back more information on the two men and a letter, one that I should imagine is very much in the spirit of the previous two," said I, anxious to have the entire matter resolved.
"We shall have the letter second," directed Holmes, "for I should like to have the details of the men while they are still fresh in your mind."
"I did not observe them myself," I explained, crossing the room to sink down into my chair by the fire, "but rather have had the details come to me through my neighbour. He has seen them outside my home the past two nights, at just past ten o'clock." I continued to detail the conversation as it had happened between the two of us. The details were sufficiently fresh in my mind that I was able to start at the point where he had first waved me over until the instant where he had disappeared into his home again.
"My maid, Anna Marie, also had opportunity to observe one of the men, for last night he made bold enough to knock and inquire after me. I had not told her that I would be staying here, thinking it more prudent to keep my whereabouts somewhat in doubt, and she was not able to point them toward this address, as she is rather new to us and is quite unaware of my intimate acquaintance with you, Holmes," I continued.
"Admirably done," commented Holmes encouragingly. "It means that so long as we keep a sharp eye, we will not have to relocate."
"She is a quick enough girl, however, and was able to describe to me quite clearly what she was able to observe, which regrettably was not so much as you might have hoped. She too saw the scar that my neighbour had noted, but she was able to determine that the tattoo through which it ran was an anchor that had been inked in blue," said I. "However he kept his face hidden by turning up the lapels of his jacket and pulling his hat low."
"This man with the rope burn was the one with the stick?" Mrs Kendrick inquired matter-of-factly.
"Rope burn?" I questioned.
"There are many ways for such a scar to be formed, as I'm sure you are aware," explained Mrs Kendrick, "but if the men have been sailors for any length of time, then they should have at some point sailed under canvas. It is unfortunate that sometimes before a line can be secured that the wind will gust quite strongly and catch the lines with such force that the ropes are pulled backwards through one's hands as they attempt to make the securing knots. The particular orientation of the hands at the time determines the location and direction of the scar. My father had a similar scar on one of his hands, only it ran between the second and third fingers."
"He would have certainly seen service under sail," interjected Holmes, "even had his scar not revealed it, for his tattoo tells of it. Such personal markings are only generally obtained in the Far East, where even our own illustrious Navy has not yet completed the transition from sail to steam. My brother was remarking only last week that the efficiency of the fleet should be greatly improved should the Admiralty undertake the expense to completely refit the Far East Fleet, for many of the smaller vessels are still under sail. But the matter of sail or steam bears little enough upon the problem at hand."
"And aside from the letter that I carry, I have quite exhausted my sources of information," noted I, producing the letter.
The envelope was like the envelopes of the other notes, unmarked and plain. There was no seal that might have yielded up a thumb-mark or other identifying feature, for the flap had merely been folded down under the edge of the facing paper to secure it closed. I passed it across to Sherlock Holmes, who took it from me with a sigh.
"If only the letters should be sealed normally, we should perhaps have had an answer to the riddle," he stated as he removed the envelope's contents carefully.
From the way I sat, I could not seen what he pulled from the envelope, but I could see his entire body react to whatever he had pulled from the plain paper. His nostrils were all aquiver and his eyebrows had drawn themselves together. Every fibre of his being had tensed, and he was quite ready to spring into action at the slightest hint of the direction in which his energies might best be expended.
"You had remarked earlier on the irrelevance of sail," noted the lady softly, with a slight chuckle in her voice.
"What is it?" I demanded impatiently.
Holmes held up a piece of stiff fabric that had been scrawled on with dark ink in the manner of the previous notes. There were four lines of poetry inscribed, this time with four words underlined with broad strokes to make them stand out from the rest. "It is a piece of sailcloth," Holmes informed me with a hint of laughter in his voice, passing me back the fabric.
The ink had bled slightly into the fabric, but it was still perfectly legible.
"Before we two again may
meet," read I aloud,
"Our troubles need be turned towards
defeat.
"As dangers do in days subside;
"We shall our time in shadows bide."
"They're getting less and less subtle," commented Mrs Kendrick. "They go so far as to underline the words."
"I should think it is because the message has already been revealed by their actions," said Holmes, "unless I am much mistaken. There is no need for secrecy if it is apparent that this much at least has been found out."
"Which could imply that the messages may be pre-written, although the notes themselves are being penned in order as the circumstances dictate," observed Mrs Kendrick.
"It could," answered Sherlock Holmes in a way that almost made me think that he had not yet come to that conclusion. Then he caught onto the thought and elaborated on it in a manner that made me abandon my previous notion. "But then that may only be expected given the text of the notes. Twice are courses mentioned and twice is the word 'ancient' used. Whether ancient is to be taken in the concept of antiquity or rather just as a reference to things past, the word would tend to imply that a plan is being followed, and this is supported by the multiple use of the word 'courses.'"
Holmes was sharing much more information and reasoning than was his general custom. Typically, he would confine his thoughts to himself and I would have the details revealed once he had solved the problem. This time, however, I was much more able to follow the steps that were leading him onward to a conclusion, although I could still make neither heads nor tails of the facts that I possessed.
Following this outburst, for Holmes was generally closemouthed with his intermediate conclusions, he did lapse into a deep and contemplative silence. Mrs Kendrick continued with her mending, but I could see that her stitches became slower and I reasoned that she was not thinking of the course of her thread, but rather of the matter that was occupying Holmes's mind. For myself, I sat back in my chair and tried to turn the facts over in my mind to see if they would lead me to anything.
