The Adventure of the Cardboard Box Read Online Free PDF

he must have seen death
in my eyes. I got past it and got one in with my stick that crushed
his head like an egg. I would have spared her, perhaps, for all my
madness, but she threw her arms round him, crying out to him, and
calling him "Alec." I struck again, and she lay stretched beside him.
I was like a wild beast then that had tasted blood. If Sarah had been
there, by the Lord, she should have joined them. I pulled out my
knife, and—well, there! I've said enough. It gave me a kind of savage
joy when I thought how Sarah would feel when she had such signs as
these of what her meddling had brought about. Then I tied the bodies
into the boat, stove a plank, and stood by until they had sunk. I knew
very well that the owner would think that they had lost their bearings
in the haze, and had drifted off out to sea. I cleaned myself up, got
back to land, and joined my ship without a soul having a suspicion of
what had passed. That night I made up the packet for Sarah Cushing,
and next day I sent it from Belfast.
    "'There you have the whole truth of it. You can hang me, or do what
you like with me, but you cannot punish me as I have been punished
already. I cannot shut my eyes but I see those two faces staring at
me—staring at me as they stared when my boat broke through the haze.
I killed them quick, but they are killing me slow; and if I have
another night of it I shall be either mad or dead before morning. You
won't put me alone into a cell, sir? For pity's sake don't, and may
you be treated in your day of agony as you treat me now.'
    "What is the meaning of it, Watson?" said Holmes solemnly as he laid
down the paper. "What object is served by this circle of misery and
violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is
ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the
great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from
an answer as ever."
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