Sherlock Holmes: Before Baker Street by David Marcum (warren buffett book recommendations TXT) ๐
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- Author: David Marcum
Read book online ยซSherlock Holmes: Before Baker Street by David Marcum (warren buffett book recommendations TXT) ๐ยป. Author - David Marcum
โโHullo, chummy!โ said he, โwhatโs your name, and what are you here for?โ
โI answered him, and asked in turn who I was talking with.
โโIโm Jack Prendergast,โ said he, โand by God! Youโll learn to bless my name before youโve done with me.โ
โI remembered hearing of his case, for it was one which had made an immense sensation throughout the country some time before my own arrest. He was a man of good family and of great ability, but on incurably vicious habits, who had be an ingenious system of fraud obtained huge sums of money from the leading London merchants.
Jack Prendergast
โโHa, ha! You remember my case!โ said he proudly.
โโVery well, indeed.โ
โโThen maybe you remember something queer about it?โ
โโWhat was that, then?โ
โโIโd had nearly a quarter-of-a-million, hadnโt I?โ
โโSo it was said.โ
โโBut none was recovered, eh?โ
โโNo.โ
โโWell, where dโye suppose the balance is?โ he asked.
โโI have no idea,โ said I.
โโRight between my finger and thumb,โ he cried. โBy God! Iโve got more pounds to my name than youโve hairs on your head. And if youโve money, my son, and know how to handle it and spread it, you can do anything. Now, you donโt think it likely that a man who could do anything is going to wear his breeches out sitting in the stinking hold of a rat-gutted, beetle-ridden, mouldy old coffin of a China coaster. No, sir, such a man will look after himself and will look after his chums. You may lay to that! You hold on to him, and you may kiss the book that heโll haul you through.โ
โThat was his style of talk, and at first I thought it meant nothing, but after a while, when he had tested me and sworn me in with all possible solemnity, he let me understand that there really was a plot to gain command of the vessel. A dozen of the prisoners had hatched it before they came aboard, Prendergast was the leader, and his money was the motive power.
โโIโd a partner,โ said he, โa rare good man, as true as a stock to a barrel. Heโs got the dibbs, he has, and where do you think he is at this moment? Why, heโs the chaplain of this ship โ the chaplain, no less! He came aboard with a black coat, and his papers right, and money enough in his box to buy the thing right up from keel to main-truck. The crew are his, body and soul. He could buy โem at so much a gross with a cash discount, and he did it before ever they signed on. Heโs got two of the warders and Mercer, the second mate, and heโd get the captain himself, if he thought him worth it.โ
โโWhat are we to do, then?โ I asked.
โโWhat do you think?โ said he. โWeโll make the coats of some of these soldiers redder than ever the tailor did.โ
โโBut they are armed,โ said I.
โโAnd so shall we be, my boy. Thereโs a brace of pistols for every motherโs son of us, and if we canโt carry this ship, with the crew at our back, itโs time we were all sent to a young missesโ boarding-school. You speak to your mate upon the left to-night, and see if he is to be trusted.
โI did so, and found my other neighbor to be a young fellow in much the same position as myself, whose crime had been forgery. His name was Evans, but he afterwards changed it, like myself, and his is now a rich and prosperous man in the south of England. He was ready enough to join the conspiracy, as the only means of saving ourselves, and before we had crossed the Bay there were only two of the prisoners who were not in the secret. One of these was of weak mind, and we did not dare to trust him, and the other was suffering from jaundice, and could not be of any use to us.
โFrom the beginning there was really nothing to prevent us from taking possession of the ship. The crew were a set of ruffians, specially picked for the job. The sham chaplain came into our cells to exhort us, carrying a black bag, supposed to be full of tracts, and so often did he come that by the third day we had each stowed away at the foot of our beds a file, a brace of pistols, a pound of powder, and twenty slugs. Two of the warders were agents of Prendergast, and the second mate was his right-hand man. The captain, the two mates, two warders, Lieutenant Martin, his eighteen soldiers, and the doctor were all that we had against us. Yet, safe as it was, we determined to neglect no precaution, and to make our attack suddenly by night. It came, however, more quickly than we expected, and in this way.
โOne evening, about the third week after our start, the doctor had come down to see one of the prisoners who was ill, and putting his hand down on the bottom of his bunk he felt the
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