In the second place, besides the grotesque and terrible nature of the adventure itself, there is the strange fact that what I write is not, in this case, to be placed immediately before the public. It is even probable that both Holmes and I will have been for some years beyond the reach of all this world's concerns, before these lines are allowed to see the light of day.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Watson…" Holmes mused, recently, as I was visiting him at his retirement home in Sussex. "Yes, I think you must write about the Rat, for the benefit of others who will come after us. But what you write must not be read this year, or probably for some years to come; and you must change the names of those involved, wherever prudence suggests such alteration."
"As to altering names, Holmes, I have done as much in detailing some of your other cases. But if it is not to be published in the near future, then when? And who is to decide?"
"Well, there is one man, I believe, whom we can trust to see to it that the story is placed before the public when the time is ripe, and not before."
"Holmes—" I began a protest.
"Yes, Watson, I know your views." He looked at me severely for a moment. Then his gaze softened. "I shall handle the necessary arrangements. Believe me, old fellow, it will be for the best. Therefore you must go home and write."
And so it is that I am now seated at my desk. When complete, this account will not be entrusted to my own depository of confidential papers, Cox's bank at Charing Cross, where lie the unfleshed bones of many another remarkable tale. Rather, by Holmes' own instructions, it must go with some few private papers of his own, into the deepest vaults of the Oxford Street branch of the Capital and Counties bank. There it is to remain for years or decades, for centuries if need be, until a most singular password shall be presented for its removal.
The adventure began for me upon a sunny morning in early June of 1897. London was in a bustle of preparation for the Jubilee, and thronged with important visitors from every quarter of the Empire. The early months of that year had been an extremely busy time for Holmes as well, so arduous in fact that in March he had been ordered to rest, and I had accompanied him to Cornwall, where occurred those remarkable events I have recorded elsewhere as the Adventure of the Devil's Foot.
On this morning I found Holmes at breakfast, turning over in his hands a small blue envelope. "I have not mentioned this to you yet, have I, Watson?" he exclaimed by way of greeting. "If not, it is only because in the press of recent events I have not found time, either to discuss it or to give it the full attention it perhaps deserves."
"An appeal from a lady, no doubt," I commented, taking my chair.
"Really, Watson, you outdo yourself. Yes, the feminine handwriting of the address will admit of no other interpretation. It is in fact a rather distraught young American lady, a Miss Sarah Tarlton, and this is the third communication I have received from her. The first was a cable from New York, and the second a packet of letters and a note sent yesterday afternoon, just after she arrived in London. She is coming here in person in half an hour, and I will be pleased if you would remain."
"Certainly, Holmes, if there is anything I can do."
"You can listen, old fellow. You are an invaluable listener. While we wait, I may perhaps outline for you her problem, as her successive written messages have presented it to me."
"I am all ears."
Holmes had finished his own breakfast, and while I attacked mine he pushed back his chair and lighted his first pipe of the day. "Miss Tarlton," he began, "comes from a good family in New York. Her father is an eminent member of the medical profession there, and I suppose it is quite natural that she should have bestowed her heart upon another physician, Dr. John Scott. A very brilliant young man, by his fiancee's account at least, and evidently determined to prove himself.
"Young Scott's talents lie—or lay; it is uncertain whether he is still alive—chiefly in research aimed at discovering the chemical and biological agents of disease. His studies in the laboratory were praised, but could not be conclusive in finding the cure he sought. Having some means of his own, and acquiring financial aid from other sources, he outfitted an expedition to the East Indies, where pestilential death is likely to be found at home to any caller.
"His departure took place just two years ago, in June of 1895. It was the agreement that upon his return to New York, having, as he expected, achieved success in his dangerous researches, he and Miss Tarlton should marry.
"For more than a year he wrote her faithfully, and she of course responded. The irregularity of the post sometimes brought her several letters from him at once, and twice months passed without a word. Therefore her alarm was not instantaneous when the young man disappeared."
"You mean—?"
"I mean he ceased to write, or at any rate his letters ceased to arrive in America. After five months had passed with no word, Miss Tarlton began to find more and more ominous certain hints of danger appearing in his last letters. Her attempts to communicate with the American embassies and consulates nearest to his last known whereabouts in Sumatra produced no helpful information. More months passed and the young lady grew increasingly worried. She and her father were on the point of organizing a search expedition, when something happened that turned her attention halfway across the world. Her young man, or so there is some reason to believe, has recently been seen alive and well in London."
"London! But why on earth should he have come here?"
"There is no apparent reason. And from all that I have yet learned of his character, Watson, it rings false that he should act in a deliberately callous way to his betrothed."
"What was the nature of his research?" I moved my plate away, and began filling my own pipe.
"Well, word had reached him in America that the disease for which he sought a cure was endemic in certain remote parts of the interior of Sumatra. His letters from that island to Miss Tarlton describe its strange pattern of infection in those regions. Village after village was ravaged, in a slow geographical progression suggesting the movement through the jungle of a single causative agent, perhaps a Living creature of some kind.
"Such reports as he had from the natives insisted that this agent was in fact a large animal—some claimed it to be an orangutan, the great ape of the region; others spoke of a large rodent, a kind of monstrous rat."
"Good heavens, Holmes!"
"Young Scott's letters—I have them here, and you can read them later—detail his pursuit of—this animal under conditions of extreme difficulty and hardship. The sole companion who had set out with him from America, another young scientist, fell ill with fever early in the game and had to return home. But Scott persevered, using native assistants. He of course faced danger from tropic diseases, from the natural obstacles of the uncharted wilderness, from beasts, and from some of the island's more savage inhabitants. And in his last letter there is a hint of still another kind of trouble—he mentions the presence, within a few miles of his own camp, of some European expedition."
"I should have thought he'd find the presence of other civilized men very welcome."
"So he did, evidently. And yet… well, it would be a waste of time to theorize on those far-off events with no more data than are yet on hand. And here, unless I am mistaken, is Miss Tarlton herself, and you will be able to hear the details from her own lips."