ted the shattered
forehead of his bust.

"Plumb in the middle of the back of the head and smack through the
brain. He was the best shot in India, and I expect that there are few
better in London. Have you heard the name?"

"No, I have not."

"Well, well, such is fame! But, then, if I remember right, you had not
heard the name of Professor James Moriarty, who had one of the great
brains of the century. Just give me down my index of biographies from
the shelf."

He turned over the pages lazily, leaning back in his chair and blowing
great clouds from his cigar.

"My collection of M's is a fine one," said he. "Moriarty himself is
enough to make any letter illustrious, and here is Morgan the poisoner,
and Merridew of abominable memory, and Mathews, who knocked out my left
canine in the waiting-room at Charing Cross, and, finally, here is our
friend of to-night."

He handed over the book, and I read:

MORAN, SEBASTIAN, COLONEL. Unemployed. Formerly 1st Bangalore Pioneers.
Born London, 1840. Son of Sir Augustus Moran, C. B., once British
Minister to Persia. Educated Eton and Oxford. Served in Jowaki Campaign,
Afghan Campaign, Charasiab (despatches), Sherpur, and Cabul. Author of
HEAVY GAME OF THE WESTERN HIMALAYAS (1881); THREE MONTHS IN THE
JUNGLE (1884). Address: Conduit Street. Clubs: The Anglo-Indian, the
Tankerville, the Bagatelle Card Club.

On the margin was written, in Holmes's precise hand:

The second most dangerous man in London.

"This is astonishing," said I, as I handed back the volume. "The man's
career is that of an honourable soldier."

"It is true," Holmes answered. "Up to a certain point he did well. He
was always a man of iron nerve, and the story is still told in India how
he crawled down a drain after a wounded man-eating tiger. There are some
trees, Watson, which grow to a certain height, and then suddenly develop
some unsightly eccentricity. You will see it often in humans. I have
a theory that the individual represents in his development the whole
procession of his ancestors, and that such a sudden turn to good or
evil stands for some strong influence which came into the line of his
pedigree. The person becomes, as it were, the epitome of the history of
his own family."

"It is surely rather fanciful."

"Well, I don't insist upon it. Whatever the cause, Colonel Moran began
to go wrong. Without any open scandal, he still made India too
hot to hold him. He retired, came to London,