[00:00.61]Chapter 5, a riddle answered.
[00:02.82]This man McCarthy was a devil.
[00:05.50]His grip has been upon me these 20 years.
[00:09.34]He has blasted my life.
[00:12.68]It began in the 60s at the gold diggings.
[00:17.03]I was young and hot-blooded, but I had no luck with my search for gold.
[00:23.44]I took to drink and made bad friends.
[00:29.82]I became a highway robber.
[00:33.56]There were six of us, and we had a wild, free life.
[00:39.49]Black Jack of Ballarat was the name I took.
[00:46.23]One day, a gold convoy came from Ballarat to Melbourne.
[00:53.69]We attacked it, and in the fight, three of our boys were killed before we got the swag.
[01:02.32]I put my pistol to the head of the driver.
[01:06.81]It was this man McCarthy.
[01:10.86]I wish to the Lord I had shot him then.
[01:16.93]We got away with the gold and became wealthy men.
[01:22.32]Later, I made my way to England.
[01:27.06]I wanted to settle down and do some good with my money, to make up for the way I had earned it.
[01:36.58]I married, and, though my wife died young, she left me my darling daughter, Alice.
[01:49.14]I did my best to lead a good life and to make up for my past.
[01:56.79]All was going well until McCarthy laid his grip upon me.
[02:03.58]I had gone to London on business.
[02:08.34]There, in Regent Street, I met him.
[02:14.25]He had hardly a coat on his back or a boot to his foot.
[02:20.75]Well, here we are, Jack, he said.
[02:24.78]We'll be as good as family to you, me and my son.
[02:31.88]You can have the keeping of us, and if you don't, it's a fine, law-abiding country, and there's always the police.
[02:45.29]Well, they came down here, and there was no shaking them off.
[02:51.40]They lived rent-free at Hatherly on my best land.
[02:56.48]There was no rest, no peace, no forgetfulness.
[03:05.84]Turn where I would, there was his cunning, grinning face at my elbow.
[03:13.39]It grew worse as Alice grew up.
[03:17.47]He saw that I was more afraid of her knowing my past than I was about the police.
[03:26.87]Whatever he wanted, I gave without question, land, money, houses, until at last he asked what I could not give.
[03:40.47]He asked for Alice.
[03:43.91]His son had grown up.
[03:47.62]It seemed a great stroke to him to marry his son to my girl.
[03:54.83]I was ill, and when I died, his family would take the whole property.
[04:03.86]But I was firm.
[04:07.21]I would not do it.
[04:10.93]I did not dislike the lad, but the McCarthy blood was in him, and that was enough.
[04:19.95]McCarthy threatened me.
[04:23.58]I braved him to do his worst.
[04:28.34]Finally, we were to meet at the pool midway between our houses to talk it out.
[04:37.54]I went down there and heard him talking with his son.
[04:43.63]I smoked a cigar and waited in the trees till he was alone.
[04:51.00]But as I listened, all that was dark and bitter in me seemed to come uppermost.
[04:59.88]He was urging his son to marry Alice with no regard for what she might feel.
[05:07.85]It drove me mad to think that I and all that I held most dear should be in the power of such a man.
[05:18.35]I had to silence his foul tongue.
[05:22.63]I did it, Mr. Holmes.
[05:26.70]I struck him down like a venomous beast.
[05:32.69]That is the truth, gentlemen, of what occurred.
[05:41.52]It is not for me to judge you, said Holmes as Turner signed the statement.
[05:49.62]You know that you are to answer for your deeds at a higher court than ours.
[05:59.28]Farewell, then, said the old man.
[06:04.07]Your own death beds, when they come, will be the easier for the thought of the peace which you have given to mine.
[06:15.24]He stumbled slowly from the room.
[06:21.20]God help us, said Holmes after a long silence.
[06:28.32]Why does fate play such tricks with poor, helpless worms?
[06:36.92]James McCarthy was acquitted at the trial, mainly because of the evidence presented by Holmes to the defense.
[06:48.69]Old Turner lived another seven months.
[06:53.80]There is now every chance that James and Alice may yet live happily together, in ignorance of the cloud which rests upon their past.