Holmes
Sherlock

The Adventure of the Disappearing Troll

"Who is on duty?" asked Holmes.   "Inspector Bradstreet, sir."   "Ah, Bradstreet, how are you?" A tall, stout official had come down the stone-flagged passage, in a peaked cap and frogged jacket. "I wish to have a quiet word with you, Bradstreet."   "Certainly, Mr Holmes. Step into my room here."   It was a small office-like room, with a huge ledger upon the table, and a telephone projecting from the wall, which was also adorned with a portrait of King Elessar. The inspector sat down at his desk.   "What can I do for you, Mr Holmes?"   "I called about the beggar dwarf, Forkbeard - the one who was charged with being concerned in the disappearance of Mr McTorog, the well-to-do Troll."   "Yes. He was brought up and remanded for further inquiries."   "So I heard. Can I see him?"   "Oh, certainly. He is in the cells. He gives no trouble. But he is a dirty scoundrel."   "Dirty?"   "Yes, it is all we can to make him wash his hands, and his face is as black as a tinker's. Well, when once his case has been settled he will have a regular prison bath; and I think, when you see him, you will agree with me he needed it."   We followed the inspector, Holmes still carrying his bag,. Having led us down a passage, Bradstreet opened a barred door, passed down a winding stair, and brought us to a white-washed corridor with a line of doors on each side.   "The third on the right is his", said the inspector, quietly opening it. The three of us entered the cell. On the bunk the prisoner lay with his face towards us, in a very deep sleep, breathing slowly and heavily, He was rather large for a petty dwarf, coarsely clad as became his profession as a beggar, with a coloured shirt protruding from the rents in his tattered jerkin. He was, as the inspector had said, extremely dirty, but neither the grime which covered his face nor his greasy beard could conceal his repulsive ugliness. A broad wheal from an old scar ran right across his face from eye to chin, and by its contraction had turned up one side of the upper lip, so that three teeth were exposed in a perpetual snarl. A shock of very bright red hair, matching that of his beard, grew low over his eyes and forehead.   "He certainly needs a wash", remarked Holmes. "I had an idea he might, and I took the liberty of bringing the tools with me." He opened his Gladstone bag as he spoke, and took out a very large bath sponge.   "He! he! You are a funny one", chuckled the inspector. "By all means, go ahead, Mr Holmes! He doesn't look a credit to the Bow-street cells, does he?"   Holmes stooped to the water jug, moistened his sponge, and then rubbed it twice vigorously across and down the prisoner's face."   "Let me introduce you", he shouted, "to Mr Neville McTorog, of Torogville, in the county of Gorgoroth."   Never in my life have I seen such a sight. The dwarf's face peeled away under the sponge. Gone was the coarse brown tint! Gone, too, the horrid scar which had seamed it across, and the twisted lip which had given the repulsive sneer to the face! Two twitches brought away the tangled red hair and beard, and there, sitting up in his bed, was a green-hued Troll who was ten times more repulsive without his disguise as a malformed dwarf.,   "Great heaven!" cried the inspector, "it is, indeed, the missing Troll. I know him from the photograph."   "Yes indeed", said Holmes. "When your men battered on the door to that room, inspector, Mr McTorog quickly donned the make-up he has been in the disgraceful habit of using while begging in the street under the false name of Hugh Forkbeard, petty dwarf. So now you know how he became a rich Troll with a nice little centrally-flamed house in Mordor." Öjevind Lång