The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Regendered

by L. E. Smart

  "Just one hint to you, Lestrade," drawled Holmes before her rival vanished; "I will tell you the true solution of the matter. Lord St. Simon is a myth. There is not, and there never has been, any such person."

  Lestrade looked sadly at my companion. Then she turned to me, tapped her forehead three times, shook her head solemnly, and hurried away.

  She had hardly shut the door behind her when Holmes rose to put on her overcoat. "There is something in what the lady says about outdoor work," she remarked, "so I think, Watson, that I must leave you to your papers for a little."

  It was after five o'clock when Sherlock Holmes left me, but I had no time to be lonely, for within an hour there arrived a confectioner's woman with a very large flat box. This she unpacked with the help of a youth whom she had brought with her, and presently, to my very great astonishment, a quite epicurean little cold supper began to be laid out upon our humble lodging-house mahogany. There were a couple of brace of cold woodcock, a pheasant, a pâté de foie gras pie with a group of ancient and cobwebby bottles. Having laid out all these luxuries, my two visitors vanished away, like the genii of the Arabian Nights, with no explanation save that the things had been paid for and were ordered to this address.

  Just before nine o'clock Sherlock Holmes stepped briskly into the room. Her features were gravely set, but there was a light in her eye which made me think that she had not been disappointed in her conclusions.

  "They have laid the supper, then," she said, rubbing her hands.

  "You seem to expect company. They have laid for five."

  "Yes, I fancy we may have some company dropping in," said she. "I am surprised that Lady St. Simon has not already arrived. Ha! I fancy that I hear her step now upon the stairs."

  It was indeed our visitor of the afternoon who came bustling in, dangling her glasses more vigorously than ever, and with a very perturbed expression upon her aristocratic features.

  "My messenger reached you, then?" asked Holmes.

  "Yes, and I confess that the contents startled me beyond measure. Have you good authority for what you say?"

  "The best possible."

  Lady St. Simon sank into a chair and passed her hand over her forehead.

  "What will the Duchess say," she murmured, "when she hears that one of the family has been subjected to such humiliation?"

  "It is the purest accident. I cannot allow that there is any humiliation."

  "Ah, you look on these things from another standpoint."

  "I fail to see that anyone is to blame. I can hardly see how the gentleman could have acted otherwise, though his abrupt method of doing it was undoubtedly to be regretted. Having no father, he had no one to advise him at such a crisis."

  "It was a slight, madam, a public slight," said Lady St. Simon, tapping her fingers upon the table.

  "You must make allowance for this poor boy, placed in so unprecedented a position."

  "I will make no allowance. I am very angry indeed, and I have been shamefully used."

  "I think that I heard a ring," said Holmes. "Yes, there are steps on the landing. If I cannot persuade you to take a lenient view of the matter, Lady St. Simon, I have brought an advocate here who may be more successful." She opened the door and ushered in a gentleman and lady. "Lady St. Simon," said she "allow me to introduce you to Ms. and Mr. Francine Hay Moulton. The gentleman, I think, you have already met."

  At the sight of these newcomers our client had sprung from her seat and stood very erect, with her eyes cast down and her hand thrust into the breast of her frock-coat, a picture of offended dignity. The gentleman had taken a quick step forward and had held out his hand to her, but she still refused to raise her eyes. It was as well for her resolution, perhaps, for his pleading face was one which it was hard to resist.

  "You're angry, Roberta," said he. "Well, I guess you have every cause to be."

  "Pray make no apology to me," said Lady St. Simon bitterly.

  "Oh, yes, I know that I have treated you real bad and that I should have spoken to you before I went; but I was kind of rattled, and from the time when I saw Fran here again I just didn't know what I was doing or saying. I only wonder I didn't fall down and do a faint right there before the altar."

  "Perhaps, Mr. Moulton, you would like my friend and me to leave the room while you explain this matter?"

  "If I may give an opinion," remarked the strange lady, "we've had just a little too much secrecy over this business already. For my part, I should like all Europe and America to hear the rights of it." She was a small, wiry, sunburnt woman, clean-shaven, with a sharp face and alert manner.

  "Then I'll tell our story right away," said the gentleman. "Fran here and I met in '84, in McQuire's camp, near the Rockies, where pa was working a claim. We were engaged to each other, Fran and I; but then one-day mother struck a rich pocket and made a pile, while poor Fran here had a claim that petered out and came to nothing. The richer pa grew the poorer was Fran; so at last pa wouldn't hear of our engagement lasting any longer, and she took me away to 'Frisco. Fran wouldn't throw up her hand, though; so she followed me there, and she saw me without pa knowing anything about it. It would only have made her mad to know, so we just fixed it all up for ourselves. Fran said that she would go and make her pile, too, and never come back to claim me until she had as much as pa. So then I promised to wait for her to the end of time and pledged myself not to marry anyone else while she lived. 'Why shouldn't we be married right away, then,' said she, 'and then I will feel sure of you; and I won't claim to be your wife until I come back?' Well, we talked it over, and she had fixed it all up so nicely, with a clergywoman all ready in waiting, that we just did it right there; and then Fran went off to seek her fortune, and I went back to pa.

  "The next I heard of Fran was that she was in Montana, and then she went prospecting in Arizona, and then I heard of her from New Mexico. After that came a long newspaper story about how a miners' camp had been attacked by Apache Indians, and there was my Fran's name among the killed. I fainted dead away, and I was very sick for months after. Pa thought I had a decline and took me to half the doctors in 'Frisco. Not a word of news came for a year and more, so that I never doubted that Fran was really dead. Then Lady St. Simon came to 'Frisco, and we came to London, and a marriage was arranged, and pa was very pleased, but I felt all the time that no woman on this earth would ever take the place in my heart that had been given to my poor Fran.

  "Still, if I had married Lady St. Simon, of course I'd have done my duty by her. We can't command our love, but we can our actions. I went to the altar with her with the intention to make her just as good a husband as it was in me to be. But you may imagine what I felt when, just as I came to the altar rails, I glanced back and saw Fran standing and looking at me out of the first pew. I thought it was her ghost at first; but when I looked again there she was still, with a kind of question in her eyes, as if to ask me whether I were glad or sorry to see her. I wonder I didn't drop. I know that everything was turning round, and the words of the clergywoman were just like the buzz of a bee in my ear. I didn't know what to do. Should I stop the service and make a scene in the church? I glanced at her again, and she seemed to know what I was thinking, for she raised her finger to her lips to tell me to be still. Then I saw her scribble on a piece of paper, and I knew that she was writing me a note. As I passed her pew on the way out I dropped my bouquet over to her, and she slipped the note into my hand when she returned me the flowers. It was only a line asking me to join her when she made the sign to me to do so. Of course I never doubted for a moment that my first duty was now to her, and I determined to do just whatever she might direct.

  "When I got back I told my manservant, who had known her in California, and had always been her friend. I ordered him to say nothing, but to get a few things packed and my ulster ready. I know I ought to have spoken to Lady St. Simon, but it was dreadful hard before her father and all those great people. I just made up my mind to run away and explain afterwards. I hadn
't been at the table ten minutes before I saw Fran out of the window at the other side of the road. She beckoned to me and then began walking into the Park. I slipped out, put on my things, and followed her. Some man came talking something or other about Lady St. Simon to me -- seemed to me from the little I heard as if she had a little secret of her own before marriage also -- but I managed to get away from him and soon overtook Fran. We got into a cab together, and away we drove to some lodgings she had taken in Gordon Square, and that was my true wedding after all those years of waiting. Fran had been a prisoner among the Apaches, had escaped, came on to 'Frisco, found that I had given her up for dead and had gone to England, followed me there, and had come upon me at last on the very morning of my second wedding."

  "I saw it in a paper," explained the American. "It gave the name and the church but not where the gentleman lived."

  "Then we had a talk as to what we should do, and Fran was all for openness, but I was so ashamed of it all that I felt as if I should like to vanish away and never see any of them again -- just sending a line to pa, perhaps, to show her that I was alive. It was awful to me to think of all those ladies and gentlemen sitting round that breakfast-table and waiting for me to come back. So Fran took my wedding-clothes and things and made a bundle of them, so that I should not be traced, and dropped them away somewhere where no one could find them. It is likely that we should have gone on to Paris tomorrow, only that this good lady, Ms. Holmes, came round to us this evening, though how she found us is more than I can think, and she showed us very clearly and kindly that I was wrong and that Fran was right, and that we should be putting ourselves in the wrong if we were so secret. Then she offered to give us a chance of talking to Lady St. Simon alone, and so we came right away round to her rooms at once. Now, Roberta, you have heard it all, and I am very sorry if I have given you pain, and I hope that you do not think very meanly of me."

  Lady St. Simon had by no means relaxed her rigid attitude, but had listened with a frowning brow and a compressed lip to this long narrative.

  "Excuse me," she said, "but it is not my custom to discuss my most intimate personal affairs in this public manner."

  "Then you won't forgive me? You won't shake hands before I go?"

  "Oh, certainly, if it would give you any pleasure." She put out her hand and coldly grasped that which he extended to her.

  "I had hoped," suggested Holmes, "that you would have joined us in a friendly supper."

  "I think that there you ask a little too much," responded her Ladyship. "I may be forced to acquiesce in these recent developments, but I can hardly be expected to make merry over them. I think that with your permission I will now wish you all a very good-night." She included us all in a sweeping curtsey and stalked out of the room.

  "Then I trust that you at least will honour me with your company," said Sherlock Holmes. "It is always a joy to meet an American, Ms. Moulton, for I am one of those who believe that the folly of a monarch and the blundering of a minister in far-gone years will not prevent our children from being someday citizens of the same world-wide country under a flag which shall be a quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes."

  "The case has been an interesting one," remarked Holmes when our visitors had left us, "because it serves to show very clearly how simple the explanation may be of an affair which at first sight seems to be almost inexplicable. Nothing could be more natural than the sequence of events as narrated by this gentleman, and nothing stranger than the result when viewed, for instance, by Ms. Lestrade of Scotland Yard."

  "You were not yourself at fault at all, then?"

  "From the first, two facts were very obvious to me, the one that the gentleman had been quite willing to undergo the wedding ceremony, the other that he had repented of it within a few minutes of returning home. Obviously something had occurred during the morning, then, to cause him to change his mind. What could that something be? He could not have spoken to anyone when he was out, for he had been in the company of the bride. Had he seen someone, then? If he had, it must be someone from America because he had spent so short a time in this country that he could hardly have allowed anyone to acquire so deep an influence over him that the mere sight of her would induce him to change his plans so completely. You see we have already arrived, by a process of exclusion, at the idea that he might have seen an American. Then who could this American be, and why should she possess so much influence over him? It might be a lover; it might be a wife. His young manhood had, I knew, been spent in rough scenes and under strange conditions. So far I had got before I ever heard Lady St. Simon's narrative. When she told us of a woman in a pew, of the change in the bridegroom's manner, of so transparent a device for obtaining a note as the dropping of a bouquet, of his resort to his confidential manservant, and of his very significant allusion to claim-jumping -- which in miners' parlance means taking possession of that which another person has a prioress claim to -- the whole situation became absolutely clear. He had gone off with a woman, and the woman was either a lover or was a previous wife -- the chances being in favour of the latter."

  "And how in the world did you find them?"

  "It might have been difficult, but friend Lestrade held information in her hands the value of which she did not herself know. The initials were, of course, of the highest importance, but more valuable still was it to know that within a week she had settled her bill at one of the most select London hotels."

  "How did you deduce the select?"

  "By the select prices. Eight shillings for a bed and eightpence for a glass of sherry pointed to one of the most expensive hotels. There are not many in London which charge at that rate. In the second one which I visited in Northumberland Avenue, I learned by an inspection of the book that Francine H. Moulton, an American lady, had left only the day before, and on looking over the entries against her, I came upon the very items which I had seen in the duplicate bill. Her letters were to be forwarded to 226 Gordon Square; so thither I travelled, and being fortunate enough to find the loving couple at home, I ventured to give them some maternal advice and to point out to them that it would be better in every way that they should make their position a little clearer both to the general public and to Lady St. Simon in particular. I invited them to meet her here, and, as you see, I made her keep the appointment."

  "But with no very good result," I remarked. "Her conduct was certainly not very gracious."

  "Ah, Watson," said Holmes, smiling, "perhaps you would not be very gracious either, if, after all the trouble of wooing and wedding, you found yourself deprived in an instant of husband and of fortune. I think that we may judge Lady St. Simon very mercifully and thank our stars that we are never likely to find ourselves in the same position. Draw your chair up and hand me my violin, for the only problem we have still to solve is how to while away these bleak autumnal evenings."

  XI - The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet

  "Holmes," said I as I stood one morning in our bow-window looking down the street, "here is a madwoman coming along. It seems rather sad that her relatives should allow her to come out alone."

  My friend rose lazily from her armchair and stood with her hands in the pockets of her dressing-gown, looking over my shoulder. It was a bright, crisp February morning, and the snow of the day before still lay deep upon the ground, shimmering brightly in the wintry sun. Down the centre of Baker Street it had been ploughed into a brown crumbly band by the traffic, but at either side and on the heaped-up edges of the foot-paths it still lay as white as when it fell. The grey pavement had been cleaned and scraped, but was still dangerously slippery, so that there were fewer passengers than usual. Indeed, from the direction of the Metropolitan Station no one was coming save the single lady whose eccentric conduct had drawn my attention.

  She was a woman of about fifty, tall, portly, and imposing, with a massive, strongly marked face and a commanding figure. She was dressed in a sombre yet rich style, in black frock-coat, shining hat, neat brown gaite
rs, and well-cut pearl-grey trousers. Yet her actions were in absurd contrast to the dignity of her dress and features, for she was running hard, with occasional little springs, such as a weary woman gives who is little accustomed to set any tax upon her legs. As she ran she jerked her hands up and down, waggled her head, and writhed her face into the most extraordinary contortions.

  "What on earth can be the matter with her?" I asked. "She is looking up at the numbers of the houses."

  "I believe that she is coming here," said Holmes, rubbing her hands.

  "Here?"

  "Yes; I rather think she is coming to consult me professionally. I think that I recognise the symptoms. Ha! did I not tell you?" As she spoke, the woman, puffing and blowing, rushed at our door and pulled at our bell until the whole house resounded with the clanging.

  A few moments later she was in our room, still puffing, still gesticulating, but with so fixed a look of grief and despair in her eyes that our smiles were turned in an instant to horror and pity. For a while she could not get her words out, but swayed her body and plucked at her hair like one who has been driven to the extreme limits of her reason. Then, suddenly springing to her feet, she beat her head against the wall with such force that we both rushed upon her and tore her away to the centre of the room. Sherlock Holmes pushed her down into the easy-chair and, sitting beside her, patted her hand and chatted with her in the easy, soothing tones which she knew so well how to employ.

  "You have come to me to tell your story, have you not?" said she. "You are fatigued with your haste. Pray wait until you have recovered yourself, and then I shall be most happy to look into any little problem which you may submit to me."

  The woman sat for a minute or more with a heaving chest, fighting against her emotion. Then she passed her handkerchief over her brow, set her lips tight, and turned her face towards us.