“I remember your husband well, madam,” said Holmes, “though it is some years since he used my services in some trifling matter.”
“Probably you would be more familiar with the name of my son Douglas.”
Holmes looked at her with great interest.
“Dear me! Are you the mother of Douglas Maberley? I knew him slightly. But of course all London knew him. What a magnificent creature he was! Where is he now?”
“Dead, Mr. Holmes, dead! He was attaché at Rome, and he died there of pneumonia last month.”
“I am sorry. One could not connect death with such a man. I have never known anyone so vitally alive. He lived intensely–every fibre of him!”
“Too intensely, Mr. Holmes. That was the ruin of him. You remember him as he was–debonair and splendid. You did not see the moody, morose, brooding creature into which he developed. His heart was broken. In a single month I seemed to see my gallant boy turn into a worn-out cynical man.”
“A love affair–a woman?”
“Or a fiend. Well, it was not to talk of my poor lad that I asked you to come, Mr. Holmes.”
“Dr. Watson and I are at your service.”
“There have been some very strange happenings. I have been in this house more than a year now, and as I wished to lead a retired life I have seen little of my neighbours. Three days ago I had a call from a man who said that he was a house agent. He said that this house would exactly suit a client of his, and that if I would part with it money would be no object. It seemed to me very strange as there are several empty houses on the market which appear to be equally eligible, but naturally I was interested in what he said. I therefore named a price which was five hundred pounds more than I gave. He at once closed with the offer, but added that his client desired to buy the furniture as well and would I put a price upon it. Some of this furniture is from my old home, and it is, as you see, very good, so that I named a good round sum. To this also he at once agreed. I had always wanted to travel, and the bargain was so good a one that it really seemed that I should be my own mistress for the rest of my life.
“Yesterday the man arrived with the agreement all drawn out. Luckily I showed it to Mr. Sutro, my lawyer, who lives in Harrow. He said to me, ‘This is a very strange document. Are you aware that if you sign it you could not legally take anything out of the house–not even your own private possessions?’ When the man came again in the evening I pointed this out, and I said that I meant only to sell the furniture.
“‘No, no, everything,’ said he.
“‘But my clothes? My jewels?’
“‘Well, well, some concession might be made for your personal effects. But nothing shall go out of the house unchecked. My client is a very liberal man, but he has his fads and his own way of doing things. It is everything or nothing with him.’
“‘Then it must be nothing,’ said I. And there the matter was left, but the whole thing seemed to me to be so unusual that I thought—”
Here we had a very extraordinary interruption.
Holmes raised his hand for silence. Then he strode across the room, flung open the door, and dragged in a great gaunt woman whom he had seized by the shoulder. She entered with ungainly struggle like some huge awkward chicken, torn, squawking, out of its coop.
“Leave me alone! What are you a-doin’ of?” she screeched.
“Why, Susan, what is this?”
“Well, ma’am, I was comin’ in to ask if the visitors was stayin’ for lunch when this man jumped out at me.”
“I have been listening to her for the last five minutes, but did not wish to interrupt your most interesting narrative. Just a little wheezy, Susan, are you not? You breathe too heavily for that kind of work.”
Susan turned a sulky but amazed face upon her captor. “Who be you, anyhow, and what right have you a-pullin’ me about like this?”
“It was merely that I wished to ask a question in your presence. Did you, Mrs. Maberley, mention to anyone that you were going to write to me and consult me?”
“No, Mr. Holmes, I did not.”
“Who posted your letter?”
“Susan did.”
“Exactly. Now, Susan, to whom was it that you wrote or sent a message to say that your mistress was asking advice from me?”
“It’s a lie. I sent no message.”
“Now, Susan, wheezy people may not live long, you know. It’s a wicked thing to tell fibs. Whom did you tell?”
“Susan!” cried her mistress, “I believe you are a bad, treacherous woman. I remember now that I saw you speaking to someone over the hedge.”
“That was my own business,” said the woman sullenly.
“Suppose I tell you that it was Barney Stockdale to whom you spoke?” said Holmes.
“Well, if you know, what do you want to ask for?”
“I was not sure, but I know now. Well now, Susan, it will be worth ten pounds to you if you will tell me who is at the back of Barney.”
“Someone that could lay down a thousand pounds for every ten you have in the world.”
“So, a rich man? No; you smiled–a rich woman. Now we have got so far, you may as well give the name and earn the tenner.”
“I’ll see you in hell first.”
“Oh, Susan! Language!”
“I am clearing out of here. I’ve had enough of you all. I’ll send for my box to-morrow.” She flounced for the door.
“Good-bye, Susan. Paregoric is the stuff.… Now,” he continued, turning suddenly from lively to severe when the door had closed behind the flushed and angry woman, “this gang means business. Look how close they play the game. Your letter to me had the 10 P.M. postmark. And yet Susan passes the word to Barney. Barney has time to go to his employer and get instructions; he or she–I incline to the latter from Susan’s grin when she thought I had blundered–forms a plan. Black Steve is called in, and I am warned off by eleven o’clock next morning. That’s quick work, you know.”
“But what do they want?”
“Yes, that’s the question. Who had the house before you?”
“A retired sea captain called Ferguson.”
“Anything remarkable about him?”
“Not that ever I heard of.”
“I was wondering whether he could have buried something. Of course, when people bury treasure nowadays they do it in the Post-Office bank. But there are always some lunatics about. It would be a dull world without them. At first I thought of some buried valuable. But why, in that case, should they want your furniture? You don’t happen to have a Raphael or a first folio Shakespeare without knowing it?”
“No, I don’t think I have anything rarer than a Crown Derby tea-set.”
“That would hardly justify all this mystery. Besides, why should they not openly state what they want? If they covet your tea-set, they can surely offer a price for it without buying you out, lock, stock, and barrel. No, as I read it, there is something which you do not know that you have, and which you would not give up if you did know.”
“That is how I read it,” said I.
“Dr. Watson agrees, so that settles it.”
“Well, Mr. Holmes, what can it be?”
“Let us see whether by this purely mental analysis we can get it to a finer point. You have been in this house a year.”
“Nearly two.”
“All the better. During this long period no one wants anything from you. Now suddenly within three or four days you have urgent demands. What would you gather from that?”
“It can only mean,” said I, “that the object, whatever it may be, has only just come into the house.”
“Settled once again,” said Holmes. “Now, Mrs. Maberley, has any object just arrived?”
“No, I have bought nothing new this year.”
“Indeed! That is very remarkable. Well, I think we had best let matters develop a little further until we have clearer data. Is that lawyer of yours a capable man?”
“Mr. Sutro is most capable.”
“Have you another maid, or was the fair Susan, who has just banged your front door, alone?”
“I have a young girl.”
“Try and get Sutro to spend a night or two in the house. You might possibly want protection.”
“Against whom?”
“Who knows? The matter is certainly obscure. If I can’t find what they are after, I must approach the matter from the other end and try to get at the principal. Did this house-agent man give any address?”
“Simply his card and occupation. Haines-Johnson, Auctioneer and Valuer.”
“I don’t think we shall find him in the directory. Honest business men don’t conceal their place of business. Well, you will let me know any fresh development. I have taken up your case, and you may rely upon it that I shall see it through.”
As we passed through the hall Holmes’s eyes, which missed nothing, lighted upon several trunks and cases which were piled in a corner. The labels shone out upon them.
“‘Milano.’ ‘Lucerne.’ These are from Italy.”
“They are poor Douglas’s things.”
“You have not unpacked them? How long have you had them?”
“They arrived last week.”
“But you said–why, surely this might be the missing link. How do we know that there is not something of value there?”
“There could not possibly be, Mr. Holmes. Poor Douglas had only his pay and a small annuity. What could he have of value?”
Holmes was lost in thought.
“Delay no longer, Mrs. Maberley,” he said at last. “Have these things taken upstairs to your bedroom. Examine them as soon as possible and see what they contain. I will come to-morrow and hear your report.”
It was quite evident that The Three Gables was under very close surveillance, for as we came round the high hedge at the end of the lane there was the negro prize-fighter standing in the shadow. We came on him quite suddenly, and a grim and menacing figure he looked in that lonely place. Holmes clapped his hand to his pocket.
“Lookin’ for your gun, Masser Holmes?”
“No, for my scent-bottle, Steve.”
“You are funny, Masser Holmes, ain’t you?”
“It won’t be funny for you, Steve, if I get after you. I gave you fair warning this morning.”
“Well, Masser Holmes, I done gone think over what you said, and I don’t want no more talk about that affair of Masser Perkins. S’pose I can help you, Masser Holmes, I will.”
“Well, then, tell me who is behind you on this job.”
“So help me the Lord! Masser Holmes, I told you the truth before. I don’t know. My boss Barney gives me orders and that’s all.”
“Well, just bear in mind, Steve, that the lady in that house, and everything under that roof, is under my protection. Don’t forget it.”
“All right, Masser Holmes. I’ll remember.”
“I’ve got him thoroughly frightened for his own skin, Watson,” Holmes remarked as we walked on. “I think he would double-cross his employer if he knew who he was. It was lucky I had some knowledge of the Spencer John crowd, and that Steve was one of them. Now, Watson, this is a case for Langdale Pike, and I am going to see him now. When I get back I may be clearer in the matter.”
I saw no more of Holmes during the day, but I could well imagine how he spent it, for Langdale Pike was his human book of reference upon all matters of social scandal. This strange, languid creature spent his waking hours in the bow window of a St. James’s Street club and was the receiving-station as well as the transmitter for all the gossip of the metropolis. He made, it was said, a four-figure income by the paragraphs which he contributed every week to the garbage papers which cater to an inquisitive public. If ever, far down in the turbid depths of London life, there was some strange swirl or eddy, it was marked with automatic exactness by this human dial upon the surface. Holmes discreetly helped Langdale to knowledge, and on occasion was helped in turn.
When I met my friend in his room early next morning, I was conscious from his bearing that all was well, but none the less a most unpleasant surprise was awaiting us. It took the shape of the following telegram:
Please come out at once. Client’s house burgled in the night. Police in possession.
SUTRO.
Holmes whistled. “The drama has come to a crisis, and quicker than I had expected. There is a great driving-power at the back of this business, Watson, which does not surprise me after what I have heard. This Sutro, of course, is her lawyer. I made a mistake, I fear, in not asking you to spend the night on guard. This fellow has clearly proved a broken reed. Well, there is nothing for it but another journey to Harrow Weald.”
We found The Three Gables a very different establishment to the orderly household of the previous day. A small group of idlers had assembled at the garden gate, while a couple of constables were examining the windows and the geranium beds. Within we met a gray old gentleman, who introduced himself as the lawyer, together with a bustling, rubicund inspector, who greeted Holmes as an old friend.
“Well, Mr. Holmes, no chance for you in this case, I’m afraid. Just a common, ordinary burglary, and well within the capacity of the poor old police. No experts need apply.”
“I am sure the case is in very good hands,” said Holmes. “Merely a common burglary, you say?”
“Quite so. We know pretty well who the men are and where to find them. It is that gang of Barney Stockdale, with the big nigger in it–they’ve been seen about here.”
“Excellent! What did they get?”
“Well, they don’t seem to have got much. Mrs. Maberley was chloroformed and the house was—Ah! here is the lady herself.”
Our friend of yesterday, looking very pale and ill, had entered the room, leaning upon a little maidservant.
“You gave me good advice, Mr. Holmes,” said she, smiling ruefully. “Alas, I did not take it! I did not wish to trouble Mr. Sutro, and so I was unprotected.”
“I only heard of it this morning,” the lawyer explained.
“Mr. Holmes advised me to have some friend in the house. I neglected his advice, and I have paid for it.”
“You look wretchedly ill,” said Holmes. “Perhaps you are hardly equal to telling me what occurred.”
“It is all here,” said the inspector, tapping a bulky notebook.
“Still, if the lady is not too exhausted—”
“There is really so little to tell. I have no doubt that wicked Susan had planned an entrance for them. They must have known the house to an inch. I was conscious for a moment of the chloroform rag which was thrust over my mouth, but I have no notion how long I may have been senseless. When I woke, one man was at the bedside and another was rising with a bundle in his hand from among my son’s baggage, which was partially opened and littered over the floor. Before he could get away I sprang up and seized him.”
“You took a big risk,” said the inspector.
“I clung to him, but he shook me off, and the other may have struck me, for I can remember no more. Mary the maid heard the noise and began screaming out of the window. That brought the police, but the rascals had got away.”
“What did they take?”
“Well, I don’t think there is anything of value missing. I am sure there was nothing in my son’s trunks.”
“Did the men leave no clue?”
“There was one sheet of paper which I may have torn from the man that I grasped. It was lying all crumpled on the floor. It is in my son’s handwriting.”
“Which means that it is not of much use,” said the inspector. “Now if it had been in the burglar’s—”
“Exactly,” said Holmes. “What rugged common sense! None the less, I should be curious to see it.”
The inspector drew a folded sheet of foolscap from his pocketbook.
“I never pass anything, however trifling,” said he with some pomposity. “That is my advice to you, Mr. Holmes. In twenty-five years’ experience I have learned my lesso
n. There is always the chance of finger-marks or something.”
Holmes inspected the sheet of paper.
“What do you make of it, Inspector?”
“Seems to be the end of some queer novel, so far as I can see.”
“It may certainly prove to be the end of a queer tale,” said Holmes. “You have noticed the number on the top of the page. It is two hundred and forty-five. Where are the odd two hundred and forty-four pages?”
“Well, I suppose the burglars got those. Much good may it do them!”
“It seems a queer thing to break into a house in order to steal such papers as that. Does it suggest anything to you, Inspector?”
“Yes, sir, it suggests that in their hurry the rascals just grabbed at what came first to hand. I wish them joy of what they got.”
“Why should they go to my son’s things?” asked Mrs. Maberley.
“Well, they found nothing valuable downstairs, so they tried their luck upstairs. That is how I read it. What do you make of it, Mr. Holmes?”
“I must think it over, Inspector. Come to the window, Watson.” Then, as we stood together, he read over the fragment of paper. It began in the middle of a sentence and ran like this:
“… face bled considerably from the cuts and blows, but it was nothing to the bleeding of his heart as he saw that lovely face, the face for which he had been prepared to sacrifice his very life, looking out at his agony and humiliation. She smiled–yes, by Heaven! she smiled, like the heartless fiend she was, as he looked up at her. It was at that moment that love died and hate was born. Man must live for something. If it is not for your embrace, my lady, then it shall surely be for your undoing and my complete revenge.”
“Queer grammar!” said Holmes with a smile as he handed the paper back to the inspector. “Did you notice how the ‘he’ suddenly changed to ‘my’? The writer was so carried away by his own story that he imagined himself at the supreme moment to be the hero.”
“It seemed mighty poor stuff,” said the inspector as he replaced it in his book. “What! are you off, Mr. Holmes?”
The Complete Sherlock Holmes Page 178
