Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume II (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

  “That is for us to find out,” said Sherlock Holmes with peculiar gravity. “What is your London address, Mr. Green?”

  “The Langham Hotel will find me.”

  “Then may I recommend that you return there and be on hand in case I should want you? I have no desire to encourage false hopes, but you may rest assured that all that can be done will be done for the safety of Lady Frances. I can say no more for the instant. I will leave you this card so that you may be able to keep in touch with us. Now, Watson, if you will pack your bag I will cable to Mrs. Hudson to make one of her best efforts for two hungry travellers at 7:30 to-morrow.”

  A telegram was awaiting us when we reached our Baker Street rooms, which Holmes read with an exclamation of interest and threw across to me. “Jagged or torn,” was the message, and the place of origin, Baden.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “It is everything,” Holmes answered. “You may remember my seemingly irrelevant question as to this clerical gentleman’s left ear. You did not answer it.”

  “I had left Baden and could not inquire.”

  “Exactly. For this reason I sent a duplicate to the manager of the Englischer Hof, whose answer lies here.”

  “What does it show?”

  “It shows, my dear Watson, that we are dealing with an exceptionally astute and dangerous man. The Rev. Dr. Shlessinger, missionary from South America, is none other than Holy Peters, one of the most unscrupulous rascals that Australia has ever evolved—and for a young country it has turned out some very finished types. His particular specialty is the beguiling of lonely ladies by playing upon their religious feelings, and his so-called wife, an Englishwoman named Fraser, is a worthy helpmate. The nature of his tactics suggested his identity to me, and this physical peculiarity—he was badly bitten in a saloon-fight at Adelaide in ‘89—confirmed my suspicion. This poor lady is in the hands of a most in fernal couple, who will stick at nothing, Watson. That she is already dead is a very likely supposition. If not, she is undoubtedly in some sort of confinement and unable to write to Miss Dobney or her other friends. It is always possible that she never reached London, or that she has passed through it, but the former is improbable, as, with their system of registration, it is not easy for foreigners to play tricks with the Continental police; and the latter is also unlikely, as these rogues could not hope to find any other place where it would be as easy to keep a person under restraint. All my instincts tell me that she is in London, but as we have at present no possible means of telling where, we can only take the obvious steps, eat our dinner, and possess our souls in patience. Later in the evening I will stroll down and have a word with friend Lestrade at Scotland Yard.“

  But neither the official police nor Holmes’s own small but very efficient organization sufficed to clear away the mystery. Amid the crowded millions of London the three persons we sought were as completely obliterated as if they had never lived. Advertisements were tried, and failed. Clues were followed, and led to nothing. Every criminal resort which Shlessinger might frequent was drawn in vain. His old associates were watched, but they kept clear of him. And then suddenly, after a week of helpless suspense, there came a flash of light. A silver-and-brilliant pendant of old Spanish design had been pawned at Bovington‘s, in Westminster Road. The pawner was a large, clean-shaven man of clerical appearance. His name and address were demonstrably false. The ear had escaped notice, but the description was surely that of Shlessinger.

  Three times had our bearded friend from the Langham called for news—the third time within an hour of this fresh development. His clothes were getting looser on his great body. He seemed to be wilting away in his anxiety. “If you will only give me something to do!” was his constant wail. At last Holmes could oblige him.

  “He has begun to pawn the jewels. We should get him now.”

  “But does this mean that any harm has befallen the Lady Frances?”

  Holmes shook his head very gravely.

  “Supposing that they have held her prisoner up to now, it is clear that they cannot let her loose without their own destruction. We must prepare for the worst.”

  “What can I do?”

  “These people do not know you by sight?”

  “No.”

  “It is possible that he will go to some other pawnbroker in the future. In that case, we must begin again. On the other hand, he has had a fair price and no questions asked, so if he is in need of ready-money he will probably come back to Bovington’s. I will give you a note to them, and they will let you wait in the shop. If the fellow comes you will follow him home. But no indiscretion, and, above all, no violence. I put you on your honour that you will take no step without my knowledge and consent.”

  For two days the Hon. Philip Green (he was, I may mention, the son of the famous admiral of that name who commanded the Sea of Azof fleet in the Crimean War) brought us no news. On the evening of the third he rushed into our sitting-room, pale, trembling, with every muscle of his powerful frame quivering with excitement.

  “We have him! We have him!” he cried.

  He was incoherent in his agitation. Holmes soothed him with a few words and thrust him into an armchair.

  “Come, now, give us the order of events,” said he.

  “She came only an hour ago. It was the wife, this time, but the pendant she brought was the fellow of the other. She is a tall, pale woman, with ferret eyes.”

  “That is the lady,” said Holmes.

  “She left the office and I followed her. She walked up the Kennington Road, and I kept behind her. Presently she went into a shop. Mr. Holmes, it was an undertaker’s.”

  My companion started. “Well?” he asked in that vibrant voice which told of the fiery soul behind the cold gray face.

  “She was talking to the woman behind the counter. I entered as well. ‘It is late,’ I heard her say, or words to that effect. The woman was excusing herself. ‘It should be there before now,’ she answered. ‘It took longer, being out of the ordinary.’ They both stopped and looked at me, so I asked some question and then left the shop.”

  “You did excellently well. What happened next?”

  “The woman came out, but I had hid myself in a doorway. Her suspicions had been aroused, I think, for she looked round her. Then she called a cab and got in. I was lucky enough to get another and so to follow her. She got down at last at No. 36, Poultney Square, Brixton. I drove past, left my cab at the corner of the square, and watched the house.”

  “Did you see anyone?”

  “The windows were all in darkness save one on the lower floor. The blind was down, and I could not see in. I was standing there, wondering what I should do next, when a covered van drove up with two men in it. They descended, took something out of the van, and carried it up the steps to the hall door. Mr. Holmes, it was a coffin.”

  “Ah!”

  “For an instant I was on the point of rushing in. The door had been opened to admit the men and their burden. It was the woman who had opened it. But as I stood there she caught a glimpse of me, and I think that she recognized me. I saw her start, and she hastily closed the door. I remembered my promise to you, and here I am.”

  “You have done excellent work,” said Holmes, scribbling a few words upon a half-sheet of paper. “We can do nothing legal without a warrant, and you can serve the cause best by taking this note down to the authorities and getting one. There may be some difficulty, but I should think that the sale of the jewellery should be sufficient. Lestrade will see to all details.”

  “But they may murder her in the meanwhile. What could the coffin mean, and for whom could it be but for her?”

  “We will do all that can be done, Mr. Green. Not a moment will be lost. Leave it in our hands. Now, Watson,” he added as our client hurried away, “he will set the regular forces on the move. We are, as usual, the irregulars, and we must take our own line of action. The situation strikes me as so desperate that the most extreme measures are justified. N
ot a moment is to be lost in getting to Poultney Square.

  “Let us try to reconstruct the situation,” said he as we drove swiftly past the Houses of Parliament and over Westminster Bridge. “These villains have coaxed this unhappy lady to London, after first alienating her from her faithful maid. If she has written any letters they have been intercepted. Through some confederate they have engaged a furnished house. Once inside it, they have made her a prisoner, and they have become possessed of the valuable jewellery which has been their object from the first. Already they have begun to sell part of it, which seems safe enough to them, since they have no reason to think that anyone is interested in the lady’s fate. When she is released she will, of course, denounce them. Therefore, she must not be released. But they cannot keep her under lock and key forever. So murder is their only solution.”

  “That seems very clear.”

  “Now we will take another line of reasoning. When you follow two separate chains of thought, Watson, you will find some point of intersection which should approximate to the truth. We will start now, not from the lady but from the coffin and argue backward. That incident proves, I fear, beyond all doubt that the lady is dead. It points also to an orthodox burial with proper accompaniment of medical certificate and official sanction. Had the lady been obviously murdered, they would have buried her in a hole in the back garden. But here all is open and regular. What does that mean? Surely that they have done her to death in some way which has deceived the doctor and simulated a natural end—poisoning, perhaps. And yet how strange that they should ever let a doctor approach her unless he were a confederate, which is hardly a credible proposition.”

  “Could they have forged a medical certificate?”

  “Dangerous, Watson, very dangerous. No, I hardly see them doing that. Pull up, cabby! This is evidently the undertaker‘s, for we have just passed the pawnbroker’s. Would you go in, Watson? Your appearance inspires confidence. Ask what hour the Poultney Square funeral takes place to-morrow.”

  The woman in the shop answered me without hesitation that it was to be at eight o‘clock in the morning. “You see, Watson, no mystery; everything aboveboard! In some way the legal forms have undoubtedly been complied with, and they think that they have little to fear. Well, there’s nothing for it now but a direct frontal attack. Are you armed?”

  “My stick!”

  “Well, well, we shall be strong enough. ‘Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just.’cy We simply can’t afford to wait for the police or to keep within the four corners of the law. You can drive off, cabby. Now, Watson, we’ll just take our luck together, as we have occasionally done in the past.“

  He had rung loudly at the door of a great dark house in the centre of Poultney Square. It was opened immediately, and the figure of a tall woman was outlined against the dim-lit hall.

  “Well, what do you want?” she asked sharply, peering at us through the darkness.

  “I want to speak to Dr. Shlessinger,” said Holmes.

  “There is no such person here,” she answered, and tried to close the door, but Holmes had jammed it with his foot.

  “Well, I want to see the man who lives here, whatever he may call himself,” said Holmes firmly.

  She hesitated. Then she threw open the door. “Well, come in!” said she. “My husband is not afraid to face any man in the world.” She closed the door behind us and showed us into a sitting-room on the right side of the hall, turning up the gas as she left us. “Mr. Peters will be with you in an instant,” she said.

  Her words were literally true, for we had hardly time to look around the dusty and moth-eaten apartment in which we found ourselves before the door opened and a big, clean-shaven bald-headed man stepped lightly into the room. He had a large red face, with pendulous cheeks, and a general air of superficial benevolence which was marred by a cruel, vicious mouth.

  “There is surely some mistake here, gentlemen,” he said in an unctuous, make-everything-easy voice. “I fancy that you have been misdirected. Possibly if you tried farther down the street—”

  “That will do; we have no time to waste,” said my companion firmly. “You are Henry Peters, of Adelaide, late the Rev. Dr. Shlessinger, of Baden and South America. I am as sure of that as that my own name is Sherlock Holmes.”

  Peters, as I will now call him, started and stared hard at his formidable pursuer. “I guess your name does not frighten me, Mr. Holmes,” said he coolly. “When a man’s conscience is easy you can’t rattle him. What is your business in my house?”

  “I want to know what you have done with the Lady Frances Carfax, whom you brought away with you from Baden.”

  “I’d be very glad if you could tell me where that lady may be,” Peters answered coolly. “I’ve a bill against her for nearly a hundred pounds, and nothing to show for it but a couple of trumpery pendants that the dealer would hardly look at. She attached herself to Mrs. Peters and me at Baden—it is a fact that I was using another name at the time—and she stuck on to us until we came to London. I paid her bill and her ticket. Once in London, she gave us the slip, and, as I say, left these out-of-date jewels to pay her bills. You find her, Mr. Holmes, and I’m your debtor.”

  “I mean to find her,” said Sherlock Holmes. “I’m going through this house till I do find her.”

  “Where is your warrant?”

  Holmes half drew a revolver from his pocket. “This will have to serve till a better one comes.”

  “Why, you are a common burglar.”

  “So you might describe me,” said Holmes cheerfully. “My companion is also a dangerous ruffian. And together we are going through your house.”

  Our opponent opened the door.

  “Fetch a policeman, Annie!” said he. There was a whisk of feminine skirts down the passage, and the hall door was opened and shut.

  “Our time is limited, Watson,” said Holmes. “If you try to stop us, Peters, you will most certainly get hurt. Where is that coffin which was brought into your house?”

  “What do you want with the coffin? It is in use. There is a body in it.”

  “I must see that body.”

  “Never with my consent.”

  “Then without it.” With a quick movement Holmes pushed the fellow to one side and passed into the hall. A door half opened stood immediately before us. We entered. It was the dining-room. On the table, under a half-lit chandelier, the coffin was lying. Holmes turned up the gas and raised the lid. Deep down in the recesses of the coffin lay an emaciated figure. The glare from the lights above beat down upon an aged and withered face. By no possible process of cruelty, starvation, or disease could this worn-out wreck be the still beautiful Lady Frances. Holmes’s face showed his amazement, and also his relief.

  “Thank God!” he muttered. “It’s someone else.”

  “Ah, you’ve blundered badly for once, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said Peters, who had followed us into the room.

  “Who is this dead woman?”

  “Well, if you really must know, she is an old nurse of my wife‘s, Rose Spender by name, whom we found in the Brixton Workhouse Infirmary. We brought her round here, called in Dr. Horsom, of 13 Firbank Villas—mind you take the address, Mr. Holmes—and had her carefully tended, as Christian folk should. On the third day she died—certificate says senile decay—but that’s only the doctor’s opinion, and of course you know better. We ordered her funeral to be carried out by Stimson and Co., of the Kennington Road, who will bury her at eight o’clock to-morrow morning. Can you pick any hole in that, Mr. Holmes? You’ve made a silly blunder, and you may as well own up to it. I’d give something for a photograph of your gaping, staring face when you pulled aside that lid expecting to see the Lady Frances Carfax and only found a poor old woman of ninety.”

  Holmes’s expression was as impassive as ever under the jeers of his antagonist, but his clenched hands betrayed his acute annoyance.

  “I am going through your house,” said he.

  “Are you, thoug
h!” cried Peters as a woman’s voice and heavy steps sounded in the passage. “We’ll soon see about that. This way, officers, if you please. These men have forced their way into my house, and I cannot get rid of them. Help me to put them out.”

  A sergeant and a constable stood in the doorway. Holmes drew his card from his case.

  “This is my name and address. This is my friend, Dr. Watson.”

  “Bless you, sir, we know you very well,” said the sergeant, “but you can’t stay here without a warrant.”

  “Of course not. I quite understand that.”

  “Arrest him!” cried Peters.

  “We know where to lay our hands on this gentleman if he is wanted,” said the sergeant majestically, “but you’ll have to go, Mr. Holmes.”

  “Yes, Watson, we shall have to go.”

  A minute later we were in the street once more. Holmes was as cool as ever, but I was hot with anger and humiliation. The sergeant had followed us.

  “Sorry, Mr. Holmes, but that’s the law.”

  “Exactly, Sergeant, you could not do otherwise.”