Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (73 page)

“Nearly two months.”

“Have you ever seen a photograph of her first husband?”

“No; there was a great fire at Atlanta very shortly after his death, and all her papers were destroyed.”

“And yet she had a certificate of death. You say that you saw it.”

“Yes; she got a duplicate after the fire.”

“Did you ever meet any one who knew her in America?”

“No.”

“Did she ever talk of revisiting the place?”

“No.”

“Or get letters from it?”

“No.”

“Thank you. I should like to think over the matter a little now. If the cottage is now permanently deserted we may have some difficulty. If, on the other hand, as I fancy is more likely, the inmates were warned of your coming, and left before you entered yesterday, then they may be back now, and we should clear it all up easily. Let me advise you, then, to return to Norbury, and to examine the windows of the cottage again. If you have reason to believe that it is inhabited, do not force your way in, but send a wire to my friend and me. We shall be with you within an hour of receiving it, and we shall then very soon get to the bottom of the business.”

“And if it is still empty?”

“In that case I shall come out to-morrow and talk it over with you. Good-by; and, above all, do not fret until you know that you really have a cause for it.”

“I am afraid that this is a bad business, Watson,” said my companion, as he returned after accompanying Mr. Grant Munro to the door. “What do you make of it?”

“It had an ugly sound,” I answered.

“Yes. There’s blackmail in it, or I am much mistaken.”

“And who is the blackmailer?”

“Well, it must be the creature who lives in the only comfortable room in the place, and has her photograph above his fireplace. Upon my word, Watson, there is something very attractive about that livid face at the window, and I would not have missed the case for worlds.”

“You have a theory?”

“Yes, a provisional one. But I shall be surprised if it does not turn out to be correct. This woman’s first husband is in that cottage.”

“Why do you think so?”

“How else can we explain her frenzied anxiety that her second one should not enter it? The facts, as I read them, are something like this: This woman was married in America. Her husband developed some hateful qualities; or shall we say that he contracted some loathsome disease, and became a leper or an imbecile? She flies from him at last, returns to England, changes her name, and starts her life, as she thinks, afresh. She has been married three years, and believes that her position is quite secure, having shown her husband the death certificate of some man whose name she has assumed, when suddenly her whereabouts is discovered by her first husband; or, we may suppose, by some unscrupulous woman who has attached herself to the invalid. They write to the wife, and threaten to come and expose her. She asks for a hundred pounds, and endeavors to buy them off. They come in spite of it, and when the husband mentions casually to the wife that there are new-comers in the cottage, she knows in some way that they are her pursuers. She waits until her husband is asleep, and then she rushes down to endeavor to persuade them to leave her in peace. Having no success, she goes again next morning, and her husband meets her, as he has told us, as she comes out. She promises him then not to go there again, but two days afterwards the hope of getting rid of those dreadful neighbours was too strong for her, and she made another attempt, taking down with her the photograph which had probably been demanded from her. In the midst of this interview the maid rushed in to say that the master had come home, on which the wife, knowing that he would come straight down to the cottage, hurried the inmates out at the back door, into the grove of fir-trees, probably, which was mentioned as standing near. In this way he found the place deserted. I shall be very much surprised, however, if it is still so when he reconnoitres it this evening. What do you think of my theory?”

“It is all surmise.”

“But at least it covers all the facts. When new facts come to our knowledge which cannot be covered by it, it will be time enough to reconsider it. We can do nothing more until we have a message from our friend at Norbury.”

But we had not a very long time to wait for that. It came just as we had finished our tea. “The cottage is still tenanted,” it said. “Have seen the face again at the window. Will meet the seven o’clock train, and will take no steps until you arrive.”

He was waiting on the platform when we stepped out, and we could see in the light of the station lamps that he was very pale, and quivering with agitation.

“They are still there, Mr. Holmes,” said he, laying his hand hard upon my friend’s sleeve. “I saw lights in the cottage as I came down. We shall settle it now once and for all.”

“What is your plan, then?” asked Holmes, as he walked down the dark tree-lined road.

“I am going to force my way in and see for myself who is in the house. I wish you both to be there as witnesses.”

“You are quite determined to do this, in spite of your wife’s warning that it is better that you should not solve the mystery?”

“Yes, I am determined.”

“Well, I think that you are in the right. Any truth is better than indefinite doubt. We had better go up at once. Of course, legally, we are putting ourselves hopelessly in the wrong; but I think that it is worth it.”

It was a very dark night, and a thin rain began to fall as we turned from the high road into a narrow lane, deeply rutted, with hedges on either side. Mr. Grant Munro pushed impatiently forward, however, and we stumbled after him as best we could.

“There are the lights of my house,” he murmured, pointing to a glimmer among the trees. “And here is the cottage which I am going to enter.”

We turned a corner in the lane as he spoke, and there was the building close beside us. A yellow bar falling across the black foreground showed that the door was not quite closed, and one window in the upper story was brightly illuminated. As we looked, we saw a dark blur moving across the blind.

“There is that creature!” cried Grant Munro. “You can see for yourselves that some one is there. Now follow me, and we shall soon know all.”

We approached the door; but suddenly a woman appeared out of the shadow and stood in the golden track of the lamp-light. I could not see her face in the darkness, but her arms were thrown out in an attitude of entreaty.

“For God’s sake, don’t Jack!” she cried. “I had a presentiment that you would come this evening. Think better of it, dear! Trust me again, and you will never have cause to regret it.”

“I have trusted you too long, Effie,” he cried, sternly. “Leave go of me! I must pass you. My friends and I are going to settle this matter once and forever!” He pushed her to one side, and we followed closely after him. As he threw the door open an old woman ran out in front of him and tried to bar his passage, but he thrust her back, and an instant afterwards we were all upon the stairs. Grant Munro rushed into the lighted room at the top, and we entered at his heels.

It was a cosey, well-furnished apartment, with two candles burning upon the table and two upon the mantelpiece. In the corner, stooping over a desk, there sat what appeared to be a little girl. Her face was turned away as we entered, but we could see that she was dressed in a red frock, and that she had long white gloves on. As she whisked round to us, I gave a cry of surprise and horror. The face which she turned towards us was of the strangest livid tint, and the features were absolutely devoid of any expression. An instant later the mystery was explained. Holmes, with a laugh, passed his hand behind the child’s ear, a mask peeled off from her countenance, and there was a little coal black negress, with all her white teeth flashing in amusement at our amazed faces. I burst out laughing, out of sympathy with her merriment; but Grant Munro stood staring, with his hand clutching his throat.

“My God!” he cried. “What can be the meaning of this?”

“I will tell you the meaning of it,” cried the lady, sweeping into the room with a proud, set face. “You have forced me, against my own judgment, to tell you, and now we must both make the best of it. My husband died at Atlanta. My child survived.”

“Your child?”

She drew a large silver locket from her bosom. “You have never seen this open.”

“I understood that it did not open.”

She touched a spring, and the front hinged back. There was a portrait within of a man strikingly handsome and intelligent-looking, but bearing unmistakable signs upon his features of his African descent.

“That is John Hebron, of Atlanta,” said the lady, “and a nobler man never walked the earth. I cut myself off from my race in order to wed him, but never once while he lived did I for an instant regret it. It was our misfortune that our only child took after his people rather than mine. It is often so in such matches, and little Lucy is darker far than ever her father was. But dark or fair, she is my own dear little girlie, and her mother’s pet.” The little creature ran across at the words and nestled up against the lady’s dress. “When I left her in America,” she continued, “it was only because her health was weak, and the change might have done her harm. She was given to the care of a faithful Scotch woman who had once been our servant. Never for an instant did I dream of disowning her as my child. But when chance threw you in my way, Jack, and I learned to love you, I feared to tell you about my child. God forgive me, I feared that I should lose you, and I had not the courage to tell you. I had to choose between you, and in my weakness I turned away from my own little girl. For three years I have kept her existence a secret from you, but I heard from the nurse, and I knew that all was well with her. At last, however, there came an overwhelming desire to see the child once more. I struggled against it, but in vain. Though I knew the danger, I determined to have the child over, if it were but for a few weeks. I sent a hundred pounds to the nurse, and I gave her instructions about this cottage, so that she might come as a neighbour, without my appearing to be in any way connected with her. I pushed my precautions so far as to order her to keep the child in the house during the daytime, and to cover up her little face and hands so that even those who might see her at the window should not gossip about there being a black child in the neighbourhood. If I had been less cautious I might have been more wise, but I was half crazy with fear that you should learn the truth.

“It was you who told me first that the cottage was occupied. I should have waited for the morning, but I could not sleep for excitement, and so at last I slipped out, knowing how difficult it is to awake you. But you saw me go, and that was the beginning of my troubles. Next day you had my secret at your mercy, but you nobly refrained from pursuing your advantage. Three days later, however, the nurse and child only just escaped from the back door as you rushed in at the front one. And now to-night you at last know all, and I ask you what is to become of us, my child and me?” She clasped her hands and waited for an answer.

It was a long ten minutes before Grant Munro broke the silence, and when his answer came it was one of which I love to think. He lifted the little child, kissed her, and then, still carrying her, he held his other hand out to his wife and turned towards the door.

“We can talk it over more comfortably at home,” said he. “I am not a very good man, Effie, but I think that I am a better one than you have given me credit for being.”

Holmes and I followed them down the lane, and my friend plucked at my sleeve as we came out.

“I think,” said he, “that we shall be of more use in London than in Norbury.”

Not another word did he say of the case until late that night, when he was turning away, with his lighted candle, for his bedroom.

“Watson,” said he, “if it should ever strike you that I am getting a little over-confident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case than it deserves, kindly whisper ‘Norbury’ in my ear, and I shall be infinitely obliged to you.”

Adventure III. The Stock-Broker’s Cler
k

Shortly after my marriage I had bought a connection in the Paddington district. Old Mr. Farquhar, from whom I purchased it, had at one time an excellent general practice; but his age, and an affliction of the nature of St. Vitus’s dance from which he suffered, had very much thinned it. The public not unnaturally goes on the principle that he who would heal others must himself be whole, and looks askance at the curative powers of the man whose own case is beyond the reach of his drugs. Thus as my predecessor weakened his practice declined, until when I purchased it from him it had sunk from twelve hundred to little more than three hundred a year. I had confidence, however, in my own youth and energy, and was convinced that in a very few years the concern would be as flourishing as ever.

For three months after taking over the practice I was kept very closely at work, and saw little of my friend Sherlock Holmes, for I was too busy to visit Baker Street, and he seldom went anywhere himself save upon professional business. I was surprised, therefore, when, one morning in June, as I sat reading the British Medical Journal after breakfast, I heard a ring at the bell, followed by the high, somewhat strident tones of my old companion’s voice.

“Ah, my dear Watson,” said he, striding into the room, “I am very delighted to see you! I trust that Mrs. Watson has entirely recovered from all the little excitements connected with our adventure of the Sign of Four.”

“Thank you, we are both very well,” said I, shaking him warmly by the hand.

“And I hope, also,” he continued, sitting down in the rocking-chair, “that the cares of medical practice have not entirely obliterated the interest which you used to take in our little deductive problems.”

“On the contrary,” I answered, “it was only last night that I was looking over my old notes, and classifying some of our past results.”

“I trust that you don’t consider your collection closed.”

“Not at all. I should wish nothing better than to have some more of such experiences.”

“To-day, for example?”

“Yes, to-day, if you like.”

“And as far off as Birmingham?”

“Certainly, if you wish it.”

“And the practice?”

“I do my neighbour’s when he goes. He is always ready to work off the debt.”

“Ha! Nothing could be better,” said Holmes, leaning back in his chair and looking keenly at me from under his half closed lids. “I perceive that you have been unwell lately. Summer colds are always a little trying.”

“I was confined to the house by a severe chill for three days last week. I thought, however, that I had cast off every trace of it.”

“So you have. You look remarkably robust.”

“How, then, did you know of it?”

“My dear fellow, you know my methods.”

“You deduced it, then?”

“Certainly.”

“And from what?”

“From your slippers.”

I glanced down at the new patent leathers which I was wearing. “How on earth—” I began, but Holmes answered my question before it was asked.

“Your slippers are new,” he said. “You could not have had them more than a few weeks. The soles which you are at this moment presenting to me are slightly scorched. For a moment I thought they might have got wet and been burned in the drying. But near the instep there is a small circular wafer of paper with the shopman’s hieroglyphics upon it. Damp would of course have removed this. You had, then, been sitting with your feet outstretched to the fire, which a man would hardly do even in so wet a June as this if he were in his full health.”

Like all Holmes’s reasoning the thing seemed simplicity itself when it was once explained. He read the thought upon my features, and his smile had a tinge of bitterness.

“I am afraid that I rather give myself away when I explain,” said he. “Results without causes are much more impressive. You are ready to come to Birmingham, then?”

“Certainly. What is the case?”

“You shall hear it all in the train. My client is outside in a four-wheeler. Can you come at once?”

“In an instant.” I scribbled a note to my neighbour, rushed upstairs to explain the matter to my wife, and joined Holmes upon the door-step.

“Your neighbour is a doctor,” said he, nodding at the brass plate.

“Yes; he bought a practice as I did.”

“An old-established one?”

“Just the same as mine. Both have been ever since the houses were built.”

“Ah! Then you got hold of the best of the two.”

“I think I did. But how do you know?”

“By the steps, my boy. Yours are worn three inches deeper than his. But this gentleman in the cab is my client, Mr. Hall Pycroft. Allow me to introduce you to him. Whip your horse up, cabby, for we have only just time to catch our train.”

The man whom I found myself facing was a well built, fresh-complexioned young fellow, with a frank, honest face and a slight, crisp, yellow mustache. He wore a very shiny top hat and a neat suit of sober black, which made him look what he was — a smart young City man, of the class who have been labeled cockneys, but who give us our crack volunteer regiments, and who turn out more fine athletes and sportsmen than any body of men in these islands. His round, ruddy face was naturally full of cheeriness, but the corners of his mouth seemed to me to be pulled down in a half-comical distress. It was not, however, until we were all in a first-class carriage and well started upon our journey to Birmingham that I was able to learn what the trouble was which had driven him to Sherlock Holmes.

“We have a clear run here of seventy minutes,” Holmes remarked. “I want you, Mr. Hall Pycroft, to tell my friend your very interesting experience exactly as you have told it to me, or with more detail if possible. It will be of use to me to hear the succession of events again. It is a case, Watson, which may prove to have something in it, or may prove to have nothing, but which, at least, presents those unusual and outré features which are as dear to you as they are to me. Now, Mr. Pycroft, I shall not interrupt you again.”

Our young companion looked at me with a twinkle in his eye.

“The worst of the story is,” said he, “that I show myself up as such a confounded fool. Of course it may work out all right, and I don’t see that I could have done otherwise; but if I have lost my crib and get nothing in exchange I shall feel what a soft Johnnie I have been. I’m not very good at telling a story, Dr. Watson, but it is like this with me:

“I used to have a billet at Coxon & Woodhouse’s, of Draper’s Gardens, but they were let in early in the spring through the Venezuelan loan, as no doubt you remember, and came a nasty cropper. I had been with them five years, and old Coxon gave me a ripping good testimonial when the smash came, but of course we clerks were all turned adrift, the twenty-seven of us. I tried here and tried there, but there were lots of other chaps on the same lay as myself, and it was a perfect frost for a long time. I had been taking three pounds a week at Coxon’s, and I had saved about seventy of them, but I soon worked my way through that and out at the other end. I was fairly at the end of my tether at last, and could hardly find the stamps to answer the advertisements or the envelopes to stick them to. I had worn out my boots paddling up office stairs, and I seemed just as far from getting a billet as ever.

“At last I saw a vacancy at Mawson & Williams’s, the great stock-broking firm in Lombard Street. I dare say E. C. Is not much in your line, but I can tell you that this is about the richest house in London. The advertisement was to be answered by letter only. I sent in my testimonial and application, but without the least hope of getting it. Back came an answer by return, saying that if I would appear next Monday I might take over my new duties at once, provided that my appearance was satisfactory. No one knows how these things are worked. Some people say that the manager just plunges his hand into the heap and takes the first that comes. Anyhow it was my innings that time, and I don’t ever wish to feel better pleased. The screw was a pound a week rise, and the duties just about the same as at Coxon’s.

“And now I come to the queer part of the business. I was in diggings out Hampstead way, 17 Potter’s Terrace. Well, I was sitting doing a smoke that very evening after I had been promised the appointment, when up came my landlady with a card which had ‘Arthur Pinner, Financial Agent,’ printed upon it. I had never heard the name before and could not imagine what he wanted with me; but, of course, I asked her to show him up. In he walked, a middle-sized, dark-haired, dark-eyed, black-bearded man, with a touch of the Sheeny about his nose. He had a brisk kind of way with him and spoke sharply, like a man who knew the value of time.”

“‘Mr. Hall Pycroft, I believe?’” said he.

“‘Yes, sir,’ I answered, pushing a chair towards him.

“‘Lately engaged at Coxon & Woodhouse’s?’

“‘Yes, sir.’

“‘And now on the staff of Mawson’s.’

“‘Quite so.’

“‘Well,’ said he, ‘the fact is that I have heard some really extraordinary stories about your financial ability. You remember Parker, who used to be Coxon’s manager? He can never say enough about it.’

“Of course I was pleased to hear this. I had always been pretty sharp in the office, but I had never dreamed that I was talked about in the City in this fashion.

“‘You have a good memory?’ said he.

“‘Pretty fair,’ I answered, modestly.

“‘Have you kept in touch with the market while you have been out of work?’ he asked.

“‘Yes. I read the stock exchange list every morning.’

“‘Now that shows real application!’ he cried. ‘That is the way to prosper! You won’t mind my testing you, will you? Let me see. How are Ayrshires?’

“‘A hundred and six and a quarter to a hundred and five and seven-eighths.’

“‘And New Zealand consolidated?’

“‘A hundred and four.

“‘And British Broken Hills?’

“‘Seven to seven-and-six.’

“‘Wonderful!’ he cried, with his hands up. ‘This quite fits in with all that I had heard. My boy, my boy, you are very much too good to be a clerk at Mawson’s!’

“This outburst rather astonished me, as you can think. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘other people don’t think quite so much of me as you seem to do, Mr. Pinner. I had a hard enough fight to get this berth, and I am very glad to have it.’

“‘Pooh, man; you should soar above it. You are not in your true sphere. Now, I’ll tell you how it stands with me. What I have to offer is little enough when measured by your ability, but when compared with Mawson’s, it’s light to dark. Let me see. When do you go to Mawson’s?’

“‘On Monday.’

“‘Ha, ha! I think I would risk a little sporting flutter that you don’t go there at all.’

“‘Not go to Mawson’s?’

“‘No, sir. By that day you will be the business manager of the Franco-Midland Hardware Company, Limited, with a hundred and thirty-four branches in the towns and villages of France, not counting one in Brussels and one in San Remo.’

“This took my breath away. ‘I never heard of it,’ said I.

“‘Very likely not. It has been kept very quiet, for the capital was all privately subscribed, and it’s too good a thing to let the public into. My brother, Harry Pinner, is promoter, and joins the board after allotment as managing director. He knew I was in the swim down here, and asked me to pick up a good man cheap. A young, pushing man with plenty of snap about him. Parker spoke of you, and that brought me here to-night. We can only offer you a beggarly five hundred to start with.’

“‘Five hundred a year!’ I shouted.

“‘Only that at the beginning; but you are to have an overriding commission of one per cent on all business done by your agents, and you may take my word for it that this will come to more than your salary.’

“‘But I know nothing about hardware.’

“‘Tut, my boy; you know about figures.’

“My head buzzed, and I could hardly sit still in my chair. But suddenly a little chill of doubt came upon me.

“‘I must be frank with you,’ said I. ‘Mawson only gives me two hundred, but Mawson is safe. Now, really, I know so little about your company that—’

“‘Ah, smart, smart!’ he cried, in a kind of ecstasy of delight. ‘You are the very man for us. You are not to be talked over, and quite right, too. Now, here’s a note for a hundred pounds, and if you think that we can do business you may just slip it into your pocket as an advance upon your salary.’