His Last Bow, Arthur Conan Doyle [love books to read TXT] 📗

anything

fresh occurs, and rely upon my assistance if it should be needed.

 

“There are certainly some points of interest in this case,

Watson,” he remarked when the landlady had left us. “It may, of

course, be trivial—individual eccentricity; or it may be very

much deeper than appears on the surface. The first thing that

strike one is the obvious possibility that the person now in the

rooms may be entirely different from the one who engaged them.”

 

“Why should you think so?”

 

“Well, apart form this cigarette-end, was it not suggestive that

the only time the lodger went out was immediately after his

taking the rooms? He came back—or someone came back—when all

witnesses were out of the way. We have no proof that the person

who came back was the person who went out. Then, again, the man

who took the rooms spoke English well. This other, however,

prints ‘match’ when it should have been ‘matches.’ I can imagine

that the word was taken out of a dictionary, which would give the

noun but not the plural. The laconic style may be to conceal the

absence of knowledge of English. Yes, Watson, there are good

reasons to suspect that there has been a substitution of

lodgers.”

 

“But for what possible end?”

 

“Ah! there lies our problem. There is one rather obvious line of

investigation.” He took down the great book in which, day by

day, he filed the agony columns of the various London journals.

“Dear me!” said he, turning over the pages, “what a chorus of

groans, cries, and bleatings! What a rag-bag of singular

happenings! But surely the most valuable hunting-ground that

ever was given to a student of the unusual! This person is alone

and cannot be approached by letter without a breach of that

absolute secrecy which is desired. How is any news or any

message to reach him from without? Obviously by advertisement

through a newspaper. There seems no other way, and fortunately

we need concern ourselves with the one paper only. Here are the

Daily Gazette extracts of the last fortnight. ‘Lady with a black

boa at Prince’s Skating Club’—that we may pass. ‘Surely Jimmy

will not break his mother’s heart’—that appears to be

irrelevant. ‘If the lady who fainted on Brixton bus’—she does

not interest me. ‘Every day my heart longs—’ Bleat, Watson—

unmitigated bleat! Ah, this is a little more possible. Listen

to this: ‘Be patient. Will find some sure means of

communications. Meanwhile, this column. G.’ That is two days

after Mrs. Warren’s lodger arrived. It sounds plausible, does it

not? The mysterious one could understand English, even if he

could not print it. Let us see if we can pick up the trace

again. Yes, here we are—three days later. ‘Am making

successful arrangements. Patience and prudence. The clouds will

pass. G.’ Nothing for a week after that. Then comes something

much more definite: ‘The path is clearing. If I find chance

signal message remember code agreed—One A, two B, and so on.

You will hear soon. G.’ That was in yesterday’s paper, and

there is nothing in to-day’s. It’s all very appropriate to Mrs.

Warren’s lodger. If we wait a little, Watson, I don’t doubt that

the affair will grow more intelligible.”

 

So it proved; for in the morning I found my friend standing on

the hearthrug with his back to the fire and a smile of complete

satisfaction upon his face.

 

“How’s this, Watson?” he cried, picking up the paper from the

table. “‘High red house with white stone facings. Third floor.

Second window left. After dusk. G.’ That is definite enough.

I think after breakfast we must make a little reconnaissance of

Mrs. Warren’s neighbourhood. Ah, Mrs. Warren! what news do you

bring us this morning?”

 

Our client had suddenly burst into the room with an explosive

energy which told of some new and momentous development.

 

“It’s a police matter, Mr. Holmes!” she cried. “I’ll have no

more of it! He shall pack out of there with his baggage. I

would have gone straight up and told him so, only I thought it

was but fair to you to take your opinion first. But I’m at the

end of my patience, and when it comes to knocking my old man

about—”

 

“Knocking Mr. Warren about?”

 

“Using him roughly, anyway.”

 

“But who used him roughly?”

 

“Ah! that’s what we want to know! It was this morning, sir. Mr.

Warren is a timekeeper at Morton and Waylight’s, in Tottenham

Court Road. He has to be out of the house before seven. Well,

this morning he had not gone ten paces down the road when two men

came up behind him, threw a coat over his head, and bundled him

into a cab that was beside the curb. They drove him an hour,

and then opened the door and shot him out. He lay in the roadway

so shaken in his wits that he never saw what became of the cab.

When he picked himself up he found he was on Hampstead Heath; so

he took a bus home, and there he lies now on his sofa, while I

came straight round to tell you what had happened.”

 

“Most interesting,” said Holmes. “Did he observe the appearance

of these men—did he hear them talk?”

 

“No; he is clean dazed. He just knows that he was lifted up as

if by magic and dropped as if by magic. Two a least were in it,

and maybe three.”

 

“And you connect this attack with your lodger?”

 

“Well, we’ve lived there fifteen years and no such happenings

ever came before. I’ve had enough of him. Money’s not

everything. I’ll have him out of my house before the day is

done.”

 

“Wait a bit, Mrs. Warren. Do nothing rash. I begin to think that

this affair may be very much more important than appeared at

first sight. It is clear now that some danger is threatening

your lodger. It is equally clear that his enemies, lying in wait

for him near your door, mistook your husband for him in the foggy

morning light. On discovering their mistake they released him.

What they would have done had it not been a mistake, we can only

conjecture.”

 

“Well, what am I to do, Mr. Holmes?”

 

“I have a great fancy to see this lodger of yours, Mrs. Warren.”

 

“I don’t see how that is to be managed, unless you break in the

door. I always hear him unlock it as I go down the stair after I

leave the tray.”

 

“He has to take the tray in. Surely we could conceal ourselves

and see him do it.”

 

The landlady thought for a moment.

 

“Well, sir, there’s the box-room opposite. I could arrange a

looking-glass, maybe, and if you were behind the door—”

 

“Excellent!” said Holmes. “When does he lunch?”

 

“About one, sir.”

 

“Then Dr. Watson and I will come round in time. For the present,

Mrs. Warren, good-bye.”

 

At half-past twelve we found ourselves upon the steps of Mrs.

Warren’s house—a high, thin, yellow-brick edifice in Great Orme

Street, a narrow thoroughfare at the northeast side of the

British Museum. Standing as it does near the corner of the

street, it commands a view down Howe Street, with its ore

pretentious houses. Holmes pointed with a chuckle to one of

these, a row of residential flats, which projected so that they

could not fail to catch the eye.

 

“See, Watson!” said he. “‘High red house with stone facings.’

There is the signal station all right. We know the place, and we

know the code; so surely our task should be simple. There’s a

‘to let’ card in that window. It is evidently an empty flat to

which the confederate has access. Well, Mrs. Warren, what now?”

 

“I have it all ready for you. If you will both come up and leave

your boots below on the landing, I’ll put you there now.”

 

It was an excellent hiding-plate which she had arranged. The

mirror was so placed that, seated in the dark, we could very

plainly see the door opposite. We had hardly settled down in it,

and Mrs. Warren left us, when a distant tinkle announced that our

mysterious neighbour had rung. Presently the landlady appeared

with the tray, laid it down upon a chair beside the closed door,

and then, treading heavily, departed. Crouching together in the

angle of the door, we kept our eyes fixed upon the mirror.

Suddenly, as the landlady’s footsteps died away, there was the

creak of a turning key, the handle revolved, and two thin hands

darted out and lifted the tray form the chair. An instant later

it was hurriedly replaced, and I caught a glimpse of a dark,

beautiful, horrified face glaring at the narrow opening of the

box-room. Then the door crashed to, the key turned once more,

and all was silence. Holmes twitched my sleeve, and together we

stole down the stair.

 

“I will call again in the evening,” said he to the expectant

landlady. “I think, Watson, we can discuss this business better

in our own quarters.”

 

“My surmise, as you saw, proved to be correct,” said he, speaking

from the depths of his easy-chair. “There has been a

substitution of lodgers. What I did not foresee is that we

should find a woman, and no ordinary woman, Watson.”

 

“She saw us.”

 

“Well, she saw something to alarm her. That is certain. The

general sequence of events is pretty clear, is it not? A couple

seek refuge in London from a very terrible and instant danger.

The measure of that danger is the rigour of their precautions.

The man, who has some work which he must do, desires to leave the

woman in absolute safety while he does it. It is not an easy

problem, but he solved it in an original fashion, and so

effectively that her presence was not even known to the landlady

who supplies her with food. The printed messages, as is now

evident, were to prevent her sex being discovered by her writing.

The man cannot come near the woman, or he will guide their

enemies to her. Since he cannot communicate with her direct, he

has recourse to the agony column of a paper. So far all is

clear.”

 

“But what is at the root of it?”

 

“Ah, yes, Watson—severely practical, as usual! What is at the

root of it all? Mrs. Warren’s whimsical problem enlarges

somewhat and assumes a more sinister aspect as we proceed. This

much we can say: that it is no ordinary love escapade. You saw

the woman’s face at the sign of danger. We have heard, too, of

the attack upon the landlord, which was undoubtedly meant for the

lodger. These alarms, and the desperate need for secrecy, argue

that the matter is one of life or death. The attack upon Mr.

Warren further shows that the enemy, whoever they are, are

themselves not aware of the substitution of the female lodger for

the male. It is very curious and complex, Watson.”

 

“Why should you go further in it? What have you to gain from

it?”

 

“What, indeed? It is art for art’s sake, Watson. I suppose when

you doctored you found yourself studying cases without thought of

a fee?”

 

“For my education, Holmes.”

 

“Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons with

the greatest for the last. This is an instructive case. There

is neither money nor credit in it, and yet one would wish to tidy

it up. When dusk comes we should find ourselves one stage

advanced in our investigation.”

 

When we returned to Mrs. Warren’s rooms, the gloom of a London

winter evening had