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

“Turn up the gas? Ah, the shadows

begin to fall, do they? Yes, I will turn it up, that I may see

you the better.” He crossed the room and the light suddenly

brightened. “Is there any other little service that I can do

you, my friend?”

 

“A match and a cigarette.”

 

I nearly called out in my joy and my amazement. He was speaking

in his natural voice—a little weak, perhaps, but the very voice

I knew. There was a long pause, and I felt that Culverton Smith

was standing in silent amazement looking down at his companion.

 

“What’s the meaning of this?” I heard him say at last in a dry,

rasping tone.

 

“The best way of successfully acting a part is to be it,” said

Holmes. “I give you my word that for three days I have tasted

neither food nor drink until you were good enough to pour me out

that glass of water. But it is the tobacco which I find most

irksome. Ah, here ARE some cigarettes.” I heard the striking of

a match. “That is very much better. Halloa! halloa! Do I hear

the step of a friend?”

 

There were footfalls outside, the door opened, and Inspector

Morton appeared.

 

“All is in order and this is your man,” said Holmes.

 

The officer gave the usual cautions.

 

“I arrest you on the charge of the murder of one Victor Savage,”

he concluded.

 

“And you might add of the attempted murder of one Sherlock

Holmes,” remarked my friend with a chuckle. “To save an invalid

trouble, Inspector, Mr. Culverton Smith was good enough to give

our signal by turning up the gas. By the way, the prisoner has a

small box in the right-hand pocket of his coat which it would be

as well to remove. Thank you. I would handle it gingerly if I

were you. Put it down here. It may play its part in the trial.”

 

There was a sudden rush and a scuffle, followed by the clash of

iron and a cry of pain.

 

“You’ll only get yourself hurt,” said the inspector. “Stand

still, will you?” There was the click of the closing handcuffs.

 

“A nice trap!” cried the high, snarling voice. “It will bring

YOU into the dock, Holmes, not me. He asked me to come here to

cure him. I was sorry for him and I came. Now he will pretend,

no doubt, that I have said anything which he may invent which

will corroborate his insane suspicions. You can lie as you like,

Holmes. My word is always as good as yours.”

 

“Good heavens!” cried Holmes. “I had totally forgotten him. My

dear Watson, I owe you a thousand apologies. To think that I

should have overlooked you! I need not introduce you to Mr.

Culverton Smith, since I understand that you met somewhat earlier

in the evening. Have you the cab below? I will follow you when I

am dressed, for I may be of some use at the station.

 

“I never needed it more,” said Holmes as he refreshed himself

with a glass of claret and some biscuits in the intervals of his

toilet. “However, as you know, my habits are irregular, and such

a feat means less to me than to most men. It was very essential

that I should impress Mrs. Hudson with the reality of my

condition, since she was to convey it to you, and you in turn to

him. You won’t be offended, Watson? You will realize that among

your many talents dissimulation finds no place, and that if you

had shared my secret you would never have been able to impress

Smith with the urgent necessity of his presence, which was the

vital point of the whole scheme. Knowing his vindictive nature,

I was perfectly certain that he would come to look upon his

handiwork.”

 

“But your appearance, Holmes—your ghastly face?”

 

“Three days of absolute fast does not improve one’s beauty,

Watson. For the rest, there is nothing which a sponge may not

cure. With vaseline upon one’s forehead, belladonna in one’s

eyes, rouge over the cheek-bones, and crusts of beeswax round

one’s lips, a very satisfying effect can be produced.

Malingering is a subject upon which I have sometimes thought of

writing a monograph. A little occasional talk about half-crowns,

oysters, or any other extraneous subject produces a pleasing

effect of delirium.”

 

“But why would you not let me near you, since there was in truth

no infection?”

 

“Can you ask, my dear Watson? Do you imagine that I have no

respect for your medical talents? Could I fancy that your astute

judgment would pass a dying man who, however weak, had no rise of

pulse or temperature? At four yards, I could deceive you. If I

failed to do so, who would bring my Smith within my grasp? No,

Watson, I would not touch that box. You can just see if you look

at it sideways where the sharp spring like a viper’s tooth

emerges as you open it. I dare say it was by some such device

that poor Savage, who stood between this monster and a reversion,

was done to death. My correspondence, however, is, as you know,

a varied one, and I am somewhat upon my guard against any

packages which reach me. It was clear to me, however, that by

pretending that he had really succeeded in his design I might

surprise a confession. That pretence I have carried out with the

thoroughness of the true artist. Thank you, Watson, you must

help me on with my coat. When we have finished at the police-station I think that something nutritious at Simpson’s would not

be out of place.”

 

The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax

 

“But why Turkish?” asked Mr. Sherlock Holmes, gazing fixedly at

my boots. I was reclining in a cane-backed chair at the moment,

and my protruded feet had attracted his ever-active attention.

 

“English,” I answered in some surprise. “I got them at

Latimer’s, in Oxford Street.”

 

Holmes smiled with an expression of weary patience.

 

“The bath!” he said; “the bath! Why the relaxing and expensive

Turkish rather than the invigorating home-made article?”

 

“Because for the last few days I have been feeling rheumatic and

old. A Turkish bath is what we call an alterative in medicine—a

fresh starting-point, a cleanser of the system.

 

“By the way, Holmes,” I added, “I have no doubt the connection

between my boots and a Turkish bath is a perfectly self-evident

one to a logical mind, and yet I should be obliged to you if you

would indicate it.”

 

“The train of reasoning is not very obscure, Watson,” said Holmes

with a mischievous twinkle. “It belongs to the same elementary

class of deduction which I should illustrate if I were to ask you

who shared your cab in your drive this morning.”

 

“I don’t admit that a fresh illustration is an explanation,” said

I with some asperity.

 

“Bravo, Watson! A very dignified and logical remonstrance. Let

me see, what were the points? Take the last one first—the cab.

You observe that you have some splashes on the left sleeve and

shoulder of your coat. Had you sat in the centre of a hansom you

would probably have had no splashes, and if you had they would

certainly have been symmetrical. Therefore it is clear that you

sat at the side. Therefore it is equally clear that you had a

companion.”

 

“That is very evident.”

 

“Absurdly commonplace, is it not?”

 

“But the boots and the bath?”

 

“Equally childish. You are in the habit of doing up your boots

in a certain way. I see them on this occasion fastened with an

elaborate double bow, which is not your usual method of tying

them. You have, therefore, had them off. Who has tied them? A

bootmaker—or the boy at the bath. It is unlikely that it is the

bootmaker, since your boots are nearly new. Well, what remains?

The bath. Absurd, is it not? But, for all that, the Turkish

bath has served a purpose.”

 

“What is that?”

 

“You say that you have had it because you need a change. Let me

suggest that you take one. How would Lausanne do, my dear

Watson—first-class tickets and all expenses paid on a princely

scale?”

 

“Splendid! But why?”

 

Holmes leaned back in his armchair and took his notebook from his

pocket.

 

“One of the most dangerous classes in the world,” said he, “is

the drifting and friendless woman. She is the most harmless and

often the most useful of mortals, but she is the inevitable

inciter of crime in others. She is helpless. She is migratory.

She has sufficient means to take her from country to country and

from hotel to hotel. She is lost, as often as not, in a maze of

obscure pensions and boardinghouses. She is a stray chicken in a

world of foxes. When she is gobbled up she is hardly missed. I

much fear that some evil has come to the Lady Frances Carfax.”

 

I was relieved at this sudden descent from the general to the

particular. Holmes consulted his notes.

 

“Lady Frances,” he continued, “is the sole survivor of the direct

family of the late Earl of Rufton. The estates went, as you may

remember, in the male line. She was left with limited means, but

with some very remarkable old Spanish jewellery of silver and

curiously cut diamonds to which she was fondly attached—too

attached, for she refused to leave them with her banker and

always carried them about with her. A rather pathetic figure,

the Lady Frances, a beautiful woman, still in fresh middle age,

and yet, by a strange change, the last derelict of what only

twenty years ago was a goodly fleet.”

 

“What has happened to her, then?”

 

“Ah, what has happened to the Lady Frances? Is she alive or

dead? There is our problem. She is a lady of precise habits,

and for four years it has been her invariable custom to write

every second week to Miss Dobney, her old governess, who has long

retired and lives in Camberwell. It is this Miss Dobney who has

consulted me. Nearly five weeks have passed without a word. The

last letter was from the Hotel National at Lausanne. Lady Frances

seems to have left there and given no address. The family are

anxious, and as they are exceedingly wealthy no sum will be

spared if we can clear the matter up.”

 

“Is Miss Dobney the only source of information? Surely she had

other correspondents?”

 

“There is one correspondent who is a sure draw, Watson. That is

the bank. Single ladies must live, and their passbooks are

compressed diaries. She banks at Silvester’s. I have glanced

over her account. The last check but one paid her bill at

Lausanne, but it was a large one and probably left her with cash

in hand. Only one check has been drawn since.”

 

“To whom, and where?”

 

“To Miss Marie Devine. There is nothing to show where the check

was drawn. It was cashed at the Credit Lyonnais at Montpellier

less than three weeks ago. The sum was fifty pounds.”

 

“And who is Miss Marie Devine?”

 

“That also I have been able to discover. Miss Marie Devine was

the maid of Lady Frances Carfax. Why she should have paid her

this check we have not yet determined. I have no doubt, however,

that your researches will soon clear the matter up.”

 

“MY researches!”

 

“Hence the health-giving expedition to Lausanne. You know that I

cannot possibly leave London while old Abrahams is in such mortal

terror of his life. Besides, on general principles it is best