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

been a very beautiful girl, though now verging upon

middle age. Her dark, clear-cut face was handsome, even in

death, but there still lingered upon it something of that

convulsion of horror which had been her last human emotion. From

her bedroom we descended to the sitting-room, where this strange

tragedy had actually occurred. The charred ashes of the

overnight fire lay in the grate. On the table were the four

guttered and burned-out candles, with the cards scattered over

its surface. The chairs had been moved back against the walls,

but all else was as it had been the night before. Holmes paced

with light, swift steps about the room; he sat in the various

chairs, drawing them up and reconstructing their positions. He

tested how much of the garden was visible; he examined the floor,

the ceiling, and the fireplace; but never once did I see that

sudden brightening of his eyes and tightening of his lips which

would have told me that he saw some gleam of light in this utter

darkness.

 

“Why a fire?” he asked once. “Had they always a fire in this

small room on a spring evening?”

 

Mortimer Tregennis explained that the night was cold and damp.

For that reason, after his arrival, the fire was lit. “What are

you going to do now, Mr. Holmes?” he asked.

 

My friend smiled and laid his hand upon my arm. “I think,

Watson, that I shall resume that course of tobacco-poisoning

which you have so often and so justly condemned,” said he. “With

your permission, gentlemen, we will now return to our cottage,

for I am not aware that any new factor is likely to come to our

notice here. I will turn the facts over in my mid, Mr,

Tregennis, and should anything occur to me I will certainly

ommunicate with you and the vicar. In the meantime I wish you

both good-morning.”

 

It was not until long after we were back in Poldhu Cottage that

Holmes broke his complete and absorbed silence. He sat coiled in

his armchair, his haggard and ascetic face hardly visible amid

the blue swirl of his tobacco smoke, his black brows drawn down,

his forehead contracted, his eyes vacant and far away. Finally

he laid down his pipe and sprang to his feet.

 

“It won’t do, Watson!” said he with a laugh. “Let us walk along

the cliffs together and search for flint arrows. We are more

likely to find them than clues to this problem. To let the brain

work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It

racks itself to pieces. The sea air, sunshine, and patience,

Watson—all else will come.

 

“Now, let us calmly define our position, Watson,” he continued as

we skirted the cliffs together. “Let us get a firm grip of the

very little which we DO know, so that when fresh facts arise we

may be ready to fit them into their places. I take it, in the

first place, that neither of us is prepared to admit diabolical

intrusions into the affairs of men. Let us begin by ruling that

entirely out of our minds. Very good. There remain three

persons who have been grievously stricken by some conscious or

unconscious human agency. That is firm ground. Now, when did

this occur? Evidently, assuming his narrative to be true, it was

immediately after Mr. Mortimer Tregennis had left the room. That

is a very important point. The presumption is that it was within

a few minutes afterwards. The cards still lay upon the table.

It was already past their usual hour for bed. Yet they had not

changed their position or pushed back their chairs. I repeat,

then, that the occurrence was immediately after his departure,

and not later than eleven o’clock last night.

 

“Our next obvious step is to check, so far as we can, the

movements of Mortimer Tregennis after he left the room. In this

there is no difficulty, and they seem to be above suspicion.

Knowing my methods as you do, you were, of course, conscious of

the somewhat clumsy water-pot expedient by which I obtained a

clearer impress of his foot than might otherwise have been

possible. The wet, sandy path took it admirably. Last night was

also wet, you will remember, and it was not difficult—having

obtained a sample print—to pick out his track among others and

to follow his movements. He appears to have walked away swiftly

in the direction of the vicarage.

 

“If, then, Mortimer Tregennis disappeared from the scene, and yet

some outside person affected the card-players, how can we

reconstruct that person, and how was such an impression of horror

conveyed? Mrs. Porter may be eliminated. She is evidently

harmless. Is there any evidence that someone crept up to the

garden window and in some manner produced so terrific an effect

that he drove those who saw it out of their senses? The only

suggestion in this direction comes from Mortimer Tregennis

himself, who says that his brother spoke about some movement in

the garden. That is certainly remarkable, as the night was

rainy, cloudy, and dark. Anyone who had the design to alarm

these people would be compelled to place his very face against

the glass before he could be seen. There is a three-foot flower-border outside this window, but no indication of a footmark. It

is difficult to imagine, then, how an outsider could have made so

terrible an impression upon the company, nor have we found any

possible motive for so strange and elaborate an attempt. You

perceive our difficulties, Watson?”

 

“They are only too clear,” I answered with conviction.

 

“And yet, with a little more material, we may prove that they are

not insurmountable,” said Holmes. “I fancy that among your

extensive archives, Watson, you may find some which were nearly

as obscure. Meanwhile, we shall put the case aside until more

accurate data are available, and devote the rest of our morning

to the pursuit of neolithic man.”

 

I may have commented upon my friend’s power of mental detachment,

but never have I wondered at it more than upon that spring

morning in Cornwall when for two hours he discoursed upon celts,

arrowheads, and shards, as lightly as if no sinister mystery were

waiting for his solution. It was not until we had returned in

the afternoon to our cottage that we found a visitor awaiting us,

who soon brought our minds back to the matter in hand. Neither

of us needed to be told who that visitor was. The huge body, the

craggy and deeply seamed face with the fierce eyes and hawk-like

nose, the grizzled hair which nearly brushed our cottage ceiling,

the beard—golden at the fringes and white near the lips, save

for the nicotine stain from his perpetual cigar—all these were

as well known in London as in Africa, and could only be

associated with the tremendous personality of Dr. Leon Sterndale,

the great lion-hunter and explorer.

 

We had heard of his presence in the district and had once or

twice caught sight of his tall figure upon the moorland paths.

He made no advances to us, however, nor would we have dreamed of

doing so to him, as it was well known that it was his love of

seclusion which caused him to spend the greater part of the

intervals between his journeys in a small bungalow buried in the

lonely wood of Beauchamp Arriance. Here, amid his books and his

maps, he lived an absolutely lonely life, attending to his own

simple wants and paying little apparent heed to the affairs of

his neighbours. It was a surprise to me, therefore, to hear him

asking Holmes in an eager voice whether he had made any advance

in his reconstruction of this mysterious episode. “The county

police are utterly at fault,” said he, “but perhaps your wider

experience has suggested some conceivable explanation. My only

claim to being taken into your confidence is that during my many

residences here I have come to know this family of Tregennis very

well—indeed, upon my Cornish mother’s side I could call them

cousins—and their strange fate has naturally been a great shock

to me. I may tell you that I had got as far as Plymouth upon my

way to Africa, but the news reached me this morning, and I came

straight back again to help in the inquiry.”

 

Holmes raised his eyebrows.

 

“Did you lose your boat through it?”

 

“I will take the next.”

 

“Dear me! that is friendship indeed.”

 

“I tell you they were relatives.”

 

“Quite so—cousins of your mother. Was your baggage aboard the

ship?”

 

“Some of it, but the main part at the hotel.”

 

“I see. But surely this event could not have found its way into

the Plymouth morning papers.”

 

“No, sir; I had a telegram.”

 

“Might I ask from whom?”

 

A shadow passed over the gaunt face of the explorer.

 

“You are very inquisitive, Mr. Holmes.”

 

“It is my business.”

 

With an effort Dr. Sterndale recovered his ruffled composure.

 

“I have no objection to telling you,” he said. “It was Mr.

Roundhay, the vicar, who sent me the telegram which recalled me.”

 

“Thank you,” said Holmes. “I may say in answer to your original

question that I have not cleared my mind entirely on the subject

of this case, but that I have every hope of reaching some

conclusion. It would be premature to say more.”

 

“Perhaps you would not mind telling me if your suspicions point

in any particular direction?”

 

“No, I can hardly answer that.”

 

“Then I have wasted my time and need not prolong my visit.” The

famous doctor strode out of our cottage in considerable ill-humour, and within five minutes Holmes had followed him. I saw

him no more until the evening, when he returned with a slow step

and haggard face which assured me that he had made no great

progress with his investigation. He glanced at a telegram which

awaited him and threw it into the grate.

 

“From the Plymouth hotel, Watson,” he said. “I learned the name

of it from the vicar, and I wired to make certain that Dr. Leon

Sterndale’s account was true. It appears that he did indeed

spend last night there, and that he has actually allowed some of

his baggage to go on to Africa, while he returned to be present

at this investigation. What do you make of that, Watson?”

 

“He is deeply interested.”

 

“Deeply interested—yes. There is a thread here which we had not

yet grasped and which might lead us through the tangle. Cheer

up, Watson, for I am very sure that our material has not yet all

come to hand. When it does we may soon leave our difficulties

behind us.”

 

Little did I think how soon the words of Holmes would be

realized, or how strange and sinister would be that new

development which opened up an entirely fresh line of

investigation. I was shaving at my window in the morning when I

heard the rattle of hoofs and, looking up, saw a dog-cart coming

at a gallop down the road. It pulled up at our door, and our

friend, the vicar, sprang from it and rushed up our garden path.

Holmes was already dressed, and we hastened down to meet him.

 

Our visitor was so excited that he could hardly articulate, but

at last in gasps and bursts his tragic story came out of him.

 

“We are devil-ridden, Mr. Holmes! My poor parish is devil-ridden!” he cried. “Satan himself is loose in it! We are given

over into his hands!” He danced about in his agitation, a

ludicrous object if it were not for his ashy face and startled

eyes. Finally he