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

shot out his terrible news.

 

“Mr. Mortimer Tregennis died during the night, and with exactly

the same symptoms as the rest of his family.”

 

Holmes sprang to his feet, all energy in an instant.

 

“Can you fit us both into your dog-cart?”

 

“Yes, I can.”

 

“Then, Watson, we will postpone our breakfast. Mr. Roundhay, we

are entirely at your disposal. Hurry—hurry, before things get

disarranged.”

 

The lodger occupied two rooms at the vicarage, which were in an

angle by themselves, the one above the other. Below was a large

sitting-room; above, his bedroom. They looked out upon a croquet

lawn which came up to the windows. We had arrived before the

doctor or the police, so that everything was absolutely

undisturbed. Let me describe exactly the scene as we saw it upon

that misty March morning. It has left an impression which can

never be effaced from my mind.

 

The atmosphere of the room was of a horrible and depressing

stuffiness. The servant had first entered had thrown up the

window, or it would have been even more intolerable. This might

partly be due to the fact that a lamp stood flaring and smoking

on the centre table. Beside it sat the dead man, leaning back in

his chair, his thin beard projecting, his spectacles pushed up

on to his forehead, and his lean dark face turned towards the

window and twisted into the same distortion of terror which had

marked the features of his dead sister. His limbs were convulsed

and his fingers contorted as though he had died in a very

paroxysm of fear. He was fully clothed, though there were signs

that his dressing had been done in a hurry. We had already

learned that his bed had been slept in, and that the tragic end

had come to him in the early morning.

 

One realized the red-hot energy which underlay Holmes’s

phlegmatic exterior when one saw the sudden change which came

over him from the moment that he entered the fatal apartment. In

an instant he was tense and alert, his eyes shining, his face

set, his limbs quivering with eager activity. He was out on the

lawn, in through the window, round the room, and up into the

bedroom, for all the world like a dashing foxhound drawing a

cover. In the bedroom he made a rapid cast around and ended by

throwing open the window, which appeared to give him some fresh

cause for excitement, for he leaned out of it with loud

ejaculations of interest and delight. Then he rushed down the

stair, out through the open window, threw himself upon his face

on the lawn, sprang up and into the room once more, all with the

energy of the hunter who is at the very heels of his quarry. The

lamp, which was an ordinary standard, he examined with minute

care, making certain measurements upon its bowl. He carefully

scrutinized with his lens the talc shield which covered the top

of the chimney and scraped off some ashes which adhered to its

upper surface, putting some of them into an envelope, which he

placed in his pocketbook. Finally, just as the doctor and the

official police put in an appearance, he beckoned to the vicar

and we all three went out upon the lawn.

 

“I am glad to say that my investigation has not been entirely

barren,” he remarked. “I cannot remain to discuss the matter

with the police, but I should be exceedingly obliged, Mr.

Roundhay, if you would give the inspector my compliments and

direct his attention to the bedroom window and to the sitting-room lamp. Each is suggestive, and together they are almost

conclusive. If the police would desire further information I

shall be happy to see any of them at the cottage. And now,

Watson, I think that, perhaps, we shall be better employed

elsewhere.”

 

It may be that the police resented the intrusion of an amateur,

or that they imagined themselves to be upon some hopeful line of

investigation; but it is certain that we heard nothing from them

for the next two days. During this time Holmes spent some of his

time smoking and dreaming in the cottage; but a greater portion

in country walks which he undertook alone, returning after many

hours without remark as to where he had been. One experiment

served to show me the line of his investigation. He had bought a

lamp which was the duplicate of the one which had burned in the

room of Mortimer Tregennis on the morning of the tragedy. This

he filled with the same oil as that used at the vicarage, and he

carefully timed the period which it would take to be exhausted.

Another experiment which he made was of a more unpleasant nature,

and one which I am not likely ever to forget.

 

“You will remember, Watson,” he remarked one afternoon, “that

there is a single common point of resemblance in the varying

reports which have reached us. This concerns the effect of the

atmosphere of the room in each case upon those who had first

entered it. You will recollect that Mortimer Tregennis, in

describing the episode of his last visit to his brother’s house,

remarked that the doctor on entering the room fell into a chair?

You had forgotten? Well I can answer for it that it was so.

Now, you will remember also that Mrs. Porter, the housekeeper,

told us that she herself fainted upon entering the room and had

afterwards opened the window. In the second case—that of

Mortimer Tregennis himself—you cannot have forgotten the

horrible stuffiness of the room when we arrived, though the

servant had thrown open the window. That servant, I found upon

inquiry, was so ill that she had gone to her bed. You will

admit, Watson, that these facts are very suggestive. In each

case there is evidence of a poisonous atmosphere. In each case,

also, there is combustion going on in the room—in the one case a

fire, in the other a lamp. The fire was needed, but the lamp was

lit—as a comparison of the oil consumed will show—long after it

was broad daylight. Why? Surely because there is some

connection between three things—the burning, the stuffy

atmosphere, and, finally, the madness or death of those

unfortunate people. That is clear, is it not?”

 

“It would appear so.”

 

“At least we may accept it as a working hypothesis. We will

suppose, then, that something was burned in each case which

produced an atmosphere causing strange toxic effects. Very good.

In the first instance—that of the Tregennis family—this

substance was placed in the fire. Now the window was shut, but

the fire would naturally carry fumes to some extent up the

chimney. Hence one would expect the effects of the poison to be

less than in the second case, where there was less escape for the

vapour. The result seems to indicate that it was so, since in

the first case only the woman, who had presumably the more

sensitive organism, was killed, the others exhibiting that

temporary or permanent lunacy which is evidently the first effect

of the drug. In the second case the result was complete. The

facts, therefore, seem to bear out the theory of a poison which

worked by combustion.

 

“With this train of reasoning in my head I naturally looked about

in Mortimer Tregennis’s room to find some remains of this

substance. The obvious place to look was the talc shelf or

smoke-guard of the lamp. There, sure enough, I perceived a number

of flaky ashes, and round the edges a fringe of brownish powder,

which had not yet been consumed. Half of this I took, as you

saw, and I placed it in an envelope.”

 

“Why half, Holmes?”

 

“It is not for me, my dear Watson, to stand in the way of the

official police force. I leave them all the evidence which I

found. The poison still remained upon the talc had they the wit

to find it. Now, Watson, we will light our lamp; we will,

however, take the precaution to open our window to avoid the

premature decease of two deserving members of society, and you

will seat yourself near that open window in an armchair unless,

like a sensible man, you determine to have nothing to do with the

affair. Oh, you will see it out, will you? I thought I knew my

Watson. This chair I will place opposite yours, so that we may

be the same distance from the poison and face to face. The door

we will leave ajar. Each is now in a position to watch the other

and to bring the experiment to an end should the symptoms seem

alarming. Is that all clear? Well, then, I take our powder—or

what remains of it—from the envelope, and I lay it above the

burning lamp. So! Now, Watson, let us sit down and await

developments.”

 

They were not long in coming. I had hardly settled in my chair

before I was conscious of a thick, musky odour, subtle and

nauseous. At the very first whiff of it my brain and my

imagination were beyond all control. A thick, black cloud

swirled before my eyes, and my mind told me that in this cloud,

unseen as yet, but about to spring out upon my appalled senses,

lurked all that was vaguely horrible, all that was monstrous and

inconceivably wicked in the universe. Vague shapes swirled and

swam amid the dark cloud-bank, each a menace and a warning of

something coming, the advent of some unspeakable dweller upon the

threshold, whose very shadow would blast my soul. A freezing

horror took possession of me. I felt that my hair was rising,

that my eyes were protruding, that my mouth was opened, and my

tongue like leather. The turmoil within my brain was such that

something must surely snap. I tried to scream and was vaguely

aware of some hoarse croak which was my own voice, but distant

and detached from myself At the same moment, in some effort of

escape, I broke through that cloud of despair and had a glimpse

of Holmes’s face, white, rigid, and drawn with horror—the very

look which I had seen upon the features of the dead. It was that

vision which gave me an instant of sanity and of strength. I

dashed from my chair, threw my arms round Holmes, and together we

lurched through the door, and an instant afterwards had thrown

ourselves down upon the grass plot and were lying side by side,

conscious only of the glorious sunshine which was bursting its

way through the hellish cloud of terror which had girt us in.

Slowly it rose from our souls like the mists from a landscape

until peace and reason had returned, and we were sitting upon the

grass, wiping our clammy foreheads, and looking with apprehension

at each other to mark the last traces of that terrific experience

which we had undergone.

 

“Upon my word, Watson!” said Holmes at last with an unsteady

voice, “I owe you both my thanks and an apology. It was an

unjustifiable experiment even for one’s self, and doubly so for a

friend. I am really very sorry.”

 

“You know,” I answered with some emotion, for I have never seen

so much of Holmes’s heart before, “that it is my greatest joy and

privilege to help you.”

 

He relapsed at once into the half-humorous, half-cynical vein

which was his habitual attitude to those about him. “It would be

superfluous to drive us mad, my dear Watson,” said he. “A candid

observer would certainly declare that we were so already before

we embarked upon so wild an experiment. I confess that I never

imagined that the effect could be so sudden and so severe.” He

dashed into