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

the cottage, and, reappearing with the burning lamp

held at full arm’s length, he threw it among a bank of brambles.

“We must give the room a little time to clear. I take it,

Watson, that you have no longer a shadow of a doubt as to how

these tragedies were produced?”

 

“None whatever.”

 

“But the cause remains as obscure as before. Come into the

arbour here and let us discuss it together. That villainous

stuff seems still to linger round my throat. I think we must

admit that all the evidence points to this man, Mortimer

Tregennis, having been the criminal in the first tragedy, though

he was the victim in the second one. We must remember, in the

first place, that there is some story of a family quarrel,

followed by a reconciliation. How bitter that quarrel may have

been, or how hollow the reconciliation we cannot tell. When I

think of Mortimer Tregennis, with the foxy face and the small

shrewd, beady eyes behind the spectacles, he is not a man whom I

should judge to be of a particularly forgiving disposition.

Well, in the next place, you will remember that this idea of

someone moving in the garden, which took our attention for a

moment from the real cause of the tragedy, emanated from him. He

had a motive in misleading us. Finally, if he did not throw the

substance into the fire at the moment of leaving the room, who

did do so? The affair happened immediately after his departure.

Had anyone else come in, the family would certainly have risen

from the table. Besides, in peaceful Cornwall, visitors did not

arrive after ten o’clock at night. We may take it, then, that

all the evidence points to Mortimer Tregennis as the culprit.”

 

“Then his own death was suicide!”

 

“Well, Watson, it is on the face of it a not impossible

supposition. The man who had the guilt upon his soul of having

brought such a fate upon his own family might well be driven by

remorse to inflict it upon himself. There are, however, some

cogent reasons against it. Fortunately, there is one man in

England who knows all about it, and I have made arrangements by

which we shall hear the facts this afternoon from his own lips.

Ah! he is a little before his time. Perhaps you would kindly

step this way, Dr. Leon Sterndale. We have been conducing a

chemical experiment indoors which has left our little room hardly

fit for the reception of so distinguished a visitor.”

 

I had heard the click of the garden gate, and now the majestic

figure of the great African explorer appeared upon the path. He

turned in some surprise towards the rustic arbour in which we

sat.

 

“You sent for me, Mr. Holmes. I had your note about an hour ago,

and I have come, though I really do not know why I should obey

your summons.”

 

“Perhaps we can clear the point up before we separate,” said

Holmes. “Meanwhile, I am much obliged to you for your courteous

acquiescence. You will excuse this informal reception in the

open air, but my friend Watson and I have nearly furnished an

additional chapter to what the papers call the Cornish Horror,

and we prefer a clear atmosphere for the present. Perhaps, since

the matters which we have to discuss will affect you personally

in a very intimate fashion, it is as well that we should talk

where there can be no eavesdropping.”

 

The explorer took his cigar from his lips and gazed sternly at my

companion.

 

“I am at a loss to know, sir,” he said, “what you can have to

speak about which affects me personally in a very intimate

fashion.”

 

“The killing of Mortimer Tregennis,” said Holmes.

 

For a moment I wished that I were armed. Sterndale’s fierce face

turned to a dusky red, his eyes glared, and the knotted,

passionate veins started out in his forehead, while he sprang

forward with clenched hands towards my companion. Then he

stopped, and with a violent effort he resumed a cold, rigid

calmness, which was, perhaps, more suggestive of danger than his

hot-headed outburst.

 

“I have lived so long among savages and beyond the law,” said he,

“that I have got into the way of being a law to myself. You

would do well, Mr. Holmes, not to forget it, for I have no desire

to do you an injury.”

 

“Nor have I any desire to do you an injury, Dr. Sterndale.

Surely the clearest proof of it is that, knowing what I know, I

have sent for you and not for the police.”

 

Sterndale sat down with a gasp, overawed for, perhaps, the first

time in his adventurous life. There was a calm assurance of

power in Holmes’s manner which could not be withstood. Our

visitor stammered for a moment, his great hands opening and

shutting in his agitation.

 

“What do you mean?” he asked at last. “If this is bluff upon

your part, Mr. Holmes, you have chosen a bad man for your

experiment. Let us have no more beating about the bush. What DO

you mean?”

 

“I will tell you,” said Holmes, “and the reason why I tell you is

that I hope frankness may beget frankness. What my next step may

be will depend entirely upon the nature of your own defence.”

 

“My defence?”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“My defence against what?”

 

“Against the charge of killing Mortimer Tregennis.”

 

Sterndale mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. “Upon my

word, you are getting on,” said he. “Do all your successes

depend upon this prodigious power of bluff?”

 

“The bluff,” said Holmes sternly, “is upon your side, Dr. Leon

Sterndale, and not upon mine. As a proof I will tell you some of

the facts upon which my conclusions are based. Of your return

from Plymouth, allowing much of your property to go on to Africa,

I will say nothing save that it first informed me that you were

one of the factors which had to be taken into account in

reconstructing this drama—”

 

“I came back—”

 

“I have heard your reasons and regard them as unconvincing and

inadequate. We will pass that. You came down here to ask me

whom I suspected. I refused to answer you. You then went to the

vicarage, waited outside it for some time, and finally returned

to your cottage.”

 

“How do you know that?”

 

“I followed you.”

 

“I saw no one.”

 

“That is what you may expect to see when I follow you. You spent

a restless night at your cottage, and you formed certain plans,

which in the early morning you proceeded to put into execution.

Leaving your door just as day was breaking, you filled your

pocket with some reddish gravel that was lying heaped beside your

gate.”

 

Sterndale gave a violent start and looked at Holmes in amazement.

 

“You then walked swiftly for the mile which separated you from

the vicarage. You were wearing, I may remark, the same pair of

ribbed tennis shoes which are at the present moment upon your

feet. At the vicarage you passed through the orchard and the

side hedge, coming out under the window of the lodger Tregennis.

It was now daylight, but the household was not yet stirring. You

drew some of the gravel from your pocket, and you threw it up at

the window above you.”

 

Sterndale sprang to his feet.

 

“I believe that you are the devil himself!” he cried.

 

Holmes smiled at the compliment. “It took two, or possibly

three, handfuls before the lodger came to the window. You

beckoned him to come down. He dressed hurriedly and descended to

his sitting-room. You entered by the window. There was an

interview—a short one—during which you walked up and down the

room. Then you passed out and closed the window, standing on the

lawn outside smoking a cigar and watching what occurred.

Finally, after the death of Tregennis, you withdrew as you had

come. Now, Dr. Sterndale, how do you justify such conduct, and

what were the motives for your actions? If you prevaricate or

trifle with me, I give you my assurance that the matter will pass

out of my hands forever.”

 

Our visitor’s face had turned ashen gray as he listened to the

words of his accuser. Now he sat for some time in thought with

his face sunk in his hands. Then with a sudden impulsive gesture

he plucked a photograph from his breast-pocket and threw it on

the rustic table before us.

 

“That is why I have done it,” said he.

 

It showed the bust and face of a very beautiful woman. Holmes

stooped over it.

 

“Brenda Tregennis,” said he.

 

“Yes, Brenda Tregennis,” repeated our visitor. “For years I have

loved her. For years she has loved me. There is the secret of

that Cornish seclusion which people have marvelled at. It has

brought me close to the one thing on earth that was dear to me.

I could not marry her, for I have a wife who has left me for

years and yet whom, by the deplorable laws of England, I could

not divorce. For years Brenda waited. For years I waited. And

this is what we have waited for.” A terrible sob shook his great

frame, and he clutched his throat under his brindled beard. Then

with an effort he mastered himself and spoke on:

 

“The vicar knew. He was in our confidence. He would tell you

that she was an angel upon earth. That was why he telegraphed to

me and I returned. What was my baggage or Africa to me when I

learned that such a fate had come upon my darling? There you

have the missing clue to my action, Mr. Holmes.”

 

“Proceed,” said my friend.

 

Dr. Sterndale drew from his pocket a paper packet and laid it

upon the table. On the outside was written “Radix pedis diaboli”

with a red poison label beneath it. He pushed it towards me. “I

understand that you are a doctor, sir. Have you ever heard of

this preparation?”

 

“Devil’s-foot root! No, I have never heard of it.”

 

“It is no reflection upon your professional knowledge,” said he,

“for I believe that, save for one sample in a laboratory at Buda,

there is no other specimen in Europe. It has not yet found its

way either into the pharmacopoeia or into the literature of

toxicology. The root is shaped like a foot, half human, half

goatlike; hence the fanciful name given by a botanical

missionary. It is used as an ordeal poison by the medicine-men

in certain districts of West Africa and is kept as a secret among

them. This particular specimen I obtained under very

extraordinary circumstances in the Ubangi country.” He opened

the paper as he spoke and disclosed a heap of reddish-brown,

snuff-like powder.

 

“Well, sir?” asked Holmes sternly.

 

“I am about to tell you, Mr. Holmes, all that actually occurred,

for you already know so much that it is clearly to my interest

that you should know all. I have already explained the

relationship in which I stood to the Tregennis family. For the

sake of the sister I was friendly with the brothers. There was a

family quarrel about money which estranged this man Mortimer, but

it was supposed to be made up, and I afterwards met him as I did

the others. He was a sly, subtle, scheming man, and several

things arose which gave me a suspicion of him, but I had no cause

for any positive quarrel.

 

“One day, only a couple of weeks ago, he came down to my cottage

and I showed him