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

some of my African curiosities. Among other

things I exhibited this powder, and I told him of its strange

properties, how it stimulates those brain centres which control

the emotion of fear, and how either madness or death is the fate

of the unhappy native who is subjected to the ordeal by the

priest of his tribe. I told him also how powerless European

science would be to detect it. How he took it I cannot say, for

I never left the room, but there is no doubt that it was then,

while I was opening cabinets and stooping to boxes, that he

managed to abstract some of the devil’s-foot root. I well

remember how he plied me with questions as to the amount and the

time that was needed for its effect, but I little dreamed that he

could have a personal reason for asking.

 

“I thought no more of the matter until the vicar’s telegram

reached me at Plymouth. This villain had thought that I would be

at sea before the news could reach me, and that I should be lost

for years in Africa. But I returned at once. Of course, I could

not listen to the details without feeling assured that my poison

had been used. I came round to see you on the chance that some

other explanation had suggested itself to you. But there could

be none. I was convinced that Mortimer Tregennis was the

murderer; that for the sake of money, and with the idea, perhaps,

that if the other members of his family were all insane he would

be the sole guardian of their joint property, he had used the

devil’s-foot powder upon them, driven two of them out of their

senses, and killed his sister Brenda, the one human being whom I

have ever loved or who has ever loved me. There was his crime;

what was to be his punishment?

 

“Should I appeal to the law? Where were my proofs? I knew that

the facts were true, but could I help to make a jury of

countrymen believe so fantastic a story? I might or I might not.

But I could not afford to fail. My soul cried out for revenge.

I have said to you once before, Mr. Holmes, that I have spent

much of my life outside the law, and that I have come at last to

be a law to myself. So it was even now. I determined that the

fate which he had given to others should be shared by himself.

Either that or I would do justice upon him with my own hand. In

all England there can be no man who sets less value upon his own

life than I do at the present moment.

 

“Now I have told you all. You have yourself supplied the rest.

I did, as you say, after a restless night, set off early from my

cottage. I foresaw the difficulty of arousing him, so I gathered

some gravel from the pile which you have mentioned, and I used it

to throw up to his window. He came down and admitted me through

the window of the sitting-room. I laid his offence before him.

I told him that I had come both as judge and executioner. The

wretch sank into a chair, paralyzed at the sight of my revolver.

I lit the lamp, put the powder above it, and stood outside the

window, ready to carry out my threat to shoot him should he try

to leave the room. In five minutes he died. My God! how he

died! But my heart was flint, for he endured nothing which my

innocent darling had not felt before him. There is my story, Mr.

Holmes. Perhaps, if you loved a woman, you would have done as

much yourself. At any rate, I am in your hands. You can take

what steps you like. As I have already said, there is no man

living who can fear death less than I do.”

 

Holmes sat for some little time in silence.

 

“What were your plans?” he asked at last.

 

“I had intended to bury myself in central Africa. My work there

is but half finished.”

 

“Go and do the other half,” said Holmes. “I, at least, am not

prepared to prevent you.”

 

Dr. Sterndale raised his giant figure, bowed gravely, and walked

from the arbour. Holmes lit his pipe and handed me his pouch.

 

“Some fumes which are not poisonous would be a welcome change,”

said he. “I think you must agree, Watson, that it is not a case

in which we are called upon to interfere. Our investigation has

been independent, and our action shall be so also. You would not

denounce the man?”

 

“Certainly not,” I answered.

 

“I have never loved, Watson, but if I did and if the woman I

loved had met such an end, I might act even as our lawless lion-hunter has done. Who knows? Well, Watson, I will not offend

your intelligence by explaining what is obvious. The gravel upon

the window-sill was, of course, the starting-point of my

research. It was unlike anything in the vicarage garden. Only

when my attention had been drawn to Dr. Sterndale and his cottage

did I find its counterpart. The lamp shining in broad daylight

and the remains of powder upon the shield were successive links

in a fairly obvious chain. And now, my dear Watson, I think we

may dismiss the matter from our mind and go back with a clear

conscience to the study of those Chaldean roots which are surely

to be traced in the Cornish branch of the great Celtic speech.”

 

His Last Bow

 

An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes

 

It was nine o’clock at night upon the second of August—the most

terrible August in the history of the world. One might have

thought already that God’s curse hung heavy over a degenerate

world, for there was an awesome hush and a feeling of vague

expectancy in the sultry and stagnant air. The sun had long set,

but one blood-red gash like an open wound lay low in the distant

west. Above, the stars were shining brightly, and below, the

lights of the shipping glimmered in the bay. The two famous

Germans stood beside the stone parapet of the garden walk, with

the long, low, heavily gabled house behind them, and they looked

down upon the broad sweep of the beach at the foot of the great

chalk cliff in which Von Bork, like some wandering eagle, had

perched himself four years before. They stood with their heads

close together, talking in low, confidential tones. From below

the two glowing ends of their cigars might have been the

smouldering eyes of some malignant fiend looking down in the

darkness.

 

A remarkable man this Von Bork—a man who could hardly be matched

among all the devoted agents of the Kaiser. It was his talents

which had first recommended him for the English mission, the most

important mission of all, but since he had taken it over those

talents had become more and more manifest to the half-dozen

people in the world who were really in touch with the truth. One

of these was his present companion, Baron Von Herling, the chief

secretary of the legation, whose huge 100-horse-power Benz car

was blocking the country lane as it waited to waft its owner back

to London.

 

“So far as I can judge the trend of events, you will probably be

back in Berlin within the week,” the secretary was saying. “When

you get there, my dear Von Bork, I think you will be surprised at

the welcome you will receive. I happen to know what is thought

in the highest quarters of your work in this country.” He was a

huge man, the secretary, deep, broad, and tall, with a slow,

heavy fashion of speech which had been his main asset in his

political career.

 

Von Bork laughed.

 

“They are not very hard to deceive,” he remarked. “A more

docile, simple folk could not be imagined.”

 

“I don’t know about that,” said the other thoughtfully. “They

have strange limits and one must learn to observe them. It is

that surface simplicity of theirs which makes a trap for the

stranger. One’s first impression is that they are entirely soft.

Then one comes suddenly upon something very hard, and you know

that you have reached the limit and must adapt yourself to the

fact. They have, for example, their insular conventions which

simply MUST be observed.”

 

“Meaning ‘good form’ and that sort of thing?” Von Bork sighed as

one who had suffered much.

 

“Meaning British prejudice in all its queer manifestations. As

an example I may quote one of my own worst blunders—I can afford

to talk of my blunders, for you know my work well enough to be

aware of my successes. It was on my first arrival. I was

invited to a week-end gathering at the country house of a cabinet

minister. The conversation was amazingly indiscreet.”

 

Von Bork nodded. “I’ve been there,” said he dryly.

 

“Exactly. Well, I naturally sent a resume of the information to

Berlin. Unfortunately our good chancellor is a little heavy-handed in these matters, and he transmitted a remark which showed

that he was aware of what had been said. This, of course, took

the trail straight up to me. You’ve no idea the harm that it did

me. There was nothing soft about our British hosts on that

occasion, I can assure you. I was two years living it down. Now

you, with this sporting pose of yours—”

 

“No, no, don’t call it a pose. A pose is an artificial thing.

This is quite natural. I am a born sportsman. I enjoy it.”

 

“Well, that makes it the more effective. You yacht against them,

you hunt with them, you play polo, you match them in every game,

your four-in-hand takes the prize at Olympia. I have even heard

that you go the length of boxing with the young officers. What

is the result? Nobody takes you seriously. You are a ‘good old

sport’ ‘quite a decent fellow for a German,’ a hard-drinking,

night-club, knock-about-town, devil-may-care young fellow. And

all the time this quiet country house of yours is the centre of

half the mischief in England, and the sporting squire the most

astute secret-service man in Europe. Genius, my dear Von Bork—

genius!”

 

“You flatter me, Baron. But certainly I may claim my four years

in this country have not been unproductive. I’ve never shown you

my little store. Would you mind stepping in for a moment?”

 

The door of the study opened straight on to the terrace. Von

Bork pushed it back, and, leading the way, he clicked the switch

of the electric light. He then closed the door behind the bulky

form which followed him and carefully adjusted the heavy curtain

over the latticed window. Only when all these precautions had

been taken and tested did he turn his sunburned aquiline face to

his guest.

 

“Some of my papers have gone,” said he. “When my wife and the

household left yesterday for Flushing they took the less

important with them. I must, of course, claim the protection of

the embassy for the others.”

 

“Your name has already been files as one of the personal suite.

There will be no difficulties for you or your baggage. Of

course, it is just possible that we may not have to go. England

may leave France to her fate. We are sure that there is no

binding treaty between them.”

 

“And Belgium?”

 

“Yes, and Belgium, too.”

 

Von Bork shook his head. “I don’t see how that could be. There

is a definite treaty there. She could never recover from