The Valley of Fear, Arthur Conan Doyle [books to read in your 30s TXT] 📗

sent up a note to the effect that he would wait upon Mrs. Douglas in her room; but she had replied that she would meet us in the dining room. She entered now, a tall and beautiful woman of thirty, reserved and self-possessed to a remarkable degree, very different from the tragic and distracted figure I had pictured. It is true that her face was pale and drawn, like that of one who has endured a great shock; but her manner was composed, and the finely moulded hand which she rested upon the edge of the table was as steady as my own. Her sad, appealing eyes travelled from one to the other of us with a curiously inquisitive expression. That questioning gaze transformed itself suddenly into abrupt speech.

“Have you found anything out yet?” she asked.

Was it my imagination that there was an undertone of fear rather than of hope in the question?

“We have taken every possible step, Mrs. Douglas,” said the inspector. “You may rest assured that nothing will be neglected.”

“Spare no money,” she said in a dead, even tone. “It is my desire that every possible effort should be made.”

“Perhaps you can tell us something which may throw some light upon the matter.”

“I fear not; but all I know is at your service.”

“We have heard from Mr. Cecil Barker that you did not actually see⁠—that you were never in the room where the tragedy occurred?”

“No, he turned me back upon the stairs. He begged me to return to my room.”

“Quite so. You had heard the shot, and you had at once come down.”

“I put on my dressing gown and then came down.”

“How long was it after hearing the shot that you were stopped on the stair by Mr. Barker?”

“It may have been a couple of minutes. It is so hard to reckon time at such a moment. He implored me not to go on. He assured me that I could do nothing. Then Mrs. Allen, the housekeeper, led me upstairs again. It was all like some dreadful dream.”

“Can you give us any idea how long your husband had been downstairs before you heard the shot?”

“No, I cannot say. He went from his dressing room, and I did not hear him go. He did the round of the house every night, for he was nervous of fire. It is the only thing that I have ever known him nervous of.”

“That is just the point which I want to come to, Mrs. Douglas. You have known your husband only in England, have you not?”

“Yes, we have been married five years.”

“Have you heard him speak of anything which occurred in America and might bring some danger upon him?”

Mrs. Douglas thought earnestly before she answered. “Yes.” she said at last, “I have always felt that there was a danger hanging over him. He refused to discuss it with me. It was not from want of confidence in me⁠—there was the most complete love and confidence between us⁠—but it was out of his desire to keep all alarm away from me. He thought I should brood over it if I knew all, and so he was silent.”

“How did you know it, then?”

Mrs. Douglas’s face lit with a quick smile. “Can a husband ever carry about a secret all his life and a woman who loves him have no suspicion of it? I knew it by his refusal to talk about some episodes in his American life. I knew it by certain precautions he took. I knew it by certain words he let fall. I knew it by the way he looked at unexpected strangers. I was perfectly certain that he had some powerful enemies, that he believed they were on his track, and that he was always on his guard against them. I was so sure of it that for years I have been terrified if ever he came home later than was expected.”

“Might I ask,” asked Holmes, “what the words were which attracted your attention?”

“The Valley of Fear,” the lady answered. “That was an expression he has used when I questioned him. ‘I have been in the Valley of Fear. I am not out of it yet.’⁠—‘Are we never to get out of the Valley of Fear?’ I have asked him when I have seen him more serious than usual. ‘Sometimes I think that we never shall,’ he has answered.”

“Surely you asked him what he meant by the Valley of Fear?”

“I did; but his face would become very grave and he would shake his head. ‘It is bad enough that one of us should have been in its shadow,’ he said. ‘Please God it shall never fall upon you!’ It was some real valley in which he had lived and in which something terrible had occurred to him, of that I am certain; but I can tell you no more.”

“And he never mentioned any names?”

“Yes, he was delirious with fever once when he had his hunting accident three years ago. Then I remember that there was a name that came continually to his lips. He spoke it with anger and a sort of horror. McGinty was the name⁠—Bodymaster McGinty. I asked him when he recovered who Bodymaster McGinty was, and whose body he was master of. ‘Never of mine, thank God!’ he answered with a laugh, and that was all I could get from him. But there is a connection between Bodymaster McGinty and the Valley of Fear.”

“There is one other point,” said Inspector MacDonald. “You met Mr. Douglas in a boarding house in London, did you not, and became engaged to him there? Was there any romance, anything secret or mysterious, about the wedding?”

“There was romance. There is always romance. There was nothing mysterious.”

“He had no rival?”

“No, I was quite free.”

“You have heard, no doubt, that his wedding ring has been taken. Does that suggest anything to you? Suppose that some enemy of his old life had tracked him down and committed this crime, what possible reason could he have for taking his wedding ring?”

For an instant I could have