His last bow Some later reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes
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
mind, Mr. Tregennis, and should anything occur to me I will certainly
communicate 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 realised, 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 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 who 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