His last bow Some later reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes
more possible. Listen to this: ‘Be patient. Will find some sure means
of communications. Meanwhile, this column. G.’ That is two days after
Mrs. Warren’s lodger arrived. It sounds plausible, does it not? The
mysterious one could understand English, even if he could not print it.
Let us see if we can pick up the trace again. Yes, here we are—three
days later. ‘Am making successful arrangements. Patience and prudence.
The clouds will pass. G.’ Nothing for a week after that. Then comes
something much more definite: ‘The path is clearing. If I find chance
signal message remember code agreed—One A, two B, and so on. You will
hear soon. G.’ That was in yesterday’s paper, and there is nothing in
to-day’s. It’s all very appropriate to Mrs. Warren’s lodger. If we wait
a little, Watson, I don’t doubt that the affair will grow more
intelligible.”
So it proved; for in the morning I found my friend standing on the
hearthrug with his back to the fire and a smile of complete
satisfaction upon his face.
“How’s this, Watson?” he cried, picking up the paper from the table.
“‘High red house with white stone facings. Third floor. Second window
left. After dusk. G.’ That is definite enough. I think after breakfast
we must make a little reconnaissance of Mrs. Warren’s neighbourhood.
Ah, Mrs. Warren! what news do you bring us this morning?”
Our client had suddenly burst into the room with an explosive energy
which told of some new and momentous development.
“It’s a police matter, Mr. Holmes!” she cried. “I’ll have no more of
it! He shall pack out of there with his baggage. I would have gone
straight up and told him so, only I thought it was but fair to you to
take your opinion first. But I’m at the end of my patience, and when it
comes to knocking my old man about—”
“Knocking Mr. Warren about?”
“Using him roughly, anyway.”
“But who used him roughly?”
“Ah! that’s what we want to know! It was this morning, sir. Mr. Warren
is a timekeeper at Morton and Waylight’s, in Tottenham Court Road. He
has to be out of the house before seven. Well, this morning he had not
gone ten paces down the road when two men came up behind him, threw a
coat over his head, and bundled him into a cab that was beside the
curb. They drove him an hour, and then opened the door and shot him
out. He lay in the roadway so shaken in his wits that he never saw what
became of the cab. When he picked himself up he found he was on
Hampstead Heath; so he took a bus home, and there he lies now on his
sofa, while I came straight round to tell you what had happened.”
“Most interesting,” said Holmes. “Did he observe the appearance of
these men—did he hear them talk?”
“No; he is clean dazed. He just knows that he was lifted up as if by
magic and dropped as if by magic. Two at least were in it, and maybe
three.”
“And you connect this attack with your lodger?”
“Well, we’ve lived there fifteen years and no such happenings ever came
before. I’ve had enough of him. Money’s not everything. I’ll have him
out of my house before the day is done.”
“Wait a bit, Mrs. Warren. Do nothing rash. I begin to think that this
affair may be very much more important than appeared at first sight. It
is clear now that some danger is threatening your lodger. It is equally
clear that his enemies, lying in wait for him near your door, mistook
your husband for him in the foggy morning light. On discovering their
mistake they released him. What they would have done had it not been a
mistake, we can only conjecture.”
“Well, what am I to do, Mr. Holmes?”
“I have a great fancy to see this lodger of yours, Mrs. Warren.”
“I don’t see how that is to be managed, unless you break in the door. I
always hear him unlock it as I go down the stair after I leave the
tray.”
“He has to take the tray in. Surely we could conceal ourselves and see
him do it.”
The landlady thought for a moment.
“Well, sir, there’s the box-room opposite. I could arrange a
looking-glass, maybe, and if you were behind the door—”
“Excellent!” said Holmes. “When does he lunch?”
“About one, sir.”
“Then Dr. Watson and I will come round in time. For the present, Mrs.
Warren, good-bye.”
At half-past twelve we found ourselves upon the steps of Mrs. Warren’s
house—a high, thin, yellow-brick edifice in Great Orme Street, a narrow
thoroughfare at the northeast side of the British Museum. Standing as
it does near the corner of the street, it commands a view down Howe
Street, with its more pretentious houses. Holmes pointed with a chuckle
to one of these, a row of residential flats, which projected so that
they could not fail to catch the eye.
“See, Watson!” said he. “‘High red house with stone facings.’ There is
the signal station all right. We know the place, and we know the code;
so surely our task should be simple. There’s a ‘to let’ card in that
window. It is evidently an empty flat to which the confederate has
access. Well, Mrs. Warren, what now?”
“I have it all ready for you. If you will both come up and leave your
boots below on the landing, I’ll put you there now.”
It was an excellent hiding-place which she had arranged. The mirror was
so placed that, seated in the dark, we could very plainly see the door
opposite. We had hardly settled down in it, and Mrs. Warren left us,
when a distant tinkle announced that our mysterious neighbour had rung.
Presently the landlady appeared with the tray, laid it down upon a
chair beside the closed door, and then, treading heavily, departed.
Crouching together in the angle of the door, we kept our eyes fixed
upon the mirror. Suddenly, as the landlady’s footsteps died away, there
was the creak of a turning key, the handle revolved, and two thin hands
darted out and lifted the tray from the chair. An instant later it was
hurriedly replaced, and I caught a glimpse of a dark, beautiful,
horrified face glaring at the narrow opening of the box-room. Then the
door crashed to, the key turned once more, and all was silence. Holmes
twitched my sleeve, and together we stole down the stair.
“I will call again in the evening,” said he to the expectant landlady.
“I think, Watson, we can discuss this business better in our own
quarters.”
“My surmise, as you saw, proved to be correct,” said he, speaking from
the depths of his easy-chair. “There has been a substitution of
lodgers. What I did not foresee is that we should find a woman, and no
ordinary woman, Watson.”
“She saw us.”
“Well, she saw something to alarm her. That is certain. The general
sequence of events is pretty clear, is it not? A couple seek refuge in
London from a very terrible and instant danger. The measure of that
danger is the rigour of their precautions. The man, who has some work
which he must do, desires to leave the woman in absolute safety while
he does it. It is not an easy problem, but he solved it in an original
fashion, and so effectively that her presence was not even known to the
landlady who supplies her with food. The printed messages, as is now
evident, were to prevent her sex being discovered by her writing. The
man cannot come near the woman, or he will guide their enemies to her.
Since he cannot communicate with her direct, he has recourse to the
agony column of a paper. So far all is clear.”
“But what is at the root of it?”
“Ah, yes, Watson—severely practical, as usual! What is at the root of
it all? Mrs. Warren’s whimsical problem enlarges somewhat and assumes a
more sinister aspect as we proceed. This much we can say: that it is no
ordinary love escapade. You saw the woman’s face at the sign of danger.
We have heard, too, of the attack upon the landlord, which was
undoubtedly meant for the lodger. These alarms, and the desperate need
for secrecy, argue that the matter is one of life or death. The attack
upon Mr. Warren further shows that the enemy, whoever they are, are
themselves not aware of the substitution of the female lodger for the
male. It is very curious and complex, Watson.”
“Why should you go further in it? What have you to gain from it?”
“What, indeed? It is art for art’s sake, Watson. I suppose when you
doctored you found yourself studying cases without thought of a fee?”
“For my education, Holmes.”
“Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons with the
greatest for the last. This is an instructive case. There is neither
money nor credit in it, and yet one would wish to tidy it up. When dusk
comes we should find ourselves one stage advanced in our
investigation.”
When we returned to Mrs. Warren’s rooms, the gloom of a London winter
evening had thickened into one grey curtain, a dead monotone of colour,
broken only by the sharp yellow squares of the windows and the blurred
haloes of the gas-lamps. As we peered from the darkened sitting-room of
the lodging-house, one more dim light glimmered high up through the
obscurity.
“Someone is moving in that room,” said Holmes in a whisper, his gaunt
and eager face thrust forward to the window-pane. “Yes, I can see his
shadow. There he is again! He has a candle in his hand. Now he is
peering across. He wants to be sure that she is on the lookout. Now he
begins to flash. Take the message also, Watson, that we may check each
other. A single flash—that is A, surely. Now, then. How many did you
make it? Twenty. So did I. That should mean T. AT—that’s intelligible
enough. Another T. Surely this is the beginning of a second word. Now,
then—TENTA. Dead stop. That can’t be all, Watson? ATTENTA gives no
sense. Nor is it any better as three words AT, TEN, TA, unless T. A.
are a person’s initials. There it goes again! What’s that? ATTE—why, it
is the same message over again. Curious, Watson, very curious. Now he
is off once more! AT—why he is repeating it for the third time. ATTENTA
three times! How often will he repeat it? No, that seems to be the
finish. He has withdrawn from the window. What do you make of it,
Watson?”
“A cipher message, Holmes.”
My companion gave a sudden chuckle of comprehension. “And not a very
obscure cipher, Watson,” said he. “Why, of course, it is Italian! The A
means that it is addressed to a woman. ‘Beware! Beware! Beware!’ How’s
that, Watson?
“I believe you have hit it.”
“Not a doubt of it. It is a very urgent message, thrice repeated to
make it more so. But beware of what? Wait a bit, he is coming to the
window once more.”
Again we saw the dim silhouette of a crouching man and the whisk of the
small flame across the window as the signals were renewed. They came
more rapidly than before—so rapid that it was hard to follow them.
“PERICOLO—pericolo—eh, what’s that, Watson? ‘Danger,’ isn’t it? Yes, by
Jove, it’s a danger signal. There he goes again! PERI. Halloa, what on
earth—”
The light had suddenly gone out, the glimmering square of window had
disappeared, and the third floor formed a dark band round the lofty
building, with its tiers of shining casements. That last warning cry
had been suddenly cut short. How, and by whom? The same thought
occurred on the instant to us both. Holmes sprang up from where he
crouched by the window.
“This is serious, Watson,” he cried. “There is some devilry going
forward! Why should such a message stop in such a way? I should put
Scotland Yard in touch with this business—and yet, it is too pressing
for us to leave.”
“Shall I go for the police?”
“We must define the situation a little more clearly. It may bear some
more innocent interpretation. Come, Watson, let us go across ourselves
and see what we can make of it.”
PART II
As we walked rapidly down Howe Street I glanced back at the building
which we had left. There, dimly outlined at the top window, I could see
the shadow of a head, a woman’s head, gazing tensely, rigidly, out into