His last bow Some later reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes
happy than I was in his presence. My poor husband would sit pale and
listless, listening to the endless raving upon politics and upon social
questions which made up our visitor’s conversation. Gennaro said
nothing, but I, who knew him so well, could read in his face some
emotion which I had never seen there before. At first I thought that it
was dislike. And then, gradually, I understood that it was more than
dislike. It was fear—a deep, secret, shrinking fear. That night—the
night that I read his terror—I put my arms round him and I implored him
by his love for me and by all that he held dear to hold nothing from
me, and to tell me why this huge man overshadowed him so.
“He told me, and my own heart grew cold as ice as I listened. My poor
Gennaro, in his wild and fiery days, when all the world seemed against
him and his mind was driven half mad by the injustices of life, had
joined a Neapolitan society, the Red Circle, which was allied to the
old Carbonari. The oaths and secrets of this brotherhood were
frightful, but once within its rule no escape was possible. When we had
fled to America Gennaro thought that he had cast it all off forever.
What was his horror one evening to meet in the streets the very man who
had initiated him in Naples, the giant Gorgiano, a man who had earned
the name of ‘Death’ in the south of Italy, for he was red to the elbow
in murder! He had come to New York to avoid the Italian police, and he
had already planted a branch of this dreadful society in his new home.
All this Gennaro told me and showed me a summons which he had received
that very day, a Red Circle drawn upon the head of it telling him that
a lodge would be held upon a certain date, and that his presence at it
was required and ordered.
“That was bad enough, but worse was to come. I had noticed for some
time that when Gorgiano came to us, as he constantly did, in the
evening, he spoke much to me; and even when his words were to my
husband those terrible, glaring, wild-beast eyes of his were always
turned upon me. One night his secret came out. I had awakened what he
called ‘love’ within him—the love of a brute—a savage. Gennaro had not
yet returned when he came. He pushed his way in, seized me in his
mighty arms, hugged me in his bear’s embrace, covered me with kisses,
and implored me to come away with him. I was struggling and screaming
when Gennaro entered and attacked him. He struck Gennaro senseless and
fled from the house which he was never more to enter. It was a deadly
enemy that we made that night.
“A few days later came the meeting. Gennaro returned from it with a
face which told me that something dreadful had occurred. It was worse
than we could have imagined possible. The funds of the society were
raised by blackmailing rich Italians and threatening them with violence
should they refuse the money. It seems that Castalotte, our dear friend
and benefactor, had been approached. He had refused to yield to
threats, and he had handed the notices to the police. It was resolved
now that such an example should be made of them as would prevent any
other victim from rebelling. At the meeting it was arranged that he and
his house should be blown up with dynamite. There was a drawing of lots
as to who should carry out the deed. Gennaro saw our enemy’s cruel face
smiling at him as he dipped his hand in the bag. No doubt it had been
prearranged in some fashion, for it was the fatal disc with the Red
Circle upon it, the mandate for murder, which lay upon his palm. He was
to kill his best friend, or he was to expose himself and me to the
vengeance of his comrades. It was part of their fiendish system to
punish those whom they feared or hated by injuring not only their own
persons but those whom they loved, and it was the knowledge of this
which hung as a terror over my poor Gennaro’s head and drove him nearly
crazy with apprehension.
“All that night we sat together, our arms round each other, each
strengthening each for the troubles that lay before us. The very next
evening had been fixed for the attempt. By midday my husband and I were
on our way to London, but not before he had given our benefactor full
warning of this danger, and had also left such information for the
police as would safeguard his life for the future.
“The rest, gentlemen, you know for yourselves. We were sure that our
enemies would be behind us like our own shadows. Gorgiano had his
private reasons for vengeance, but in any case we knew how ruthless,
cunning, and untiring he could be. Both Italy and America are full of
stories of his dreadful powers. If ever they were exerted it would be
now. My darling made use of the few clear days which our start had
given us in arranging for a refuge for me in such a fashion that no
possible danger could reach me. For his own part, he wished to be free
that he might communicate both with the American and with the Italian
police. I do not myself know where he lived, or how. All that I learned
was through the columns of a newspaper. But once as I looked through my
window, I saw two Italians watching the house, and I understood that in
some way Gorgiano had found our retreat. Finally Gennaro told me,
through the paper, that he would signal to me from a certain window,
but when the signals came they were nothing but warnings, which were
suddenly interrupted. It is very clear to me now that he knew Gorgiano
to be close upon him, and that, thank God! he was ready for him when he
came. And now, gentleman, I would ask you whether we have anything to
fear from the law, or whether any judge upon earth would condemn my
Gennaro for what he has done?”
“Well, Mr. Gregson,” said the American, looking across at the official,
“I don’t know what your British point of view may be, but I guess that
in New York this lady’s husband will receive a pretty general vote of
thanks.”
“She will have to come with me and see the chief,” Gregson answered.
“If what she says is corroborated, I do not think she or her husband
has much to fear. But what I can’t make head or tail of, Mr. Holmes, is
how on earth _you_ got yourself mixed up in the matter.”
“Education, Gregson, education. Still seeking knowledge at the old
university. Well, Watson, you have one more specimen of the tragic and
grotesque to add to your collection. By the way, it is not eight
o’clock, and a Wagner night at Covent Garden! If we hurry, we might be
in time for the second act.”
The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax
“But why Turkish?” asked Mr. Sherlock Holmes, gazing fixedly at my
boots. I was reclining in a cane-backed chair at the moment, and my
protruded feet had attracted his ever-active attention.
“English,” I answered in some surprise. “I got them at Latimer’s, in
Oxford Street.”
Holmes smiled with an expression of weary patience.
“The bath!” he said; “the bath! Why the relaxing and expensive Turkish
rather than the invigorating home-made article?”
“Because for the last few days I have been feeling rheumatic and old. A
Turkish bath is what we call an alterative in medicine—a fresh
starting-point, a cleanser of the system.
“By the way, Holmes,” I added, “I have no doubt the connection between
my boots and a Turkish bath is a perfectly self-evident one to a
logical mind, and yet I should be obliged to you if you would indicate
it.”
“The train of reasoning is not very obscure, Watson,” said Holmes with
a mischievous twinkle. “It belongs to the same elementary class of
deduction which I should illustrate if I were to ask you who shared
your cab in your drive this morning.”
“I don’t admit that a fresh illustration is an explanation,” said I
with some asperity.
“Bravo, Watson! A very dignified and logical remonstrance. Let me see,
what were the points? Take the last one first—the cab. You observe that
you have some splashes on the left sleeve and shoulder of your coat.
Had you sat in the centre of a hansom you would probably have had no
splashes, and if you had they would certainly have been symmetrical.
Therefore it is clear that you sat at the side. Therefore it is equally
clear that you had a companion.”
“That is very evident.”
“Absurdly commonplace, is it not?”
“But the boots and the bath?”
“Equally childish. You are in the habit of doing up your boots in a
certain way. I see them on this occasion fastened with an elaborate
double bow, which is not your usual method of tying them. You have,
therefore, had them off. Who has tied them? A bootmaker—or the boy at
the bath. It is unlikely that it is the bootmaker, since your boots are
nearly new. Well, what remains? The bath. Absurd, is it not? But, for
all that, the Turkish bath has served a purpose.”
“What is that?”
“You say that you have had it because you need a change. Let me suggest
that you take one. How would Lausanne do, my dear Watson—first-class
tickets and all expenses paid on a princely scale?”
“Splendid! But why?”
Holmes leaned back in his armchair and took his notebook from his
pocket.
“One of the most dangerous classes in the world,” said he, “is the
drifting and friendless woman. She is the most harmless and often the
most useful of mortals, but she is the inevitable inciter of crime in
others. She is helpless. She is migratory. She has sufficient means to
take her from country to country and from hotel to hotel. She is lost,
as often as not, in a maze of obscure _pensions_ and boardinghouses.
She is a stray chicken in a world of foxes. When she is gobbled up she
is hardly missed. I much fear that some evil has come to the Lady
Frances Carfax.”
I was relieved at this sudden descent from the general to the
particular. Holmes consulted his notes.
“Lady Frances,” he continued, “is the sole survivor of the direct
family of the late Earl of Rufton. The estates went, as you may
remember, in the male line. She was left with limited means, but with
some very remarkable old Spanish jewellery of silver and curiously cut
diamonds to which she was fondly attached—too attached, for she refused
to leave them with her banker and always carried them about with her. A
rather pathetic figure, the Lady Frances, a beautiful woman, still in
fresh middle age, and yet, by a strange change, the last derelict of
what only twenty years ago was a goodly fleet.”
“What has happened to her, then?”
“Ah, what has happened to the Lady Frances? Is she alive or dead? There
is our problem. She is a lady of precise habits, and for four years it
has been her invariable custom to write every second week to Miss
Dobney, her old governess, who has long retired and lives in
Camberwell. It is this Miss Dobney who has consulted me. Nearly five
weeks have passed without a word. The last letter was from the Hôtel
National at Lausanne. Lady Frances seems to have left there and given
no address. The family are anxious, and as they are exceedingly wealthy
no sum will be spared if we can clear the matter up.”
“Is Miss Dobney the only source of information? Surely she had other
correspondents?”
“There is one correspondent who is a sure draw, Watson. That is the
bank. Single ladies must live, and their passbooks are compressed
diaries. She banks at Silvester’s. I have glanced over her account. The
last check but one paid her bill at Lausanne, but it was a large one
and probably left her with cash in hand. Only one check has been drawn
since.”
“To whom, and where?”
“To Miss Marie Devine. There is nothing to show where the check was
drawn. It was cashed at the Crédit Lyonnais at Montpellier less than
three weeks ago. The sum was fifty pounds.”
“And who is Miss Marie Devine?”
“That also I have been able to discover. Miss Marie Devine was the maid
of Lady Frances Carfax. Why she should have paid her this check we have