His last bow Some later reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes
door, but Holmes had jammed it with his foot.
“Well, I want to see the man who lives here, whatever he may call
himself,” said Holmes firmly.
She hesitated. Then she threw open the door. “Well, come in!” said she.
“My husband is not afraid to face any man in the world.” She closed the
door behind us and showed us into a sitting-room on the right side of
the hall, turning up the gas as she left us. “Mr. Peters will be with
you in an instant,” she said.
Her words were literally true, for we had hardly time to look around
the dusty and moth-eaten apartment in which we found ourselves before
the door opened and a big, clean-shaven bald-headed man stepped lightly
into the room. He had a large red face, with pendulous cheeks, and a
general air of superficial benevolence which was marred by a cruel,
vicious mouth.
“There is surely some mistake here, gentlemen,” he said in an unctuous,
make-everything-easy voice. “I fancy that you have been misdirected.
Possibly if you tried farther down the street—”
“That will do; we have no time to waste,” said my companion firmly.
“You are Henry Peters, of Adelaide, late the Rev. Dr. Shlessinger, of
Baden and South America. I am as sure of that as that my own name is
Sherlock Holmes.”
Peters, as I will now call him, started and stared hard at his
formidable pursuer. “I guess your name does not frighten me, Mr.
Holmes,” said he coolly. “When a man’s conscience is easy you can’t
rattle him. What is your business in my house?”
“I want to know what you have done with the Lady Frances Carfax, whom
you brought away with you from Baden.”
“I’d be very glad if you could tell me where that lady may be,” Peters
answered coolly. “I’ve a bill against her for nearly a hundred pounds,
and nothing to show for it but a couple of trumpery pendants that the
dealer would hardly look at. She attached herself to Mrs. Peters and me
at Baden—it is a fact that I was using another name at the time—and she
stuck on to us until we came to London. I paid her bill and her ticket.
Once in London, she gave us the slip, and, as I say, left these
out-of-date jewels to pay her bills. You find her, Mr. Holmes, and I’m
your debtor.”
“I _mean_ to find her,” said Sherlock Holmes. “I’m going through this
house till I do find her.”
“Where is your warrant?”
Holmes half drew a revolver from his pocket. “This will have to serve
till a better one comes.”
“Why, you’re a common burglar.”
“So you might describe me,” said Holmes cheerfully. “My companion is
also a dangerous ruffian. And together we are going through your
house.”
Our opponent opened the door.
“Fetch a policeman, Annie!” said he. There was a whisk of feminine
skirts down the passage, and the hall door was opened and shut.
“Our time is limited, Watson,” said Holmes. “If you try to stop us,
Peters, you will most certainly get hurt. Where is that coffin which
was brought into your house?”
“What do you want with the coffin? It is in use. There is a body in
it.”
“I must see the body.”
“Never with my consent.”
“Then without it.” With a quick movement Holmes pushed the fellow to
one side and passed into the hall. A door half opened stood immediately
before us. We entered. It was the dining-room. On the table, under a
half-lit chandelier, the coffin was lying. Holmes turned up the gas and
raised the lid. Deep down in the recesses of the coffin lay an
emaciated figure. The glare from the lights above beat down upon an
aged and withered face. By no possible process of cruelty, starvation,
or disease could this worn-out wreck be the still beautiful Lady
Frances. Holmes’s face showed his amazement, and also his relief.
“Thank God!” he muttered. “It’s someone else.”
“Ah, you’ve blundered badly for once, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said
Peters, who had followed us into the room.
“Who is the dead woman?”
“Well, if you really must know, she is an old nurse of my wife’s, Rose
Spender by name, whom we found in the Brixton Workhouse Infirmary. We
brought her round here, called in Dr. Horsom, of 13, Firbank
Villas—mind you take the address, Mr. Holmes—and had her carefully
tended, as Christian folk should. On the third day she died—certificate
says senile decay—but that’s only the doctor’s opinion, and of course
you know better. We ordered her funeral to be carried out by Stimson
and Co., of the Kennington Road, who will bury her at eight o’clock
to-morrow morning. Can you pick any hole in that, Mr. Holmes? You’ve
made a silly blunder, and you may as well own up to it. I’d give
something for a photograph of your gaping, staring face when you pulled
aside that lid expecting to see the Lady Frances Carfax and only found
a poor old woman of ninety.”
Holmes’s expression was as impassive as ever under the jeers of his
antagonist, but his clenched hands betrayed his acute annoyance.
“I am going through your house,” said he.
“Are you, though!” cried Peters as a woman’s voice and heavy steps
sounded in the passage. “We’ll soon see about that. This way, officers,
if you please. These men have forced their way into my house, and I
cannot get rid of them. Help me to put them out.”
A sergeant and a constable stood in the doorway. Holmes drew his card
from his case.
“This is my name and address. This is my friend, Dr. Watson.”
“Bless you, sir, we know you very well,” said the sergeant, “but you
can’t stay here without a warrant.”
“Of course not. I quite understand that.”
“Arrest him!” cried Peters.
“We know where to lay our hands on this gentleman if he is wanted,”
said the sergeant majestically, “but you’ll have to go, Mr. Holmes.”
“Yes, Watson, we shall have to go.”
A minute later we were in the street once more. Holmes was as cool as
ever, but I was hot with anger and humiliation. The sergeant had
followed us.
“Sorry, Mr. Holmes, but that’s the law.”
“Exactly, Sergeant, you could not do otherwise.”
“I expect there was good reason for your presence there. If there is
anything I can do—”
“It’s a missing lady, Sergeant, and we think she is in that house. I
expect a warrant presently.”
“Then I’ll keep my eye on the parties, Mr. Holmes. If anything comes
along, I will surely let you know.”
It was only nine o’clock, and we were off full cry upon the trail at
once. First we drove to Brixton Workhouse Infirmary, where we found
that it was indeed the truth that a charitable couple had called some
days before, that they had claimed an imbecile old woman as a former
servant, and that they had obtained permission to take her away with
them. No surprise was expressed at the news that she had since died.
The doctor was our next goal. He had been called in, had found the
woman dying of pure senility, had actually seen her pass away, and had
signed the certificate in due form. “I assure you that everything was
perfectly normal and there was no room for foul play in the matter,”
said he. Nothing in the house had struck him as suspicious save that
for people of their class it was remarkable that they should have no
servant. So far and no further went the doctor.
Finally we found our way to Scotland Yard. There had been difficulties
of procedure in regard to the warrant. Some delay was inevitable. The
magistrate’s signature might not be obtained until next morning. If
Holmes would call about nine he could go down with Lestrade and see it
acted upon. So ended the day, save that near midnight our friend, the
sergeant, called to say that he had seen flickering lights here and
there in the windows of the great dark house, but that no one had left
it and none had entered. We could but pray for patience and wait for
the morrow.
Sherlock Holmes was too irritable for conversation and too restless for
sleep. I left him smoking hard, with his heavy, dark brows knotted
together, and his long, nervous fingers tapping upon the arms of his
chair, as he turned over in his mind every possible solution of the
mystery. Several times in the course of the night I heard him prowling
about the house. Finally, just after I had been called in the morning,
he rushed into my room. He was in his dressing-gown, but his pale,
hollow-eyed face told me that his night had been a sleepless one.
“What time was the funeral? Eight, was it not?” he asked eagerly.
“Well, it is 7:20 now. Good heavens, Watson, what has become of any
brains that God has given me? Quick, man, quick! It’s life or death—a
hundred chances on death to one on life. I’ll never forgive myself,
never, if we are too late!”
Five minutes had not passed before we were flying in a hansom down
Baker Street. But even so it was twenty-five to eight as we passed Big
Ben, and eight struck as we tore down the Brixton Road. But others were
late as well as we. Ten minutes after the hour the hearse was still
standing at the door of the house, and even as our foaming horse came
to a halt the coffin, supported by three men, appeared on the
threshold. Holmes darted forward and barred their way.
“Take it back!” he cried, laying his hand on the breast of the
foremost. “Take it back this instant!”
“What the devil do you mean? Once again I ask you, where is your
warrant?” shouted the furious Peters, his big red face glaring over the
farther end of the coffin.
“The warrant is on its way. The coffin shall remain in the house until
it comes.”
The authority in Holmes’s voice had its effect upon the bearers. Peters
had suddenly vanished into the house, and they obeyed these new orders.
“Quick, Watson, quick! Here is a screw-driver!” he shouted as the
coffin was replaced upon the table. “Here’s one for you, my man! A
sovereign if the lid comes off in a minute! Ask no questions—work away!
That’s good! Another! And another! Now pull all together! It’s giving!
It’s giving! Ah, that does it at last.”
With a united effort we tore off the coffin-lid. As we did so there
came from the inside a stupefying and overpowering smell of chloroform.
A body lay within, its head all wreathed in cotton-wool, which had been
soaked in the narcotic. Holmes plucked it off and disclosed the
statuesque face of a handsome and spiritual woman of middle age. In an
instant he had passed his arm round the figure and raised her to a
sitting position.
“Is she gone, Watson? Is there a spark left? Surely we are not too
late!”
For half an hour it seemed that we were. What with actual suffocation,
and what with the poisonous fumes of the chloroform, the Lady Frances
seemed to have passed the last point of recall. And then, at last, with
artificial respiration, with injected ether, and with every device that
science could suggest, some flutter of life, some quiver of the
eyelids, some dimming of a mirror, spoke of the slowly returning life.
A cab had driven up, and Holmes, parting the blind, looked out at it.
“Here is Lestrade with his warrant,” said he. “He will find that his
birds have flown. And here,” he added as a heavy step hurried along the
passage, “is someone who has a better right to nurse this lady than we
have. Good morning, Mr. Green; I think that the sooner we can move the
Lady Frances the better. Meanwhile, the funeral may proceed, and the
poor old woman who still lies in that coffin may go to her last
resting-place alone.”
“Should you care to add the case to your annals, my dear Watson,” said
Holmes that evening, “it can only be as an example of that temporary
eclipse to which even the best-balanced mind may be exposed. Such slips
are common to all mortals, and the greatest is he who can recognise and
repair them. To this modified credit I may, perhaps, make some claim.
My night was haunted by the thought that somewhere a clue, a strange
sentence, a curious observation, had come under my notice and had been
too easily dismissed. Then, suddenly, in the grey of the morning, the