The case-book of Sherlock Holmes
possession of it."
"Sir, this is intolerable! Let me pass."
"Put your hand in the right-hand pocket of your overcoat."
"What do you mean, sir?"
"Come--come; do what I ask."
An instant later the amazed peer was standing, blinking and stammering,
with the great yellow stone on his shaking palm.
"What! What! How is this, Mr. Holmes?"
"Too bad, Lord Cantlemere, too bad!" cried Holmes. "My old friend here
will tell you that I have an impish habit of practical joking. Also
that I can never resist a dramatic situation. I took the liberty--the
very great liberty, I admit--of putting the stone into your pocket at
the beginning of our interview."
The old peer stared from the stone to the smiling face before him.
"Sir, I am bewildered. But--yes--it is indeed the Mazarin stone. We
are greatly your debtors, Mr. Holmes. Your sense of humour may, as you
admit, be somewhat perverted, and its exhibition remarkably untimely,
but at least I withdraw any reflection I have made upon your amazing
professional powers. But how----"
"The case is but half finished; the details can wait. No doubt, Lord
Cantlemere, your pleasure in telling of this successful result in the
exalted circle to which you return will be some small atonement for my
practical joke. Billy, you will show his lordship out, and tell Mrs.
Hudson that I should be glad if she would send up dinner for two as
soon as possible."
IV
THE ADVENTURE OF THE THREE GABLES
I don't think that any of my adventures with Mr. Sherlock Holmes opened
quite so abruptly, or so dramatically, as that which I associate with
The Three Gables. I had not seen Holmes for some days, and had no idea
of the new channel into which his activities had been directed. He was
in a chatty mood that morning, however, and had just settled me into
the well-worn low arm-chair on one side of the fire, while he had
curled down with his pipe in his mouth upon the opposite chair, when
our visitor arrived. If I had said that a mad bull had arrived, it
would give a clearer impression of what occurred.
The door had flown open and a huge negro had burst into the room. He
would have been a comic figure if he had not been terrific, for he was
dressed in a very loud grey check suit with a flowing salmon-coloured
tie. His broad face and flattened nose were thrust forward, as his
sullen dark eyes, with a smouldering gleam of malice in them, turned
from one of us to the other.
"Which of you genelmen is Masser Holmes?" he asked.
Holmes raised his pipe with a languid smile.
"Oh! it's you, is it?" said our visitor, coming with an unpleasant,
stealthy step round the angle of the table. "See here, Masser Holmes,
you keep your hands out of other folks' business. Leave folks to
manage their own affairs. Got that, Masser Holmes?"
"Keep on talking," said Holmes. "It's fine."
"Oh! it's fine, is it?" growled the savage. "It won't be so damn fine
if I have to trim you up a bit. I've handled your kind before now, and
they didn't look fine when I was through with them. Look at that,
Masser Holmes!"
He swung a huge knotted lump of a fist under my friend's nose. Holmes
examined it closely with an air of great interest. "Were you born so?"
he asked. "Or did it come by degrees?"
It may have been the icy coolness of my friend, or it may have been the
slight clatter which I made as I picked up the poker. In any case, our
visitor's manner became less flamboyant.
"Well, I've given you fair warnin'," said he. "I've a friend that's
interested out Harrow way--you know what I'm meaning--and he don't
intend to have no buttin' in by you. Got that? You ain't the law, and
I ain't the law either, and if you come in I'll be on hand also. Don't
you forget it."
"I've wanted to meet you for some time," said Holmes. "I won't ask you
to sit down, for I don't like the smell of you, but aren't you Steve
Dixie, the bruiser?
"That's my name, Masser Holmes, and you'll get put through it for sure
if you give me any lip."
"It is certainly the last thing you need," said Holmes, staring at our
visitor's hideous mouth. "But it was the killing of young Perkins
outside the Holborn Bar---- What! you're not going?"
The negro had sprung back, and his face was leaden. "I won't listen to
no such talk," said he. "What have I to do with this 'ere Perkins,
Masser Holmes? I was trainin' at the Bull Ring in Birmingham when this
boy done gone get into trouble."
"Yes, you'll tell the magistrate about it, Steve," said Holmes. "I've
been watching you and Barney Stockdale----"
"So help me the Lord! Masser Holmes----"
"That's enough. Get out of it. I'll pick you up when I want you."
"Good mornin', Masser Holmes. I hope there ain't no hard feelin's
about this 'ere visit?"
"There will be unless you tell me who sent you."
"Why, there ain't no secret about that, Masser Holmes. It was that
same genelman that you have just done gone mention."
"And who set him on to it?"
"S'elp me. I don't know, Masser Holmes. He just say, 'Steve, you go
see Mr. Holmes, and tell him his life ain't safe if he go down Harrow
way.' That's the whole truth."
Without waiting for any further questioning, our visitor bolted out of
the room almost as precipitately as he had entered. Holmes knocked out
the ashes of his pipe with a quiet chuckle.
"I am glad you were not forced to break his woolly head, Watson. I
observed your manoeuvres with the poker. But he is really rather a
harmless fellow, a great muscular, foolish, blustering baby, and easily
cowed, as you have seen. He is one of the Spencer John gang and has
taken part in some dirty work of late which I may clear up when I have
time. His immediate principal, Barney, is a more astute person. They
specialize in assaults, intimidation, and the like. What I want to
know is, who is at the back of them on this particular occasion?"
"But why do they want to intimidate you?"
"It is this Harrow Weald case. It decides me to look into the matter,
for if it is worth anyone's while to take so much trouble, there must
be something in it."
"But what is it?"
"I was going to tell you when we had this comic interlude. Here is
Mrs. Maberley's note. If you care to come with me we will wire her and
go out at once."
DEAR MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES, (I read)--
I have had a succession of strange incidents occur to me in connection
with this house, and I should much value your advice. You would find
me at home any time to-morrow. The house is within a short walk of the
Weald Station. I believe that my late husband, Mortimer Maberley, was
one of your early clients.
Yours faithfully,
MARY MABERLEY.
The address was "The Three Gables, Harrow Weald."
"So that's that!" said Holmes. "And now, if you can spare the time,
Watson, we will get upon our way."
A short railway journey, and a shorter drive, brought us to the house,
a brick and timber villa, standing in its own acre of undeveloped
grassland. Three small projections above the upper windows made a
feeble attempt to justify its name. Behind was a grove of melancholy,
half-grown pines, and the whole aspect of the place was poor and
depressing. None the less, we found the house to be well furnished,
and the lady who received us was a most engaging elderly person, who
bore every mark of refinement and culture.
"I remember your husband well, madam," said Holmes, "though it is some
years since he used my services in some trifling matter."
"Probably you would be more familiar with the name of my son Douglas."
Holmes looked at her with great interest.
"Dear me! Are you the mother of Douglas Maberley? I knew him
slightly. But, of course, all London knew him. What a magnificent
creature he was! Where is he now?"
"Dead, Mr. Holmes, dead! He was Attaché at Rome, and he died there of
pneumonia last month."
"I am sorry. One could not connect death with such a man. I have
never known anyone so vitally alive. He lived intensely--every fibre
of him!"
"Too intensely, Mr. Holmes. That was the ruin of him. You remember
him as he was--debonair and splendid. You did not see the moody,
morose, brooding creature into which he developed. His heart was
broken. In a single month I seemed to see my gallant boy turn into a
worn-out cynical man."
"A love affair--a woman?"
"Or a fiend. Well, it was not to talk of my poor lad that I asked you
to come, Mr. Holmes."
"Dr. Watson and I are at your service."
"There have been some very strange happenings. I have been in this
house more than a year now, and as I wished to lead a retired life I
have seen little of my neighbours. Three days ago I had a call from a
man who said that he was a house agent. He said that this house would
exactly suit a client of his and that if I would part with it money
would be no object. It seemed to me very strange, as there are several
empty houses on the market which appear to be equally eligible, but
naturally I was interested in what he said. I therefore named a price
which was five hundred pounds more than I gave. He at once closed with
the offer, but added that his client desired to buy the furniture as
well and would I put a price upon it. Some of this furniture is from
my old home, and it is, as you see, very good, so that I named a good
round sum. To this also he at once agreed. I had always wanted to
travel, and the bargain was so good a one that it really seemed that I
should be my own mistress for the rest of my life.
"Yesterday the man arrived with the agreement all drawn out. Luckily I
showed it to Mr. Sutro, my lawyer, who lives in Harrow. He said to me,
'This is a very strange document. Are you aware that if you sign it
you could not legally take _anything_ out of the house--not even your
own private possessions?' When the man came again in the evening I
pointed this out, and I said that I meant only to sell the furniture.
"'No, no; everything,' said he.
"'But my clothes? My jewels?'
"'Well, well, some concession might be made for your personal effects.
But nothing shall go out of the house unchecked. My client is a very
liberal man, but he has his fads and his own way of doing things. It
is everything or nothing with him.'
"'Then it must be nothing,' said I. And there the matter was left, but
the whole thing seemed to me to be so unusual that I thought----"
Here we had a very extraordinary interruption.
Holmes raised his hand for silence. Then he strode across the room,
flung open the door, and dragged in a great gaunt woman whom he had
seized by the shoulder. She entered with ungainly struggles, like some
huge awkward chicken, torn squawking out of its coop.
"Leave me alone! What are you a-doin' of?" she screeched.
"Why, Susan, what is this?"
"Well, ma'am, I was comin' in to ask if the visitors was stayin' for
lunch when this man jumped out at me."
"I have been listening to her for the last five minutes, but did not
wish to interrupt your most interesting narrative. Just a little
wheezy, Susan, are you not? You breathe too heavily for that kind of
work."
Susan turned a sulky but amazed face upon her captor. "Who be you,
anyhow, and what right have you a-pullin' me about like this?"
"It was merely that I wished to ask a question in your presence. Did
you, Mrs. Maberley, mention to anyone that you were going to write to
me and consult me?"
"No, Mr. Holmes, I did not."
"Who posted your letter?"
"Susan did."
"Exactly. Now, Susan, to whom was it that you wrote or sent a message
to say that your mistress was asking advice from me?"
"It's a lie. I sent no message."
"Now, Susan, wheezy people may not live long, you know. It's a wicked
thing to tell fibs. Whom did you tell?"