The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
never seen before. It’s horrible to have to do it. But I’ve got
to the end of my tether, and I must have advice.”
“My dear Mr. Grant Munro—” began Holmes.
Our visitor sprang from his chair. “What!” he cried, “you know my
name?”
“If you wish to preserve your _incognito_,” said Holmes, smiling,
“I would suggest that you cease to write your name upon the
lining of your hat, or else that you turn the crown towards the
person whom you are addressing. I was about to say that my friend
and I have listened to a good many strange secrets in this room,
and that we have had the good fortune to bring peace to many
troubled souls. I trust that we may do as much for you. Might I
beg you, as time may prove to be of importance, to furnish me
with the facts of your case without further delay?”
Our visitor again passed his hand over his forehead, as if he
found it bitterly hard. From every gesture and expression I could
see that he was a reserved, self-contained man, with a dash of
pride in his nature, more likely to hide his wounds than to
expose them. Then suddenly, with a fierce gesture of his closed
hand, like one who throws reserve to the winds, he began.
“The facts are these, Mr. Holmes,” said he. “I am a married man,
and have been so for three years. During that time my wife and I
have loved each other as fondly and lived as happily as any two
that ever were joined. We have not had a difference, not one, in
thought or word or deed. And now, since last Monday, there has
suddenly sprung up a barrier between us, and I find that there is
something in her life and in her thought of which I know as
little as if she were the woman who brushes by me in the street.
We are estranged, and I want to know why.
“Now there is one thing that I want to impress upon you before I
go any further, Mr. Holmes. Effie loves me. Don’t let there be
any mistake about that. She loves me with her whole heart and
soul, and never more than now. I know it. I feel it. I don’t want
to argue about that. A man can tell easily enough when a woman
loves him. But there’s this secret between us, and we can never
be the same until it is cleared.”
“Kindly let me have the facts, Mr. Munro,” said Holmes, with some
impatience.
“I’ll tell you what I know about Effie’s history. She was a widow
when I met her first, though quite young—only twenty-five. Her
name then was Mrs. Hebron. She went out to America when she was
young, and lived in the town of Atlanta, where she married this
Hebron, who was a lawyer with a good practice. They had one
child, but the yellow fever broke out badly in the place, and
both husband and child died of it. I have seen his death
certificate. This sickened her of America, and she came back to
live with a maiden aunt at Pinner, in Middlesex. I may mention
that her husband had left her comfortably off, and that she had a
capital of about four thousand five hundred pounds, which had
been so well invested by him that it returned an average of seven
per cent. She had only been six months at Pinner when I met her;
we fell in love with each other, and we married a few weeks
afterwards.
“I am a hop merchant myself, and as I have an income of seven or
eight hundred, we found ourselves comfortably off, and took a
nice eighty-pound-a-year villa at Norbury. Our little place was
very countrified, considering that it is so close to town. We had
an inn and two houses a little above us, and a single cottage at
the other side of the field which faces us, and except those
there were no houses until you got half way to the station. My
business took me into town at certain seasons, but in summer I
had less to do, and then in our country home my wife and I were
just as happy as could be wished. I tell you that there never was
a shadow between us until this accursed affair began.
“There’s one thing I ought to tell you before I go further. When
we married, my wife made over all her property to me—rather
against my will, for I saw how awkward it would be if my business
affairs went wrong. However, she would have it so, and it was
done. Well, about six weeks ago she came to me.
“‘Jack,’ said she, ‘when you took my money you said that if ever
I wanted any I was to ask you for it.’
“‘Certainly,’ said I. ‘It’s all your own.’
“‘Well,’ said she, ‘I want a hundred pounds.’
“I was a bit staggered at this, for I had imagined it was simply
a new dress or something of the kind that she was after.
“‘What on earth for?’ I asked.
“‘Oh,’ said she, in her playful way, ‘you said that you were only
my banker, and bankers never ask questions, you know.’
“‘If you really mean it, of course you shall have the money,’
said I.
“‘Oh, yes, I really mean it.’
“‘And you won’t tell me what you want it for?’
“‘Some day, perhaps, but not just at present, Jack.’
“So I had to be content with that, though it was the first time
that there had ever been any secret between us. I gave her a
check, and I never thought any more of the matter. It may have
nothing to do with what came afterwards, but I thought it only
right to mention it.
“Well, I told you just now that there is a cottage not far from
our house. There is just a field between us, but to reach it you
have to go along the road and then turn down a lane. Just beyond
it is a nice little grove of Scotch firs, and I used to be very
fond of strolling down there, for trees are always a neighbourly
kind of things. The cottage had been standing empty this eight
months, and it was a pity, for it was a pretty two-storied place,
with an old-fashioned porch and honeysuckle about it. I have
stood many a time and thought what a neat little homestead it
would make.
“Well, last Monday evening I was taking a stroll down that way,
when I met an empty van coming up the lane, and saw a pile of
carpets and things lying about on the grass-plot beside the
porch. It was clear that the cottage had at last been let. I
walked past it, and wondered what sort of folk they were who had
come to live so near us. And as I looked I suddenly became aware
that a face was watching me out of one of the upper windows.
“I don’t know what there was about that face, Mr. Holmes, but it
seemed to send a chill right down my back. I was some little way
off, so that I could not make out the features, but there was
something unnatural and inhuman about the face. That was the
impression that I had, and I moved quickly forwards to get a
nearer view of the person who was watching me. But as I did so
the face suddenly disappeared, so suddenly that it seemed to have
been plucked away into the darkness of the room. I stood for five
minutes thinking the business over, and trying to analyze my
impressions. I could not tell if the face were that of a man or a
woman. It had been too far from me for that. But its colour was
what had impressed me most. It was of a livid chalky white, and
with something set and rigid about it which was shockingly
unnatural. So disturbed was I that I determined to see a little
more of the new inmates of the cottage. I approached and knocked
at the door, which was instantly opened by a tall, gaunt woman
with a harsh, forbidding face.
“‘What may you be wantin’?’ she asked, in a Northern accent.
“‘I am your neighbour over yonder,’ said I, nodding towards my
house. ‘I see that you have only just moved in, so I thought that
if I could be of any help to you in any—’
“‘Ay, we’ll just ask ye when we want ye,’ said she, and shut the
door in my face. Annoyed at the churlish rebuff, I turned my back
and walked home. All evening, though I tried to think of other
things, my mind would still turn to the apparition at the window
and the rudeness of the woman. I determined to say nothing about
the former to my wife, for she is a nervous, highly strung woman,
and I had no wish that she would share the unpleasant impression
which had been produced upon myself. I remarked to her, however,
before I fell asleep, that the cottage was now occupied, to which
she returned no reply.
“I am usually an extremely sound sleeper. It has been a standing
jest in the family that nothing could ever wake me during the
night. And yet somehow on that particular night, whether it may
have been the slight excitement produced by my little adventure
or not I know not, but I slept much more lightly than usual. Half
in my dreams I was dimly conscious that something was going on in
the room, and gradually became aware that my wife had dressed
herself and was slipping on her mantle and her bonnet. My lips
were parted to murmur out some sleepy words of surprise or
remonstrance at this untimely preparation, when suddenly my
half-opened eyes fell upon her face, illuminated by the
candle-light, and astonishment held me dumb. She wore an
expression such as I had never seen before—such as I should have
thought her incapable of assuming. She was deadly pale and
breathing fast, glancing furtively towards the bed as she
fastened her mantle, to see if she had disturbed me. Then,
thinking that I was still asleep, she slipped noiselessly from
the room, and an instant later I heard a sharp creaking which
could only come from the hinges of the front door. I sat up in
bed and rapped my knuckles against the rail to make certain that
I was truly awake. Then I took my watch from under the pillow. It
was three in the morning. What on this earth could my wife be
doing out on the country road at three in the morning?
“I had sat for about twenty minutes turning the thing over in my
mind and trying to find some possible explanation. The more I
thought, the more extraordinary and inexplicable did it appear. I
was still puzzling over it when I heard the door gently close
again, and her footsteps coming up the stairs.
“‘Where in the world have you been, Effie?’ I asked as she
entered.
“She gave a violent start and a kind of gasping cry when I spoke,
and that cry and start troubled me more than all the rest, for
there was something indescribably guilty about them. My wife had
always been a woman of a frank, open nature, and it gave me a
chill to see her slinking into her own room, and crying out and
wincing when her own husband spoke to her.
“‘You awake, Jack!’ she cried, with a nervous laugh. ‘Why, I
thought that nothing could awake you.’
“‘Where have you been?’ I asked, more sternly.
“‘I don’t wonder that you are surprised,’ said she, and I could
see that her fingers were trembling as she undid the fastenings
of her mantle. ‘Why, I never remember having done such a thing in
my life before. The fact is that I felt as though I were choking,
and had a perfect longing for a breath of fresh air. I really
think that I should have fainted if I had not gone out. I stood