The Return of Sherlock Holmes
trail to-day, and once on it I will not stop for rest or food
until I run him to his burrow.”
“In that case,” said I, “we had best carry our breakfast with us,
for he is making an early start. His carriage is at the door.”
“Never mind. Let him go. He will be clever if he can drive where
I cannot follow him. When you have finished, come downstairs with
me, and I will introduce you to a detective who is a very eminent
specialist in the work that lies before us.”
When we descended I followed Holmes into the stable yard, where
he opened the door of a loose-box and led out a squat, lop-eared,
white-and-tan dog, something between a beagle and a foxhound.
“Let me introduce you to Pompey,” said he. “Pompey is the pride
of the local draghounds—no very great flier, as his build will
show, but a staunch hound on a scent. Well, Pompey, you may not
be fast, but I expect you will be too fast for a couple of
middle-aged London gentlemen, so I will take the liberty of
fastening this leather leash to your collar. Now, boy, come
along, and show what you can do.” He led him across to the
doctor’s door. The dog sniffed round for an instant, and then
with a shrill whine of excitement started off down the street,
tugging at his leash in his efforts to go faster. In half an
hour, we were clear of the town and hastening down a country
road.
“What have you done, Holmes?” I asked.
“A threadbare and venerable device, but useful upon occasion. I
walked into the doctor’s yard this morning, and shot my syringe
full of aniseed over the hind wheel. A draghound will follow
aniseed from here to John o’Groat’s, and our friend, Armstrong,
would have to drive through the Cam before he would shake Pompey
off his trail. Oh, the cunning rascal! This is how he gave me the
slip the other night.”
The dog had suddenly turned out of the main road into a
grass-grown lane. Half a mile farther this opened into another
broad road, and the trail turned hard to the right in the
direction of the town, which we had just quitted. The road took a
sweep to the south of the town, and continued in the opposite
direction to that in which we started.
“This _détour_ has been entirely for our benefit, then?” said
Holmes. “No wonder that my inquiries among those villagers led to
nothing. The doctor has certainly played the game for all it is
worth, and one would like to know the reason for such elaborate
deception. This should be the village of Trumpington to the right
of us. And, by Jove! here is the brougham coming round the
corner. Quick, Watson—quick, or we are done!”
He sprang through a gate into a field, dragging the reluctant
Pompey after him. We had hardly got under the shelter of the
hedge when the carriage rattled past. I caught a glimpse of Dr.
Armstrong within, his shoulders bowed, his head sunk on his
hands, the very image of distress. I could tell by my companion’s
graver face that he also had seen.
“I fear there is some dark ending to our quest,” said he. “It
cannot be long before we know it. Come, Pompey! Ah, it is the
cottage in the field!”
There could be no doubt that we had reached the end of our
journey. Pompey ran about and whined eagerly outside the gate,
where the marks of the brougham’s wheels were still to be seen. A
footpath led across to the lonely cottage. Holmes tied the dog to
the hedge, and we hastened onward. My friend knocked at the
little rustic door, and knocked again without response. And yet
the cottage was not deserted, for a low sound came to our ears—a
kind of drone of misery and despair which was indescribably
melancholy. Holmes paused irresolute, and then he glanced back at
the road which he had just traversed. A brougham was coming down
it, and there could be no mistaking those grey horses.
“By Jove, the doctor is coming back!” cried Holmes. “That settles
it. We are bound to see what it means before he comes.”
He opened the door, and we stepped into the hall. The droning
sound swelled louder upon our ears until it became one long, deep
wail of distress. It came from upstairs. Holmes darted up, and I
followed him. He pushed open a half-closed door, and we both
stood appalled at the sight before us.
A woman, young and beautiful, was lying dead upon the bed. Her
calm pale face, with dim, wide-opened blue eyes, looked upward
from amid a great tangle of golden hair. At the foot of the bed,
half sitting, half kneeling, his face buried in the clothes, was
a young man, whose frame was racked by his sobs. So absorbed was
he by his bitter grief, that he never looked up until Holmes’s
hand was on his shoulder.
“Are you Mr. Godfrey Staunton?”
“Yes, yes, I am—but you are too late. She is dead.”
The man was so dazed that he could not be made to understand that
we were anything but doctors who had been sent to his assistance.
Holmes was endeavouring to utter a few words of consolation and
to explain the alarm which had been caused to his friends by his
sudden disappearance when there was a step upon the stairs, and
there was the heavy, stern, questioning face of Dr. Armstrong at
the door.
“So, gentlemen,” said he, “you have attained your end and have
certainly chosen a particularly delicate moment for your
intrusion. I would not brawl in the presence of death, but I can
assure you that if I were a younger man your monstrous conduct
would not pass with impunity.”
“Excuse me, Dr. Armstrong, I think we are a little at
cross-purposes,” said my friend, with dignity. “If you could step
downstairs with us, we may each be able to give some light to the
other upon this miserable affair.”
A minute later, the grim doctor and ourselves were in the
sitting-room below.
“Well, sir?” said he.
“I wish you to understand, in the first place, that I am not
employed by Lord Mount-James, and that my sympathies in this
matter are entirely against that nobleman. When a man is lost it
is my duty to ascertain his fate, but having done so the matter
ends so far as I am concerned, and so long as there is nothing
criminal I am much more anxious to hush up private scandals than
to give them publicity. If, as I imagine, there is no breach of
the law in this matter, you can absolutely depend upon my
discretion and my cooperation in keeping the facts out of the
papers.”
Dr. Armstrong took a quick step forward and wrung Holmes by the
hand.
“You are a good fellow,” said he. “I had misjudged you. I thank
heaven that my compunction at leaving poor Staunton all alone in
this plight caused me to turn my carriage back and so to make
your acquaintance. Knowing as much as you do, the situation is
very easily explained. A year ago Godfrey Staunton lodged in
London for a time and became passionately attached to his
landlady’s daughter, whom he married. She was as good as she was
beautiful and as intelligent as she was good. No man need be
ashamed of such a wife. But Godfrey was the heir to this crabbed
old nobleman, and it was quite certain that the news of his
marriage would have been the end of his inheritance. I knew the
lad well, and I loved him for his many excellent qualities. I did
all I could to help him to keep things straight. We did our very
best to keep the thing from everyone, for, when once such a
whisper gets about, it is not long before everyone has heard it.
Thanks to this lonely cottage and his own discretion, Godfrey has
up to now succeeded. Their secret was known to no one save to me
and to one excellent servant, who has at present gone for
assistance to Trumpington. But at last there came a terrible blow
in the shape of dangerous illness to his wife. It was consumption
of the most virulent kind. The poor boy was half crazed with
grief, and yet he had to go to London to play this match, for he
could not get out of it without explanations which would expose
his secret. I tried to cheer him up by wire, and he sent me one
in reply, imploring me to do all I could. This was the telegram
which you appear in some inexplicable way to have seen. I did not
tell him how urgent the danger was, for I knew that he could do
no good here, but I sent the truth to the girl’s father, and he
very injudiciously communicated it to Godfrey. The result was
that he came straight away in a state bordering on frenzy, and
has remained in the same state, kneeling at the end of her bed,
until this morning death put an end to her sufferings. That is
all, Mr. Holmes, and I am sure that I can rely upon your
discretion and that of your friend.”
Holmes grasped the doctor’s hand.
“Come, Watson,” said he, and we passed from that house of grief
into the pale sunlight of the winter day.
THE ADVENTURE OF THE ABBEY GRANGE
It was on a bitterly cold and frosty morning, towards the end of
the winter of ’97, that I was awakened by a tugging at my
shoulder. It was Holmes. The candle in his hand shone upon his
eager, stooping face, and told me at a glance that something was
amiss.
“Come, Watson, come!” he cried. “The game is afoot. Not a word!
Into your clothes and come!”
Ten minutes later we were both in a cab, and rattling through the
silent streets on our way to Charing Cross Station. The first
faint winter’s dawn was beginning to appear, and we could dimly
see the occasional figure of an early workman as he passed us,
blurred and indistinct in the opalescent London reek. Holmes
nestled in silence into his heavy coat, and I was glad to do the
same, for the air was most bitter, and neither of us had broken
our fast.
It was not until we had consumed some hot tea at the station and
taken our places in the Kentish train that we were sufficiently
thawed, he to speak and I to listen. Holmes drew a note from his
pocket, and read aloud:
Abbey Grange, Marsham, Kent, 3:30 A.M.
MY DEAR MR. HOLMES:
I should be very glad of your immediate assistance in what
promises to be a most remarkable case. It is something quite in
your line. Except for releasing the lady I will see that
everything is kept exactly as I have found it, but I beg you not
to lose an instant, as it is difficult to leave Sir Eustace
there.
Yours faithfully,
STANLEY HOPKINS.
“Hopkins has called me in seven times, and on each occasion his
summons has been entirely justified,” said Holmes. “I fancy that
every one of his cases has found its way into your collection,
and I must admit, Watson, that you have some power of selection,
which atones for much which I deplore in your narratives. Your
fatal habit of looking at everything from the point of view of a
story instead of as a scientific exercise has ruined what might
have been an instructive and even classical series of
demonstrations. You slur over work of the utmost finesse and