"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 Hotel
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 Credit 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 not yet determined. I have no doubt, however, that your
researches will soon clear the matter up."
"My researches!"
"Hence the health-giving expedition to Lausanne. You know that I
cannot possibly leave London while old Abrahams is in such mortal
terror of his life. Besides, on general principles it is best that I
should not leave the country. Scotland Yard feels lonely without me,
and it causes an unhealthy excitement among the criminal classes. Go,
then, my dear Watson, and if my humble counsel can ever be valued at
so extravagant a rate as two pence a word, it waits your disposal
night and day at the end of the Continental wire."
Two days later found me at the Hotel National at Lausanne, where I
received every courtesy at the hands of M. Moser, the well-known
manager. Lady Frances, as he informed me, had stayed there for
several weeks. She had been much liked by all who met her. Her age
was not more than forty. She was still handsome and bore every sign
of having in her youth been a very lovely woman. M. Moser knew
nothing of any valuable jewellery, but it had been remarked by the
servants that the heavy trunk in the lady's bedroom was always
scrupulously locked. Marie Devine, the maid, was as popular as her
mistress. She was actually engaged to one of the head waiters in the
hotel, and there was no difficulty in getting her address. It was 11
Rue de Trajan, Montpellier. All this I jotted down and felt that
Holmes himself could not have been more adroit in collecting his
facts.
Only one corner still remained in the shadow. No light which I
possessed could clear up the cause for the lady's sudden departure.
She was very happy at Lausanne. There was every reason to believe
that she intended to remain for the season in her luxurious rooms
overlooking the lake. And yet she had left at a single day's notice,
which involved her in the useless payment of a week's rent. Only
Jules Vibart, the lover of the maid, had any suggestion to offer. He
connected the sudden departure with the visit to the hotel a day or
two before of a tall, dark, bearded man. "Un sauvage--un v閞itable
sauvage!" cried Jules Vibart. The man had rooms somewhere in the
town. He had been seen talking earnestly to Madame on the promenade
by the lake. Then he had called. She had refused to see him. He was
English, but of his name there was no record. Madame had left the
place immediately afterwards. Jules Vibart, and, what was of more
importance, Jules Vibart's sweetheart, thought that this call and the
departure were cause and effect. Only one thing Jules would not
discuss. That was the reason why Marie had left her mistress. Of that
he could or would say nothing. If I wished to know, I must go to
Montpellier and ask her.
So ended the first chapter of my inquiry. The second was devoted to
the place which Lady Frances Carfax had sought when she left
Lausanne. Concerning this there had been some secrecy, which
confirmed the idea that she had gone with the intention of throwing
someone off her track. Otherwise why should not her luggage have been
openly labelled for Baden? Both she and it reached the Rhenish spa by
some circuitous route. This much I gathered from the manager of
Cook's local office. So to Baden I went, after dispatching to Holmes
an account of all my proceedings and receiving in reply a telegram of
half-humorous commendation.
At Baden the track was not difficult to follow. Lady Frances had
stayed at the Englischer Hof for a fortnight. While there she had
made the acquaintance of a Dr. Shlessinger and his wife, a missionary
from South America. Like most lonely ladies, Lady Frances found her
comfort and occupation in religion. Dr. Shlessinger's remarkable
personality, his whole hearted devotion, and the fact that he was
recovering from a disease contracted in the exercise of his apostolic
duties affected her deeply. She had helped Mrs. Shlessinger in the
nursing of the convalescent saint. He spent his day, as the manager
described it to me, upon a lounge-chair on the veranda, with an
attendant lady upon either side of him. He was preparing a map of the
Holy Land, with special reference to the kingdom of the Midianites,
upon which he was writing a monograph. Finally, having improved much
in health, he and his wife had returned to London, and Lady Frances
had started thither in their company. This was just three weeks
before, and the manager had heard nothing since. As to the maid,
Marie, she had gone off some days beforehand in floods of tears,
after informing the other maids that she was leaving service forever.
Dr. Shlessinger had paid the bill of the whole party before his
departure.
"By the way," said the landlord in conclusion, "you are not the only
friend of Lady Frances Carfax who is inquiring after her just now.
Only a week or so ago we had a man here upon the same errand."
"Did he give a name?" I asked.
"None; but he was an Englishman, though of an unusual type."
"A savage?" said I, linking my facts after the fashion of my
illustrious friend.
"Exactly. That describes him very well. He is a bulky, bearded,
sunburned fellow, who looks as if he would be more at home in a
farmers' inn than in a fashionable hotel. A hard, fierce man, I
should think, and one whom I should be sorry to offend."
Already the mystery began to define itself, as figures grow clearer
with the lifting of a fog. Here was this good and pious lady pursued
from place to place by a sinister and unrelenting figure. She feared
him, or she would not have fled from Lausanne. He had still followed.
Sooner or later he would overtake her. Had he already overtaken her?
Was that the secret of her continued silence? Could the good people
who were her companions not screen her from his violence or his
blackmail? What horrible purpose, what deep design, lay behind this
long pursuit? There was the problem which I had to solve.
To Holmes I wrote showing how rapidly and surely I had got down to
the roots of the matter. In reply I had a telegram asking for a
description of Dr. Shlessinger's left ear. Holmes's ideas of humour
are strange and occasionally offensive, so I took no notice of his
ill-timed jest--indeed, I had already reached Montpellier in my
pursuit of the maid, Marie, before his message came.
I had no difficulty in finding the ex-servant and in learning all
that she could tell me. She was a devoted creature, who had only left
her mistress because she was sure that she was in good hands, and
because her own approaching marriage made a separation inevitable in
any case. Her mistress had, as she confessed with distress, shown
some irritability of temper towards her during their stay in Baden,
and had even questioned her once as if she had suspicions of her
honesty, and this had made the parting easier than it would otherwise
have been. Lady Frances had given her fifty pounds as a
wedding-present. Like me, Marie viewed with deep distrust the
stranger who had driven her mistress from Lausanne. With her own eyes
she had seen him seize the lady's wrist with great violence on the
public promenade by the lake. He was a fierce and terrible man. She
believed that it was out of dread of him that Lady Frances had
accepted the escort of the Shlessingers to London. She had never
spoken to Marie about it, but many little signs had convinced the
maid that her mistress lived in a state of continual nervous
apprehension. So far she had got in her narrative, when suddenly she
