Sterndale sprang to his feet.
"I believe that you are the devil himself!" he cried.
Holmes smiled at the compliment. "It took two, or possibly three,
handfuls before the lodger came to the window. You beckoned him to
come down. He dressed hurriedly and descended to his sitting-room.
You entered by the window. There was an interview--a short
one--during which you walked up and down the room. Then you passed
out and closed the window, standing on the lawn outside smoking a
cigar and watching what occurred. Finally, after the death of
Tregennis, you withdrew as you had come. Now, Dr. Sterndale, how do
you justify such conduct, and what were the motives for your actions?
If you prevaricate or trifle with me, I give you my assurance that
the matter will pass out of my hands forever."
Our visitor's face had turned ashen gray as he listened to the words
of his accuser. Now he sat for some time in thought with his face
sunk in his hands. Then with a sudden impulsive gesture he plucked a
photograph from his breast-pocket and threw it on the rustic table
before us.
"That is why I have done it," said he.
It showed the bust and face of a very beautiful woman. Holmes stooped
over it.
"Brenda Tregennis," said he.
"Yes, Brenda Tregennis," repeated our visitor. "For years I have
loved her. For years she has loved me. There is the secret of that
Cornish seclusion which people have marvelled at. It has brought me
close to the one thing on earth that was dear to me. I could not
marry her, for I have a wife who has left me for years and yet whom,
by the deplorable laws of England, I could not divorce. For years
Brenda waited. For years I waited. And this is what we have waited
for." A terrible sob shook his great frame, and he clutched his
throat under his brindled beard. Then with an effort he mastered
himself and spoke on:
"The vicar knew. He was in our confidence. He would tell you that she
was an angel upon earth. That was why he telegraphed to me and I
returned. What was my baggage or Africa to me when I learned that
such a fate had come upon my darling? There you have the missing clue
to my action, Mr. Holmes."
"Proceed," said my friend.
Dr. Sterndale drew from his pocket a paper packet and laid it upon
the table. On the outside was written "Radix pedis diaboli" with a
red poison label beneath it. He pushed it towards me. "I understand
that you are a doctor, sir. Have you ever heard of this preparation?"
"Devil's-foot root! No, I have never heard of it."
"It is no reflection upon your professional knowledge," said he, "for
I believe that, save for one sample in a laboratory at Buda, there is
no other specimen in Europe. It has not yet found its way either into
the pharmacopoeia or into the literature of toxicology. The root is
shaped like a foot, half human, half goatlike; hence the fanciful
name given by a botanical missionary. It is used as an ordeal poison
by the medicine-men in certain districts of West Africa and is kept
as a secret among them. This particular specimen I obtained under
very extraordinary circumstances in the Ubangi country." He opened
the paper as he spoke and disclosed a heap of reddish-brown,
snuff-like powder.
"Well, sir?" asked Holmes sternly.
"I am about to tell you, Mr. Holmes, all that actually occurred, for
you already know so much that it is clearly to my interest that you
should know all. I have already explained the relationship in which I
stood to the Tregennis family. For the sake of the sister I was
friendly with the brothers. There was a family quarrel about money
which estranged this man Mortimer, but it was supposed to be made up,
and I afterwards met him as I did the others. He was a sly, subtle,
scheming man, and several things arose which gave me a suspicion of
him, but I had no cause for any positive quarrel.
"One day, only a couple of weeks ago, he came down to my cottage and
I showed him some of my African curiosities. Among other things I
exhibited this powder, and I told him of its strange properties, how
it stimulates those brain centres which control the emotion of fear,
and how either madness or death is the fate of the unhappy native who
is subjected to the ordeal by the priest of his tribe. I told him
also how powerless European science would be to detect it. How he
took it I cannot say, for I never left the room, but there is no
doubt that it was then, while I was opening cabinets and stooping to
boxes, that he managed to abstract some of the devil's-foot root. I
well remember how he plied me with questions as to the amount and the
time that was needed for its effect, but I little dreamed that he
could have a personal reason for asking.
"I thought no more of the matter until the vicar's telegram reached
me at Plymouth. This villain had thought that I would be at sea
before the news could reach me, and that I should be lost for years
in Africa. But I returned at once. Of course, I could not listen to
the details without feeling assured that my poison had been used. I
came round to see you on the chance that some other explanation had
suggested itself to you. But there could be none. I was convinced
that Mortimer Tregennis was the murderer; that for the sake of money,
and with the idea, perhaps, that if the other members of his family
were all insane he would be the sole guardian of their joint
property, he had used the devil's-foot powder upon them, driven two
of them out of their senses, and killed his sister Brenda, the one
human being whom I have ever loved or who has ever loved me. There
was his crime; what was to be his punishment?
"Should I appeal to the law? Where were my proofs? I knew that the
facts were true, but could I help to make a jury of countrymen
believe so fantastic a story? I might or I might not. But I could not
afford to fail. My soul cried out for revenge. I have said to you
once before, Mr. Holmes, that I have spent much of my life outside
the law, and that I have come at last to be a law to myself. So it
was even now. I determined that the fate which he had given to others
should be shared by himself. Either that or I would do justice upon
him with my own hand. In all England there can be no man who sets
less value upon his own life than I do at the present moment.
"Now I have told you all. You have yourself supplied the rest. I did,
as you say, after a restless night, set off early from my cottage. I
foresaw the difficulty of arousing him, so I gathered some gravel
from the pile which you have mentioned, and I used it to throw up to
his window. He came down and admitted me through the window of the
sitting-room. I laid his offence before him. I told him that I had
come both as judge and executioner. The wretch sank into a chair,
paralyzed at the sight of my revolver. I lit the lamp, put the powder
above it, and stood outside the window, ready to carry out my threat
to shoot him should he try to leave the room. In five minutes he
died. My God! how he died! But my heart was flint, for he endured
nothing which my innocent darling had not felt before him. There is
my story, Mr. Holmes. Perhaps, if you loved a woman, you would have
done as much yourself. At any rate, I am in your hands. You can take
what steps you like. As I have already said, there is no man living
who can fear death less than I do."
Holmes sat for some little time in silence.
"What were your plans?" he asked at last.
"I had intended to bury myself in central Africa. My work there is
but half finished."
"Go and do the other half," said Holmes. "I, at least, am not
prepared to prevent you."
Dr. Sterndale raised his giant figure, bowed gravely, and walked from
the arbour. Holmes lit his pipe and handed me his pouch.
"Some fumes which are not poisonous would be a welcome change," said
he. "I think you must agree, Watson, that it is not a case in which
we are called upon to interfere. Our investigation has been
independent, and our action shall be so also. You would not denounce
the man?"
"Certainly not," I answered.
"I have never loved, Watson, but if I did and if the woman I loved
had met such an end, I might act even as our lawless lion-hunter has
done. Who knows? Well, Watson, I will not offend your intelligence by
explaining what is obvious. The gravel upon the window-sill was, of
course, the starting-point of my research. It was unlike anything in
the vicarage garden. Only when my attention had been drawn to Dr.
Sterndale and his cottage did I find its counterpart. The lamp
shining in broad daylight and the remains of powder upon the shield
were successive links in a fairly obvious chain. And now, my dear
Watson, I think we may dismiss the matter from our mind and go back
with a clear conscience to the study of those Chaldean roots which
are surely to be traced in the Cornish branch of the great Celtic
speech."
HIS LAST BOW
An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes
It was nine o'clock at night upon the second of August--the most
terrible August in the history of the world. One might have thought
already that God's curse hung heavy over a degenerate world, for
there was an awesome hush and a feeling of vague expectancy in the
sultry and stagnant air. The sun had long set, but one blood-red gash
like an open wound lay low in the distant west. Above, the stars were
shining brightly, and below, the lights of the shipping glimmered in
the bay. The two famous Germans stood beside the stone parapet of the
garden walk, with the long, low, heavily gabled house behind them,
and they looked down upon the broad sweep of the beach at the foot of
the great chalk cliff in which Von Bork, like some wandering eagle,
had perched himself four years before. They stood with their heads
close together, talking in low, confidential tones. From below the
two glowing ends of their cigars might have been the smouldering eyes
of some malignant fiend looking down in the darkness.
A remarkable man this Von Bork--a man who could hardly be matched
among all the devoted agents of the Kaiser. It was his talents which
had first recommended him for the English mission, the most important
mission of all, but since he had taken it over those talents had
become more and more manifest to the half-dozen people in the world
who were really in touch with the truth. One of these was his present
companion, Baron Von Herling, the chief secretary of the legation,
whose huge 100-horse-power Benz car was blocking the country lane as
it waited to waft its owner back to London.
"So far as I can judge the trend of events, you will probably be back
in Berlin within the week," the secretary was saying. "When you get
there, my dear Von Bork, I think you will be surprised at the welcome
you will receive. I happen to know what is thought in the highest
quarters of your work in this country." He was a huge man, the
secretary, deep, broad, and tall, with a slow, heavy fashion of
speech which had been his main asset in his political career.
Von Bork laughed.
"They are not very hard to deceive," he remarked. "A more docile,
simple folk could not be imagined."
"I don't know about that," said the other thoughtfully. "They have
strange limits and one must learn to observe them. It is that surface
simplicity of theirs which makes a trap for the stranger. One's first
impression is that they are entirely soft. Then one comes suddenly
upon something very hard, and you know that you have reached the
limit and must adapt yourself to the fact. They have, for example,
their insular conventions which simply must be observed."
"Meaning 'good form' and that sort of thing?" Von Bork sighed as one
who had suffered much.
"Meaning British prejudice in all its queer manifestations. As an
example I may quote one of my own worst blunders--I can afford to
talk of my blunders, for you know my work well enough to be aware of
my successes. It was on my first arrival. I was invited to a week-end
gathering at the country house of a cabinet minister. The
conversation was amazingly indiscreet."
Von Bork nodded. "I've been there," said he dryly.
"Exactly. Well, I naturally sent a resume of the information to
Berlin. Unfortunately our good chancellor is a little heavy-handed in
these matters, and he transmitted a remark which showed that he was
aware of what had been said. This, of course, took the trail straight
up to me. You've no idea the harm that it did me. There was nothing
soft about our British hosts on that occasion, I can assure you. I
was two years living it down. Now you, with this sporting pose of
yours--"
"No, no, don't call it a pose. A pose is an artificial thing. This is
quite natural. I am a born sportsman. I enjoy it."
"Well, that makes it the more effective. You yacht against them, you
