"Delay no longer, Mrs. Maberley," he said at last. "Have these things
taken upstairs to your bedroom. Examine them as soon as possible and
see what they contain. I will come to-morrow and hear your report."
It was quite evident that The Three Gables was under very close
surveillance, for as we came round the high hedge at the end of the
lane there was the negro prize-fighter standing in the shadow. We
came on him quite suddenly, and a grim and menacing figure he looked
in that lonely place. Holmes clapped his hand to his pocket.
"Lookin' for your gun, Masser Holmes?"
"No, for my scent-bottle, Steve."
"You are funny, Masser Holmes, ain't you?"
"It won't be funny for you, Steve, if I get after you. I gave you
fair warning this morning."
"Well, Masser Holmes, I done gone think over what you said, and I
don't want no more talk about that affair of Masser Perkins. S'pose I
can help you, Masser Holmes, I will."
"Well, then, tell me who is behind you on this job."
"So help me the Lord! Masser Holmes, I told you the truth before. I
don't know. My boss Barney gives me orders and that's all."
"Well, just bear in mind, Steve, that the lady in that house, and
everything under that roof, is under my protection. Don't forget it."
"All right, Masser Holmes. I'll remember."
"I've got him thoroughly frightened for his own skin, Watson," Holmes
remarked as we walked on. "I think he would double-cross his employer
if he knew who he was. It was lucky I had some knowledge of the
Spencer John crowd, and that Steve was one of them. Now, Watson, this
is a case for Langdale Pike, and I am going to see him now. When I
get back I may be clearer in the matter."
I saw no more of Holmes during the day, but I could well imagine how
he spent it, for Langdale Pike was his human book of reference upon
all matters of social scandal. This strange, languid creature spent
his waking hours in the bow window of a St. James's Street club and
was the receiving-station as well as the transmitter for all the
gossip of the metropolis. He made, it was said, a four-figure income
by the paragraphs which he contributed every week to the garbage
papers which cater to an inquisitive public. If ever, far down in the
turbid depths of London life, there was some strange swirl or eddy,
it was marked with automatic exactness by this human dial upon the
surface. Holmes discreetly helped Langdale to knowledge, and on
occasion was helped in turn.
When I met my friend in his room early next morning, I was conscious
from his bearing that all was well, but none the less a most
unpleasant surprise was awaiting us. It took the shape of the
following telegram:
Please come out at once. Client's house burgled in the night. Police
in possession.
Sutro.
Holmes whistled. "The drama has come to a crisis, and quicker than I
had expected. There is a great driving-power at the back of this
business, Watson, which does not surprise me after what I have heard.
This Sutro, of course, is her lawyer. I made a mistake, I fear, in
not asking you to spend the night on guard. This fellow has clearly
proved a broken reed. Well, there is nothing for it but another
journey to Harrow Weald."
We found The Three Gables a very different establishment to the
orderly household of the previous day. A small group of idlers had
assembled at the garden gate, while a couple of constables were
examining the windows and the geranium beds. Within we met a gray old
gentleman, who introduced himself as the lawyer, together with a
bustling, rubicund inspector, who greeted Holmes as an old friend.
"Well, Mr. Holmes, no chance for you in this case, I'm afraid. Just a
common, ordinary burglary, and well within the capacity of the poor
old police. No experts need apply."
"I am sure the case is in very good hands," said Holmes. "Merely a
common burglary, you say?"
"Quite so. We know pretty well who the men are and where to find
them. It is that gang of Barney Stockdale, with the big nigger in
it--they've been seen about here."
"Excellent! What did they get?"
"Well, they don't seem to have got much. Mrs. Maberley was
chloroformed and the house was-- Ah! here is the lady herself."
Our friend of yesterday, looking very pale and ill, had entered the
room, leaning upon a little maidservant.
"You gave me good advice, Mr. Holmes," said she, smiling ruefully.
"Alas, I did not take it! I did not wish to trouble Mr. Sutro, and so
I was unprotected."
"I only heard of it this morning," the lawyer explained.
"Mr. Holmes advised me to have some friend in the house. I neglected
his advice, and I have paid for it."
"You look wretchedly ill," said Holmes. "Perhaps you are hardly equal
to telling me what occurred."
"It is all here," said the inspector, tapping a bulky notebook.
"Still, if the lady is not too exhausted--"
"There is really so little to tell. I have no doubt that wicked Susan
had planned an entrance for them. They must have known the house to
an inch. I was conscious for a moment of the chloroform rag which was
thrust over my mouth, but I have no notion how long I may have been
senseless. When I woke, one man was at the bedside and another was
rising with a bundle in his hand from among my son's baggage, which
was partially opened and littered over the floor. Before he could get
away I sprang up and seized him."
"You took a big risk," said the inspector.
"I clung to him, but he shook me off, and the other may have struck
me, for I can remember no more. Mary the maid heard the noise and
began screaming out of the window. That brought the police, but the
rascals had got away."
"What did they take?"
"Well, I don't think there is anything of value missing. I am sure
there was nothing in my son's trunks."
"Did the men leave no clue?"
"There was one sheet of paper which I may have torn from the man that
I grasped. It was lying all crumpled on the floor. It is in my son's
handwriting."
"Which means that it is not of much use," said the inspector. "Now if
it had been in the burglar's--"
"Exactly," said Holmes. "What rugged common sense! None the less, I
should be curious to see it."
The inspector drew a folded sheet of foolscap from his pocketbook.
"I never pass anything, however trifling," said he with some
pomposity. "That is my advice to you, Mr. Holmes. In twenty-five
years' experience I have learned my lesson. There is always the
chance of finger-marks or something."
Holmes inspected the sheet of paper.
"What do you make of it, Inspector?"
"Seems to be the end of some queer novel, so far as I can see."
"It may certainly prove to be the end of a queer tale," said Holmes.
"You have noticed the number on the top of the page. It is two
hundred and forty-five. Where are the odd two hundred and forty-four
pages?"
"Well, I suppose the burglars got those. Much good may it do them!"
"It seems a queer thing to break into a house in order to steal such
papers as that. Does it suggest anything to you, Inspector?"
"Yes, sir, it suggests that in their hurry the rascals just grabbed
at what came first to hand. I wish them joy of what they got."
"Why should they go to my son's things?" asked Mrs. Maberley.
"Well, they found nothing valuable downstairs, so they tried their
luck upstairs. That is how I read it. What do you make of it, Mr.
Holmes?"
"I must think it over, Inspector. Come to the window, Watson." Then,
as we stood together, he read over the fragment of paper. It began in
the middle of a sentence and ran like this:
"... face bled considerably from the cuts and blows, but it was
nothing to the bleeding of his heart as he saw that lovely face, the
face for which he had been prepared to sacrifice his very life,
looking out at his agony and humiliation. She smiled--yes, by Heaven!
she smiled, like the heartless fiend she was, as he looked up at her.
It was at that moment that love died and hate was born. Man must live
for something. If it is not for your embrace, my lady, then it shall
surely be for your undoing and my complete revenge."
"Queer grammar!" said Holmes with a smile as he handed the paper back
to the inspector. "Did you notice how the 'he' suddenly changed to
'my'? The writer was so carried away by his own story that he
imagined himself at the supreme moment to be the hero."
"It seemed mighty poor stuff," said the inspector as he replaced it
in his book. "What! are you off, Mr. Holmes?"
"I don't think there is anything more for me to do now that the case
is in such capable hands. By the way, Mrs. Maberley, did you say you
wished to travel?"
"It has always been my dream, Mr. Holmes."
"Where would you like to go--Cairo, Madeira, the Riviera?"
"Oh, if I had the money I would go round the world."
"Quite so. Round the world. Well, good-morning. I may drop you a line
in the evening." As we passed the window I caught a glimpse of the
inspector's smile and shake of the head. "These clever fellows have
always a touch of madness." That was what I read in the inspector's
smile.
"Now, Watson, we are at the last lap of our little journey," said
Holmes when we were back in the roar of central London once more. "I
think we had best clear the matter up at once, and it would be well
that you should come with me, for it is safer to have a witness when
you are dealing with such a lady as Isadora Klein."
We had taken a cab and were speeding to some address in Grosvenor
Square. Holmes had been sunk in thought, but he roused himself
suddenly.
"By the way, Watson, I suppose you see it all clearly?"
"No, I can't say that I do. I only gather that we are going to see
the lady who is behind all this mischief."
"Exactly! But does the name Isadora Klein convey nothing to you? She
was, of course, the celebrated beauty. There was never a woman to
touch her. She is pure Spanish, the real blood of the masterful
Conquistadors, and her people have been leaders in Pernambuco for
generations. She married the aged German sugar king, Klein, and
presently found herself the richest as well as the most lovely widow
upon earth. Then there was an interval of adventure when she pleased
her own tastes. She had several lovers, and Douglas Maberley, one of
the most striking men in London, was one of them. It was by all
accounts more than an adventure with him. He was not a society
butterfly but a strong, proud man who gave and expected all. But she
is the 'belle dame sans merci' of fiction. When her caprice is
satisfied the matter is ended, and if the other party in the matter
can't take her word for it she knows how to bring it home to him."
"Then that was his own story--"
"Ah! you are piecing it together now. I hear that she is about to
marry the young Duke of Lomond, who might almost be her son. His
Grace's ma might overlook the age, but a big scandal would be a
different matter, so it is imperative-- Ah! here we are."
It was one of the finest corner-houses of the West End. A
machine-like footman took up our cards and returned with word that
the lady was not at home. "Then we shall wait until she is," said
Holmes cheerfully.
The machine broke down.
"Not at home means not at home to you," said the footman.
"Good," Holmes answered. "That means that we shall not have to wait.
Kindly give this note to your mistress."
He scribbled three or four words upon a sheet of his notebook, folded
it, and handed it to the man.
"What did you say, Holmes?" I asked.
"I simply wrote: 'Shall it be the police, then?' I think that should
pass us in."
It did--with amazing celerity. A minute later we were in an Arabian
Nights drawing-room, vast and wonderful, in a half gloom, picked out
with an occasional pink electric light. The lady had come, I felt, to
that time of life when even the proudest beauty finds the half light
more welcome. She rose from a settee as we entered: tall, queenly, a
perfect figure, a lovely mask-like face, with two wonderful Spanish
eyes which looked murder at us both.
"What is this intrusion--and this insulting message?" she asked,
holding up the slip of paper.
"I need not explain, madame. I have too much respect for your
intelligence to do so--though I confess that intelligence has been
surprisingly at fault of late."
