and I was hardly conscious of pain. With the palms of my hands I
tried to push the great steaming, blood-stained jaws away from me,
and I screamed for help. I was conscious that the camp was stirring,
and then dimly I remembered a group of men. Leonardo, Griggs, and
others, dragging me from under the creature's paws. That was my last
memory, Mr. Holmes, for many a weary month. When I came to myself and
saw myself in the mirror, I cursed that lion--oh, how I cursed
him!--not because he had torn away my beauty but because he had not
torn away my life. I had but one desire, Mr. Holmes, and I had enough
money to gratify it. It was that I should cover myself so that my
poor face should be seen by none, and that I should dwell where none
whom I had ever known should find me. That was all that was left to
me to do--and that is what I have done. A poor wounded beast that has
crawled into its hole to die--that is the end of Eugenia Ronder."
We sat in silence for some time after the unhappy woman had told her
story. Then Holmes stretched out his long arm and patted her hand
with such a show of sympathy as I had seldom known him to exhibit.
"Poor girl!" he said. "Poor girl! The ways of fate are indeed hard to
understand. If there is not some compensation hereafter, then the
world is a cruel jest. But what of this man Leonardo?"
"I never saw him or heard from him again. Perhaps I have been wrong
to feel so bitterly against him. He might as soon have loved one of
the freaks whom we carried round the country as the thing which the
lion had left. But a woman's love is not so easily set aside. He had
left me under the beast's claws, he had deserted me in my need, and
yet I could not bring myself to give him to the gallows. For myself,
I cared nothing what became of me. What could be more dreadful than
my actual life? But I stood between Leonardo and his fate."
"And he is dead?"
"He was drowned last month when bathing near Margate. I saw his death
in the paper."
"And what did he do with this five-clawed club, which is the most
singular and ingenious part of all your story?"
"I cannot tell, Mr. Holmes. There is a chalk-pit by the camp, with a
deep green pool at the base of it. Perhaps in the depths of that
pool--"
"Well, well, it is of little consequence now. The case is closed."
"Yes," said the woman, "the case is closed."
We had risen to go, but there was something in the woman's voice
which arrested Holmes's attention. He turned swiftly upon her.
"Your life is not your own," he said. "Keep your hands off it."
"What use is it to anyone?"
"How can you tell? The example of patient suffering is in itself the
most precious of all lessons to an impatient world."
The woman's answer was a terrible one. She raised her veil and
stepped forward into the light.
"I wonder if you would bear it," she said.
It was horrible. No words can describe the framework of a face when
the face itself is gone. Two living and beautiful brown eyes looking
sadly out from that grisly ruin did but make the view more awful.
Holmes held up his hand in a gesture of pity and protest, and
together we left the room.
Two days later, when I called upon my friend, he pointed with some
pride to a small blue bottle upon his mantelpiece. I picked it up.
There was a red poison label. A pleasant almondy odour rose when I
opened it.
"Prussic acid?" said I.
"Exactly. It came by post. 'I send you my temptation. I will follow
your advice.' That was the message. I think, Watson, we can guess the
name of the brave woman who sent it."
THE ADVENTURE OF SHOSCOMBE OLD PLACE
Sherlock Holmes had been bending for a long time over a low-power
microscope. Now he straightened himself up and looked round at me in
triumph.
"It is glue, Watson," said he. "Unquestionably it is glue. Have a
look at these scattered objects in the field!"
I stooped to the eyepiece and focussed for my vision.
"Those hairs are threads from a tweed coat. The irregular gray masses
are dust. There are epithelial scales on the left. Those brown blobs
in the centre are undoubtedly glue."
"Well," I said, laughing, "I am prepared to take your word for it.
Does anything depend upon it?"
"It is a very fine demonstration," he answered. "In the St. Pancras
case you may remember that a cap was found beside the dead policeman.
The accused man denies that it is his. But he is a picture-frame
maker who habitually handles glue."
"Is it one of your cases?"
"No; my friend, Merivale, of the Yard, asked me to look into the
case. Since I ran down that coiner by the zinc and copper filings in
the seam of his cuff they have begun to realize the importance of the
microscope." He looked impatiently at his watch. "I had a new client
calling, but he is overdue. By the way, Watson, you know something of
racing?"
"I ought to. I pay for it with about half my wound pension."
"Then I'll make you my 'Handy Guide to the Turf.' What about Sir
Robert Norberton? Does the name recall anything?"
"Well, I should say so. He lives at Shoscombe Old Place, and I know
it well, for my summer quarters were down there once. Norberton
nearly came within your province once."
"How was that?"
"It was when he horsewhipped Sam Brewer, the well-known Curzon Street
money-lender, on Newmarket Heath. He nearly killed the man."
"Ah, he sounds interesting! Does he often indulge in that way?"
"Well, he has the name of being a dangerous man. He is about the most
daredevil rider in England--second in the Grand National a few years
back. He is one of those men who have overshot their true generation.
He should have been a buck in the days of the Regency--a boxer, an
athlete, a plunger on the turf, a lover of fair ladies, and, by all
account, so far down Queer Street that he may never find his way back
again."
"Capital, Watson! A thumb-nail sketch. I seem to know the man. Now,
can you give me some idea of Shoscombe Old Place?"
"Only that it is in the centre of Shoscombe Park, and that the famous
Shoscombe stud and training quarters are to be found there."
"And the head trainer," said Holmes, "is John Mason. You need not
look surprised at my knowledge, Watson, for this is a letter from him
which I am unfolding. But let us have some more about Shoscombe. I
seem to have struck a rich vein."
"There are the Shoscombe spaniels," said I. "You hear of them at
every dog show. The most exclusive breed in England. They are the
special pride of the lady of Shoscombe Old Place."
"Sir Robert Norberton's wife, I presume!"
"Sir Robert has never married. Just as well, I think, considering his
prospects. He lives with his widowed sister, Lady Beatrice Falder."
"You mean that she lives with him?"
"No, no. The place belonged to her late husband, Sir James. Norberton
has no claim on it at all. It is only a life interest and reverts to
her husband's brother. Meantime, she draws the rents every year."
"And brother Robert, I suppose, spends the said rents?"
"That is about the size of it. He is a devil of a fellow and must
lead her a most uneasy life. Yet I have heard that she is devoted to
him. But what is amiss at Shoscombe?"
"Ah, that is just what I want to know. And here, I expect, is the man
who can tell us."
The door had opened and the page had shown in a tall, clean-shaven
man with the firm, austere expression which is only seen upon those
who have to control horses or boys. Mr. John Mason had many of both
under his sway, and he looked equal to the task. He bowed with cold
self-possession and seated himself upon the chair to which Holmes had
waved him.
"You had my note, Mr. Holmes?"
"Yes, but it explained nothing."
"It was too delicate a thing for me to put the details on paper. And
too complicated. It was only face to face I could do it."
"Well, we are at your disposal."
"First of all, Mr. Holmes, I think that my employer, Sir Robert, has
gone mad."
Holmes raised his eyebrows. "This is Baker Street, not Harley
Street," said he. "But why do you say so?"
"Well, sir, when a man does one queer thing, or two queer things,
there may be a meaning to it, but when everything he does is queer,
then you begin to wonder. I believe Shoscombe Prince and the Derby
have turned his brain."
"That is a colt you are running?"
"The best in England, Mr. Holmes. I should know, if anyone does. Now,
I'll be plain with you, for I know you are gentlemen of honour and
that it won't go beyond the room. Sir Robert has got to win this
Derby. He's up to the neck, and it's his last chance. Everything he
could raise or borrow is on the horse--and at fine odds, too! You can
get forties now, but it was nearer the hundred when he began to back
him."
"But how is that if the horse is so good?"
"The public don't know how good he is. Sir Robert has been too clever
for the touts. He has the Prince's half-brother out for spins. You
can't tell 'em apart. But there are two lengths in a furlong between
them when it comes to a gallop. He thinks of nothing but the horse
and the race. His whole life is on it. He's holding off the Jews till
then. If the Prince fails him he is done."
"It seems a rather desperate gamble, but where does the madness come
in?"
"Well, first of all, you have only to look at him. I don't believe he
sleeps at night. He is down at the stables at all hours. His eyes are
wild. It has all been too much for his nerves. Then there is his
conduct to Lady Beatrice!"
"Ah! What is that?"
"They have always been the best of friends. They had the same tastes,
the two of them, and she loved the horses as much as he did. Every
day at the same hour she would drive down to see them--and, above
all, she loved the Prince. He would prick up his ears when he heard
the wheels on the gravel, and he would trot out each morning to the
carriage to get his lump of sugar. But that's all over now."
"Why?"
"Well, she seems to have lost all interest in the horses. For a week
now she has driven past the stables with never so much as
'Good-morning'!"
"You think there has been a quarrel?"
"And a bitter, savage, spiteful quarrel at that. Why else would he
give away her pet spaniel that she loved as if he were her child? He
gave it a few days ago to old Barnes, what keeps the Green Dragon,
three miles off, at Crendall."
"That certainly did seem strange."
"Of course, with her weak heart and dropsy one couldn't expect that
she could get about with him, but he spent two hours every evening in
her room. He might well do what he could, for she has been a rare
good friend to him. But that's all over, too. He never goes near her.
And she takes it to heart. She is brooding and sulky and drinking,
Mr. Holmes--drinking like a fish."
"Did she drink before this estrangement?"
"Well, she took her glass, but now it is often a whole bottle of an
evening. So Stephens, the butler, told me. It's all changed, Mr.
Holmes, and there is something damned rotten about it. But then,
again, what is master doing down at the old church crypt at night?
And who is the man that meets him there?"
Holmes rubbed his hands.
"Go on, Mr. Mason. You get more and more interesting."
"It was the butler who saw him go. Twelve o'clock at night and
raining hard. So next night I was up at the house and, sure enough,
master was off again. Stephens and I went after him, but it was jumpy
work, for it would have been a bad job if he had seen us. He's a
terrible man with his fists if he gets started, and no respecter of
persons. So we were shy of getting too near, but we marked him down
all right. It was the haunted crypt that he was making for, and there
was a man waiting for him there."
"What is this haunted crypt?"
"Well, sir, there is an old ruined chapel in the park. It is so old
that nobody could fix its date. And under it there's a crypt which
has a bad name among us. It's a dark, damp, lonely place by day, but
there are few in that county that would have the nerve to go near it
at night. But master's not afraid. He never feared anything in his
life. But what is he doing there in the night-time?"
"Wait a bit!" said Holmes. "You say there is another man there. It
must be one of your own stablemen, or someone from the house! Surely
