THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES HIS LAST BOW THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LADY FRANCES CARFAX

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$Title{HIS LAST BOW; The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax}

$Author{Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan}

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$Journal{}

$Volume{}

$Date{}

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                         THE COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES

                                 HIS LAST BOW

                   THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LADY FRANCES CARFAX

"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 boarding-houses.  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

chance, 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 veritable 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 this 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 sprang

from her chair and her face was convulsed with surprise and fear.  "See!" she

cried.  "The miscreant follows still!  There is the very man of whom I speak."

     Through the open sitting-room window I saw a huge, swarthy man with a

bristling black beard walking slowly down the centre of the street and staring

eagerly at the numbers of the houses.  It was clear that, like myself, he was

on the track of the maid.  Acting upon the impulse of the moment, I rushed out

and accosted him.

     "You are an Englishman," I said.

     "What if I am?" he asked with a most villainous scowl.

     "May I ask what your name is?"

     "No, you may not," said he with decision.

     The situation was awkward, but the most direct way is often the best.

     "Where is the Lady Frances Carfax?" I asked.

     He stared at me in amazement.

     "What have you done with her?  Why have you pursued her?  I insist upon

an answer!" said I.

     The fellow gave a bellow of anger and sprang upon me like a tiger.  I

have held my own in many a struggle, but the man had a grip of iron and the

fury of a fiend.  His hand was on my throat and my senses were nearly gone

before an unshaven French ouvrier in a blue blouse darted out from a cabaret

opposite, with a cudgel in his hand, and struck my assailant a sharp crack

over the forearm, which made him leave go his hold.  He stood for an instant

fuming with rage and uncertain whether he should not renew his attack.  Then,

with a snarl of anger, he left me and entered the cottage from which I had

just come.  I turned to thank my preserver, who stood beside me in the

roadway.

     "Well, Watson," said he, "a very pretty hash you have made of it!  I

rather think you had better come back with me to London by the night express."

     An hour afterwards, Sherlock Holmes, in his usual garb and style, was

seated in my private room at the hotel.  His explanation of his sudden and

opportune appearance was simplicity itself, for, finding that he could get

away from London, he determined to head me off at the next obvious point of my

travels.  In the disguise of a workingman he had sat in the cabaret waiting

for my appearance.

     "And a singularly consistent investigation you have made, my dear

Watson," said he.  "I cannot at the moment recall any possible blunder which

you have omitted.  The total effect of your proceeding has been to give the

alarm everywhere and yet to discover nothing."

     "Perhaps you would have done no better," I answered bitterly.

     "There is no 'perhaps' about it.  I have done better.  Here is the Hon.

Philip Green, who is a fellow-lodger with you in this hotel, and we may find

him the starting-point for a more successful investigation."

     A card had come up on a salver, and it was followed by the same bearded

ruffian who had attacked me in the street.  He started when he saw me.

     "What is this, Mr. Holmes?" he asked.  "I had your note and I have come.

But what has this man to do with the matter?"

     "This is my old friend and associate, Dr. Watson, who is helping us in

this affair."

     The stranger held out a huge, sunburned hand, with a few words of

apology.

     "I hope I didn't harm you.  When you accused me of hurting her I lost my

grip of myself.  Indeed, I'm not responsible in these days.  My nerves are

like live wires.  But this situation is beyond me.  What I want to know, in

the first place, Mr. Holmes, is, how in the world you came to hear of my

existence at all."

     "I am in touch with Miss Dobney, Lady Frances's governess."

     "Old Susan Dobney with the mob cap!  I remember her well."

     "And she remembers you.  It was in the days before--before you found it

better to go to South Africa."

     "Ah, I see you know my whole story.  I need hide nothing from you.  I

swear to you, Mr. Holmes, that there never was in this world a man who loved a

woman with a more wholehearted love than I had for Frances.  I was a wild

youngster, I know--not worse than others of my class.  But her mind was pure

as snow.  She could not bear a shadow of coarseness.  So, when she came to

hear of things that I had done, she would have no more to say to me.  And yet

she loved me--that is the wonder of it!--loved me well enough to remain single

all her sainted days just for my sake alone.  When the years had passed and I

had made my money at Barberton I thought perhaps I could seek her out and

soften her.  I had heard that she was still unmarried.  I found her at

Lausanne and tried all I knew.  She weakened, I think, but her will was

strong, and when next I called she had left the town.  I traced her to Baden,

and then after a time heard that her maid was here.  I'm a rough fellow, fresh

from a rough life, and when Dr. Watson spoke to me as he did I lost hold of

myself for a moment.  But for God's sake tell me what has become of the Lady

Frances."

     "That is for us to find out," said Sherlock Holmes with peculiar gravity.

"What is your London address, Mr. Green?"

     "The Langham Hotel will find me."

     "Then may I recommend that you return there and be on hand in case I

should want you?  I have no desire to encourage false hopes, but you may rest

assured that all that can be done will be done for the safety of Lady Frances.

I can say no more for the instant.  I will leave you this card so that you may

be able to keep in touch with us.  Now, Watson, if you will pack your bag I

will cable to Mrs. Hudson to make one of her best efforts for two hungry

travellers at 7:30 to-morrow."

     A telegram was awaiting us when we reached our Baker Street rooms, which

Holmes read with an exclamation of interest and threw across to me.  "Jagged

or torn," was the message, and the place of origin, Baden.

     "What is this?" I asked.

     "It is everything," Holmes answered.  "You may remember my seemingly

irrelevant question as to this clerical gentleman's left ear.  You did not

answer it."

     "I had left Baden and could not inquire."

     "Exactly.  For this reason I sent a duplicate to the manager of the

Englischer Hof, whose answer lies here."

     "What does it show?"

     "It shows, my dear Watson, that we are dealing with an exceptionally

astute and dangerous man.  The Rev. Dr. Shlessinger, missionary from South

America, is none other than Holy Peters, one of the most unscrupulous rascals

that Australia has ever evolved--and for a young country it has turned out

some very finished types.  His particular specialty is the beguiling of lonely

ladies by playing upon their religious feelings, and his so-called wife, an

Englishwoman named Fraser, is a worthy helpmate.  The nature of his tactics

suggested his identity to me, and this physical peculiarity--he was badly

bitten in a saloon-fight at Adelaide in '89--confirmed my suspicion.  This

poor lady is in the hands of a most infernal couple, who will stick at

nothing, Watson.  That she is already dead is a very likely supposition.  If

not, she is undoubtedly in some sort of confinement and unable to write to

Miss Dobney or her other friends.  It is always possible that she never

reached London, or that she has passed through it, but the former is

improbable, as, with their system of registration, it is not easy for

foreigners to play tricks with the Continental police; and the latter is also

unlikely, as these rogues could not hope to find any other place where it

would be as easy to keep a person under restraint.  All my instincts tell me

that she is in London, but as we have at present no possible means of telling

where, we can only take the obvious steps, eat our dinner, and possess our

souls in patience.  Later in the evening I will stroll down and have a word

with friend Lestrade at Scotland Yard."

     But neither the official police nor Holmes's own small but very efficient

organization sufficed to clear away the mystery.  Amid the crowded millions of

London the three persons we sought were as completely obliterated as if they

had never lived.  Advertisements were tried, and failed.  Clues were followed,

and led to nothing.  Every criminal resort which Shlessinger might frequent

was drawn in vain.  His old associates were watched, but they kept clear of

him.  And then suddenly, after a week of helpless suspense there came a flash

of light.  A silver-and-brilliant pendant of old Spanish design had been

pawned at Bovington's, in Westminster Road.  The pawner was a large,

clean-shaven man of clerical appearance.  His name and address were

demonstrably false.  The ear had escaped notice, but the description was

surely that of Shlessinger.

     Three times had our bearded friend from the Langham called for news--the

third time within an hour of this fresh development.  His clothes were getting

looser on his great body.  He seemed to be wilting away in his anxiety.  "If

you will only give me something to do!" was his constant wail.  At last Holmes

could oblige him.

     "He has begun to pawn the jewels.  We should get him now."

     "But does this mean that any harm has befallen the Lady Frances?"

     Holmes shook his head very gravely.

     "Supposing that they have held her prisoner up to now, it is clear that

they cannot let her loose without their own destruction.  We must prepare for

the worst."

     "What can I do?"

     "These people do not know you by sight?"

     "No."

     "It is possible that he will go to some other pawnbroker in the future.

In that case, we must begin again.  On the other hand, he has had a fair price

and no questions asked, so if he is in need of ready-money he will probably

come back to Bovington's.  I will give you a note to them, and they will let

you wait in the shop.  If the fellow comes you will follow him home.  But no

indiscretion, and, above all, no violence.  I put you on your honour that you

will take no step without my knowledge and consent."

     For two days the Hon.  Philip Green (he was, I may mention, the son of

the famous admiral of that name who commanded the Sea of Azof fleet in the

Crimean War) brought us no news.  On the evening of the third he rushed into

our sitting-room, pale, trembling, with every muscle of his powerful frame

quivering with excitement.

     "We have him!  We have him!" he cried.

     He was incoherent in his agitation.  Holmes soothed him with a few words

and thrust him into an armchair.

     "Come, now, give us the order of events," said he.

     "She came only an hour ago.  It was the wife, this time, but the pendant

she brought was the fellow of the other.  She is a tall, pale woman, with

ferret eyes."

     "That is the lady," said Holmes.

     "She left the office and I followed her.  She walked up the Kennington

Road, and I kept behind her.  Presently she went into a shop.  Mr. Holmes, it

was an undertaker's."

     My companion started.  "Well?" he asked in that vibrant voice which told

of the fiery soul behind the cold gray face.

     "She was talking to the woman behind the counter.  I entered as well.

'It is late,' I heard her say, or words to that effect.  The woman was

excusing herself.  'It should be there before now,' she answered.  'It took

longer, being out of the ordinary.'  They both stopped and looked at me, so I

asked some question and then left the shop."

     "You did excellently well.  What happened next?"

     "The woman came out, but I had hid myself in a doorway.  Her suspicions

had been aroused, I think, for she looked round her.  Then she called a cab

and got in.  I was lucky enough to get another and so to follow her.  She got

down at last at No. 36, Poultney Square, Brixton.  I drove past, left my cab

at the corner of the square, and watched the house."

     "Did you see anyone?"

     "The windows were all in darkness save one on the lower floor.  The blind

was down, and I could not see in.  I was standing there, wondering what I

should do next, when a covered van drove up with two men in it.  They

descended, took something out of the van, and carried it up the steps to the

hall door.  Mr. Holmes, it was a coffin."

     "Ah!"

     "For an instant I was on the point of rushing in.  The door had been

opened to admit the men and their burden.  It was the woman who had opened it.

But as I stood there she caught a glimpse of me, and I think that she

recognized me.  I saw her start, and she hastily closed the door.  I

remembered my promise to you, and here I am."

     "You have done excellent work," said Holmes scribbling a few words upon a

half-sheet of paper.  "We can do nothing legal without a warrant, and you can

serve the cause best by taking this note down to the authorities and getting

one.  There may be some difficulty, but I should think that the sale of the

jewellery should be sufficient.  Lestrade will see to all details."

     "But they may murder her in the meanwhile.  What could the coffin mean,

and for whom could it be but for her?"

     "We will do all that can be done, Mr. Green.  Not a moment will be lost.

Leave it in our hands.  Now, Watson," he added as our client hurried away, "he

will set the regular forces on the move.  We are, as usual, the irregulars,

and we must take our own line of action.  The situation strikes me as so

desperate that the most extreme measures are justified.  Not a moment is to be

lost in getting to Poultney Square.

     "Let us try to reconstruct the situation," said he as we drove swiftly

past the Houses of Parliament and over Westminster Bridge.  "These villains

have coaxed this unhappy lady to London, after first alienating her from her

faithful maid.  If she has written any letters they have been intercepted.

Through some confederate they have engaged a furnished house.  Once inside it,

they have made her a prisoner, and they have become possessed of the valuable

jewellery which has been their object from the first.  Already they have begun

to sell part of it, which seems safe enough to them, since they have no reason

to think that anyone is interested in the lady's fate.  When she is released

she will, of course, denounce them.  Therefore, she must not be released.  But

they cannot keep her under lock and key forever.  So murder is their only

solution."

     "That seems very clear."

     "Now we will take another line of reasoning.  When you follow two

separate chains of thought, Watson, you will find some point of intersection

which should approximate to the truth.  We will start now, not from the lady

but from the coffin and argue backward.  That incident proves, I fear, beyond

all doubt that the lady is dead.  It points also to an orthodox burial with

proper accompaniment of medical certificate and official sanction.  Had the

lady been obviously murdered, they would have buried her in a hole in the back

garden.  But here all is open and regular.  What does that mean?  Surely that

they have done her to death in some way which has deceived the doctor and

simulated a natural end--poisoning, perhaps.  And yet how strange that they

should ever let a doctor approach her unless he were a confederate, which is

hardly a credible proposition."

     "Could they have forged a medical certificate?"

     "Dangerous, Watson, very dangerous.  No, I hardly see them doing that.

Pull up, cabby!  This is evidently the undertaker's, for we have just passed

the pawnbroker's.  Would you go in, Watson?  Your appearance inspires

confidence.  Ask what hour the Poultney Square funeral takes place to-morrow."

     The woman in the shop answered me without hesitation that it was to be at

eight o'clock in the morning.  "You see, Watson, no mystery; everything

above-board!  In some way the legal forms have undoubtedly been complied with,

and they think that they have little to fear.  Well, there's nothing for it

now but a direct frontal attack.  Are you armed?"

     "My stick!"

     "Well, well, we shall be strong enough.  'Thrice is he armed who hath his

quarrel just.'  We simply can't afford to wait for the police or to keep

within the four corners of the law.  You can drive off, cabby.  Now, Watson,

we'll just take our luck together, as we have occasionally done in the past."

     He had rung loudly at the door of a great dark house in the centre of

Poultney Square.  It was opened immediately, and the figure of a tall woman

was outlined against the dim-lit hall.

     "Well, what do you want?" she asked sharply, peering at us through the

darkness.

     "I want to speak to Dr. Shlessinger," said Holmes.

     "There is no such person here," she answered, and tried to close the

door, but Holmes had jammed it with his foot.

     "Well, I want to see the man who lives here, whatever he may call

himself," said Holmes firmly.

     She hesitated.  Then she threw open the door.  "Well, come in!" said she.

"My husband is not afraid to face any man in the world."  She closed the door

behind us and showed us into a sitting-room on the right side of the hall,

turning up the gas as she left us.  "Mr. Peters will be with you in an

instant," she said.

     Her words were literally true, for we had hardly time to look around the

dusty and moth-eaten apartment in which we found ourselves before the door

opened and a big, clean-shaven bald-headed man stepped lightly into the room.

He had a large red face, with pendulous cheeks, and a general air of

superficial benevolence which was marred by a cruel, vicious mouth.

     "There is surely some mistake here, gentlemen," he said in an unctuous,

make-everything-easy voice.  "I fancy that you have been misdirected.

Possibly if you tried farther down the street-- --"

     "That will do; we have no time to waste," said my companion firmly.  "You

are Henry Peters, of Adelaide, late the Rev. Dr. Shlessinger, of Baden and

South America.  I am as sure of that as that my own name is Sherlock Holmes."

     Peters, as I will now call him, started and stared hard at his formidable

pursuer.  "I guess your name does not frighten me, Mr. Holmes," said he

coolly.  "When a man's conscience is easy you can't rattle him.  What is your

business in my house?"

     "I want to know what you have done with the Lady Frances Carfax, whom you

brought away with you from Baden."

     "I'd be very glad if you could tell me where that lady may be," Peters

answered coolly.  "I've a bill against her for nearly a hundred pounds, and

nothing to show for it but a couple of trumpery pendants that the dealer would

hardly look at.  She attached herself to Mrs. Peters and me at Baden--it is a

fact that I was using another name at the time--and she stuck on to us until

we came to London.  I paid her bill and her ticket.  Once in London, she gave

us the slip, and, as I say, left these out-of-date jewels to pay her bills.

You find her, Mr. Holmes, and I'm your debtor."

     "I mean to find her," said Sherlock Holmes.  "I'm going through this

house till I do find her."

     "Where is your warrant?"

     Holmes half drew a revolver from his pocket.  "This will have to serve

till a better one comes."

     "Why, you are a common burglar."

     "So you might describe me," said Holmes cheerfully.  "My companion is

also a dangerous ruffian.  And together we are going through your house."

     Our opponent opened the door.

     "Fetch a policeman, Annie!" said he.  There was a whisk of feminine

skirts down the passage, and the hall door was opened and shut.

     "Our time is limited, Watson," said Holmes.  "If you try to stop us,

Peters, you will most certainly get hurt.  Where is that coffin which was

brought into your house?"

     "What do you want with the coffin?  It is in use.  There is a body in

it."

     "I must see that body."

     "Never with my consent."

     "Then without it."  With a quick movement Holmes pushed the fellow to one

side and passed into the hall.  A door half opened stood immediately before

us.  We entered.  It was the dining-room.  On the table, under a half-lit

chandelier, the coffin was lying.  Holmes turned up the gas and raised the

lid.  Deep down in the recesses of the coffin lay an emaciated figure.  The

glare from the lights above beat down upon an aged and withered face.  By no

possible process of cruelty, starvation, or disease could this wornout wreck

be the still beautiful Lady Frances.  Holmes's face showed his amazement, and

also his relief.

     "Thank God!" he muttered.  "It's someone else."

     "Ah, you've blundered badly for once, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said Peters,

who had followed us into the room.

     "Who is this dead woman?"

     "Well, if you really must know, she is an old nurse of my wife's, Rose

Spender by name, whom we found in the Brixton Workhouse Infirmary.  We brought

her round here, called in Dr. Horsom, of 13 Firbank Villas--mind you take the

address, Mr. Holmes--and had her carefully tended, as Christian folk should.

On the third day she died--certificate says senile decay--but that's only the

doctor's opinion, and of course you know better.  We ordered her funeral to be

carried out by Stimson and Co., of the Kennington Road, who will bury her at

eight o'clock to-morrow morning.  Can you pick any hole in that, Mr. Holmes?

You've made a silly blunder, and you may as well own up to it.  I'd give

something for a photograph of your gaping, staring face when you pulled aside

that lid expecting to see the Lady Frances Carfax and only found a poor old

woman of ninety."

     Holmes's expression was as impassive as ever under the jeers of his

antagonist, but his clenched hands betrayed his acute annoyance.

     "I am going through your house," said he.

     "Are you, though!" cried Peters as a woman's voice and heavy steps

sounded in the passage.  "We'll soon see about that.  This way, officers, if

you please.  These men have forced their way into my house, and I cannot get

rid of them.  Help me to put them out."

     A sergeant and a constable stood in the doorway.  Holmes drew his card

from his case.

     "This is my name and address.  This is my friend, Dr. Watson."

     "Bless you, sir, we know you very well," said the sergeant, "but you

can't stay here without a warrant."

     "Of course not.  I quite understand that."

     "Arrest him!" cried Peters.

     "We know where to lay our hands on this gentleman if he is wanted," said

the sergeant majestically, "but you'll have to go, Mr. Holmes."

     "Yes, Watson, we shall have to go."

     A minute later we were in the street once more.  Holmes was as cool as

ever, but I was hot with anger and humiliation.  The sergeant had followed us.

     "Sorry, Mr. Holmes, but that's the law."

     "Exactly, Sergeant, you could not do otherwise."

     "I expect there was good reason for your presence there.  If there is

anything I can do-- --"

     "It's a missing lady, Sergeant, and we think she is in that house.  I

expect a warrant presently."

     "Then I'll keep my eye on the parties, Mr. Holmes.  If anything comes

along, I will surely let you know."

     It was only nine o'clock, and we were off full cry upon the trail at

once.  First we drove to Brixton Workhouse Infirmary, where we found that it

was indeed the truth that a charitable couple had called some days before,

that they had claimed an imbecile old woman as a former servant, and that they

had obtained permission to take her away with them.  No surprise was expressed

at the news that she had since died.

     The doctor was our next goal.  He had been called in, had found the woman

dying of pure senility, had actually seen her pass away, and had signed the

certificate in due form.  "I assure you that everything was perfectly normal

and there was no room for foul play in the matter," said he.  Nothing in the

house had struck him as suspicious save that for people of their class it was

remarkable that they should have no servant.  So far and no farther went the

doctor.

     Finally we found our way to Scotland Yard.  There had been difficulties

of procedure in regard to the warrant.  Some delay was inevitable.  The

magistrate's signature might not be obtained until next morning.  If Holmes

would call about nine he could go down with Lestrade and see it acted upon.

So ended the day, save that near midnight our friend, the sergeant, called to

say that he had seen flickering lights here and there in the windows of the

great dark house, but that no one had left it and none had entered.  We could

but pray for patience and wait for the morrow.

     Sherlock Holmes was too irritable for conversation and too restless for

sleep.  I left him smoking hard, with his heavy, dark brows knotted together,

and his long, nervous fingers tapping upon the arms of his chair, as he turned

over in his mind every possible solution of the mystery.  Several times in the

course of the night I heard him prowling about the house.  Finally, just after

I had been called in the morning, he rushed into my room.  He was in his

dressing-gown, but his pale, hollow-eyed face told me that his night had been

a sleepless one.

     "What time was the funeral?  Eight, was it not?" he asked eagerly.

"Well, it is 7:20 now.  Good heavens, Watson, what has become of any brains

that God has given me?  Quick, man, quick!  It's life or death--a hundred

chances on death to one on life.  I'll never forgive myself, never, if we are

too late!"

     Five minutes had not passed before we were flying in a hansom down Baker

Street.  But even so it was twenty-five to eight as we passed Big Ben, and

eight struck as we tore down the Brixton Road.  But others were late as well

as we.  Ten minutes after the hour the hearse was still standing at the door

of the house, and even as our foaming horse came to a halt the coffin,

supported by three men, appeared on the threshold.  Holmes darted forward and

barred their way.

     "Take it back!" he cried, laying his hand on the breast of the foremost.

"Take it back this instant!"

     "What the devil do you mean?  Once again I ask you, where is your

warrant?" shouted the furious Peters, his big red face glaring over the

farther end of the coffin.

     "The warrant is on its way.  This coffin shall remain in the house until

it comes."

     The authority in Holmes's voice had its effect upon the bearers.  Peters

had suddenly vanished into the house, and they obeyed these new orders.

"Quick, Watson, quick!  Here is a screw-driver!" he shouted as the coffin was

replaced upon the table.  "Here's one for you, my man!  A sovereign if the lid

comes off in a minute!  Ask no questions--work away!  That's good!  Another!

And another!  Now pull all together!  It's giving!  It's giving!  Ah, that

does it at last."

     With a united effort we tore off the coffin-lid.  As we did so there came

from the inside a stupefying and overpowering smell of chloroform.  A body lay

within, its head all wreathed in cotton-wool, which had been soaked in the

narcotic.  Holmes plucked it off and disclosed the statuesque face of a

handsome and spiritual woman of middle age.  In an instant he had passed his

arm round the figure and raised her to a sitting position.

     "Is she gone, Watson?  Is there a spark left?  Surely we are not too

late!"

     For half an hour it seemed that we were.  What with actual suffocation,

and what with the poisonous fumes of the chloroform, the Lady Frances seemed

to have passed the last point of recall.  And then, at last, with artificial

respiration, with injected ether, with every device that science could

suggest, some flutter of life, some quiver of the eyelids, some dimming of a

mirror, spoke of the slowly returning life.  A cab had driven up, and Holmes,

parting the blind, looked out at it.  "Here is Lestrade with his warrant,"

said he.  "He will find that his birds have flown.  And here," he added as a

heavy step hurried along the passage, "is someone who has a better right to

nurse this lady than we have.  Good morning, Mr. Green; I think that the

sooner we can move the Lady Frances the better.  Meanwhile, the funeral may

proceed, and the poor old woman who still lies in that coffin may go to her

last resting-place alone."

     "Should you care to add the case to your annals, my dear Watson," said

Holmes that evening, "it can only be as an example of that temporary eclipse

to which even the best-balanced mind may be exposed.  Such slips are common to

all mortals, and the greatest is he who can recognize and repair them.  To

this modified credit I may, perhaps, make some claim.  My night was haunted by

the thought that somewhere a clue, a strange sentence, a curious observation,

had come under my notice and had been too easily dismissed.  Then, suddenly,

in the gray of the morning, the words came back to me.  It was the remark of

the undertaker's wife, as reported by Philip Green.  She had said, 'It should

be there before now.  It took longer, being out of the ordinary.'  It was the

coffin of which she spoke.  It had been out of the ordinary.  That could only

mean that it had been made to some special measurement.  But why?  Why?  Then

in an instant I remembered the deep sides, and the little wasted figure at the

bottom.  Why so large a coffin for so small a body?  To leave room for another

body.  Both would be buried under the one certificate.  It had all been so

clear, if only my own sight had not been dimmed.  At eight the Lady Frances

would be buried.  Our one chance was to stop the coffin before it left the

house.

     "It was a desperate chance that we might find her alive, but it was a

chance, as the result showed.  These people had never, to my knowledge, done a

murder.  They might shrink from actual violence at the last.  They could bury

her with no sign of how she met her end, and even if she were exhumed there

was a chance for them.  I hoped that such considerations might prevail with

them.  You can reconstruct the scene well enough.  You saw the horrible den

upstairs, where the poor lady had been kept so long.  They rushed in and

overpowered her with their chloroform, carried her down, poured more into the

coffin to insure against her waking, and then screwed down the lid.  A clever

device, Watson.  It is new to me in the annals of crime.  If our ex-missionary

friends escape the clutches of Lestrade, I shall expect to hear of some

brilliant incidents in their future career."