and I understood that it could not be avoided. My husband was not fit to live. We planned that he should die.
'Leonardo had a clever, scheming brain. It was he who planned it. I do not say that to blame him, for I was ready to go with him every inch of the way. But I should never have had the wit to think of such a plan. We made a club — Leonardo made it — and in the leaden head he fastened five long steel nails, the points outward, with just such a spread as the lion's paw. This was to give my husband his death-blow, and yet to leave the evidence that it was the lion which we would loose who had done the deed.
'It was a pitch-dark night when my husband and I went down, as was our custom, to feed the beast. We carried with us the raw meat in a zinc pail. Leonardo was waiting at the corner of the big van which we should have to pass before we reached the cage. He was too slow, and we walked past him before he could strike, but he followed us on tiptoe and I heard the crash as the club smashed my husband's skull. My heart leaped with joy at the sound. I sprang forward, and I undid the catch which held the door of the great lion's cage.
'And then the terrible thing happened. You may have heard how quick these creatures are to scent human blood, and how it excites them. Some strange instinct had told the creature in one instant that a human being had been slain. As I slipped the bars it bounded out and was on me in an instant. Leonardo could have saved me. If he had rushed forward and struck the beast with his club he might have cowed it. But the man lost his nerve. I heard him shout in his terror, and then I saw him turn and fly. At the same instant the teeth of the lion met in my face. Its hot, filthy breath had already poisoned me 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.'
XII. 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 grey 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.'
