The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes

'Admittedly. If this is the truth. I must see those original documents.'

'Then there would appear to be no alternative,' I observed.

'None that I can see,' said he, thrusting his fingers into the Persian slipper and drawing out a handful of black shag which he proceeded to stuff untidily into his pipe. 'Well, Watson, a lengthy sojourn in jail will enable me at least to catch up in my studies of Oriental plant poisons in the organic blood-stream and for you to bring yourself up to date on these inoculation theories of Louis Pasteur.'

And there we left it, while the dusk deepened into night and Mrs. Hudson bustled in to poke the fire and light the gas jets.

It was at Holmes's suggestion that we dined out. 'The corner table at Fratti's, I think,' he chuckled, 'and a bottle of Montrachet '67. If this should prove to be our last evening of respectability, at least let us be comfortable.'

My watch showed me that it was after eleven o'clock when our hansom deposited us at the corner of Charles II Street. It was a moist, chill night with a hint of fog in the air that hung round the street-lamps in dim yellow haloes and glistened on the cape of the policeman who slowly passed us by, switching his bull's-eye lantern into the porticoes of the dark silent houses.

Entering St. James's Square, we had followed the pave­ment around to the western side when Holmes laid his hand upon my arm and pointed to a lighted window in the faзade of the great house that reared above us.

'It is the light of the drawing-room,' he murmured. 'We have not a moment to lose.'

With a swift glance along the empty pavement, he sprang for the top of the wall abutting the mansion and, pulling himself up by his hands, he dropped out of sight while I followed quickly at his heels. As far as I could judge through the darkness, we were standing in one of those dreary plots of grass and grimy struggling laurels that form the garden of the average 'town house' and in consequence stood already on the wrong side of the law. Reminding myself that our purpose was, at least, an honourable one, I followed Holmes's figure along the flank of the house until he halted beneath a line of three tall windows. Then, in answer to his whisper, I lent him a back and in an instant he was crouching on the sill with his pale face outlined against the dark glass and his hands busy with the catch. A moment later, the window swung silently open, I had caught his outstretched fingers and, with a heave, I found myself in the room beside him.

'The library,' Holmes breathed in my ear. 'Keep behind the window-curtains.'

Though we were enveloped in a darkness smelling faintly of calfskin and old leather, I was conscious of a sense of space about me. The silence was profound, save for the measured ticking of a grandfather clock in the depth of the room. Perhaps five minutes had dragged by when there came a sound from somewhere within the house followed by steps and a soft murmur of voices. A line of light gleamed for an instant beneath the edge of a door, vanished and, after a pause of some moments; slowly reappeared. I caught the sound of swift footfalls, the line of light grew brighter. Then the door was flung open and a woman, carrying a lamp in her hand, entered the room.

Though time tends to erase the sharp outline of past events, I recall as though it were but yesterday my first view of Edith von Lammerain.

Above the rays of an oil-lamp, I beheld an ivory-tinted face with dark, sombre eyes and a beautiful, scarlet, remorseless mouth. Her hair, piled high upon her head and of a raven blackness, was set with a spray of osprey plumes clasped with rubies and beneath her bare neck and shoulders a magnificent gown of black sequins flashed and shimmered against the darkness.

For a moment she stood as though listening and then, closing the door behind her, she swept down the great room, her tall, slim shadow trailing behind her and the lamp in her hand casting a dim, spectral glow along the book-lined walls.

I do not know whether it was the rustle of the curtain that reached her ears but, as Holmes stepped out into the room, she was round in an instant and, holding the lamp above her head so that the rays fell in our direction, she stood quite still and looked at us. There was not a trace of fear upon her ivory face, but only fury and venom in the dark eyes that glared at us across that great, silent chamber.

'Who are you?' she hissed. 'What do you want?'

'Five minutes of your time, Madame von Lammerain,' rejoined Holmes softly.

'So! You know my name. If you are not burglars, then what is it you seek? It would amuse me to hear before I raise the house.'

Holmes pointed to her left hand. 'I am here to examine those papers,' said he, 'and I warn you that I mean to do so. I beg that you will not make it necessary to prevent an outcry.'

She thrust her hand behind her, her eyes blazing in her face.

'You ruffian!' she cried. 'Now I understand!  You are Her saintly Grace's hired burglar.' Then, with a swift movement, she craned forward, the lamp out-held before her and, as she looked intently at my friend, I saw her expression of fury change into one of incredulity. A smile, as exultant as it was menacing, dawned slowly in her eyes.

'Mr. Sherlock Holmes!' she breathed.

There was a touch of mortification in Holmes's manner as he turned away and lit the candles on an ormolu side-table.

'The possibility of recognition had already occurred to me, madame,' said he.

'This will earn you five years,' she cried, with a flash of of her white teeth.

'Perhaps. In that case, I must have my money's worth. The documents!'

'Do you imagine that you will accomplish anything by stealing them? I have copies and a dozen witnesses to their contents,' she laughed throatily. 'I had imagined you to be a clever man,' she went on. 'Instead, I find a fool, a bungler, a common thief!'

'We shall see.' He held out his hand and, with a sneer and a shrug, she resigned the documents to him. 'I rely on you, Watson,' my friend remarked quietly, stepping across to the side-table, 'to prevent any collusion between Madame von Lammerain and the bell-rope.'

Beneath the glow of the candles, he read through the documents and then, holding them up against the light, he studied them intently, his lean, cadaverous profile cut in black silhouette against the luminous yellow parch­ ment. Then he looked at me and my heart sank at the chagrin in his face.

'The watermark is English, Watson,' he stated quietly. 'But as paper of this make and quality was imported into France on a large scale fifty years ago, this does not help us. Alas, I fear the worst.'

And I knew that he was thinking not of his own unenviable position but of the anxious, courageous woman in whose cause he had risked his own liberty.

Madame von Lammerain indulged in a little peal of laughter.

'Too much success has gone to your head,  Mr. Holmes,' she jeered. 'But this time you have blundered, as you will find to your cost.'

My friend had spread the papers immediately below the candle-flames and was bending over them again when I saw that a sudden change had taken place in his ex­pression. The chagrin and annoyance that had clouded his face had gone, and in their place was a look of intense concentration. His long nose seemed almost to smell the paper as he stooped over it. When he straightened himself at last, I caught a gleam of excitement from his deep-set eyes.

'What do you make of this, Watson?' said he, as I hastened to his side. He pointed to the writing that in­ scribed the details on both documents.

'It is a very legible hand,' I said.

'The ink, man, the ink!' he cried impatiently.

'Well, it is black ink,' I remarked, leaning over his shoulder. 'But I fear that there is little to help us in that. I can show you a dozen old letters from my father written in a similar medium.'

Holmes chuckled and rubbed his hands together. 'Excellent,'Watson, excellent!' he cried. 'Now, kindly ex­ amine the name and the signature of Henry Corwyn Gladsdale on the marriage certificate. And now, look at the entry of his name in the page from the Valence reg­ister.'

'They appear to be perfectly in order, and the signa­ture is the same in both cases.'

'Quite so. But the ink?'

'There is a shade of blue in it. Yes, certainly it is ordinary blue-black indigo ink. What then?'

'Every word in both documents is written in black ink, with the exception of the bridegroom's name and