Holmes. You have the feelings of a gentleman. How quick a woman's instinct is to find it out. I will treat you as a friend.'
'I cannot promise to reciprocate, madame. I am not the law, but I represent justice so far as my feeble powers go. I am ready to listen, and then I will tell you how I will act.'
'No doubt it was foolish of me to threaten a brave man like yourself.'
'What was really foolish, madame, is that you have placed yourself in the power of a band of rascals who may blackmail or give you away.'
'No, no! I am not so simple. Since I have promised to be frank, I may say that no one, save Barney Stockdale and Susan, his wife, have the least idea who their employer is. As to them, well, it is not the first —' She smiled and nodded with a charming coquettish intimacy.
'l see. You've tested them before.'
'They are good hounds who run silent.'
'Such hounds have a way sooner or later of biting the hand that feeds them. They will be arrested for this burglary. The police are already after them.'
'They will take what comes to them. That is what they are paid for. I shall not appear in the matter.'
'Unless I bring you into it.'
'No, no, you would not. You are a gentleman. It is a woman's secret.'
'In the first place, you must give back this manuscript.'
She broke into a ripple of laughter and walked to the fireplace. There was a calcined mass which she broke up with the poker. 'Shall I give this back?' she asked. So roguish and exquisite did she look as she stood before us with a challenging smile that I felt of all Holmes's criminals this was the one whom he would find it hardest to face. However, he was immune from sentiment.
'That seals your fate,' he said coldly. 'You are very prompt in your actions, madame, but you have overdone it on this occasion.'
She threw the poker down with a clatter.
'How hard you are!' she cried. 'May I tell you the whole story?'
'I fancy I could tell it to you.'
'But you must look at it with my eyes, Mr. Holmes. You must realize it from the point of view of a woman who sees all her life's ambition about to be ruined at the last moment. Is such a woman to be blamed if she protects herself?'
'The original sin was yours.'
'Yes, yes! I admit it. He was a dear boy, Douglas, but it so chanced that he could not fit into my plans. He wanted marriage – marriage, Mr. Holmes – with a penniless commoner. Nothing less would serve him. Then he became pertinacious. Because I had given he seemed to think that I still must give, and to him only. It was intolerable. At last I had to make him realize it.'
'By hiring ruffians to beat him under your own window.'
'You do indeed seem to know everything. Well, it is true. Barney and the boys drove him away, and were, I admit, a little rough in doing so. But what did he do th
Could
have believed that a gentleman would do such an act? He wrote a book in which he described his own story. I, of course, was the wolf; he the lamb. It was all there, under different names, of course; but who in all London would have failed to recognize it? What do you say to that, Mr. Holmes?'
'Well, he was within his rights.'
'It was as if the air of Italy had got into his blood and brought with it the old cruel Italian spirit. He wrote to me and sent me a copy of his book that I might have the torture of anticipation. There were two copies, he said – one for me, one for his publisher.'
'How did you know the publisher's had not reached him?'
'I knew who his publisher was. It is not his only novel, you know. I found out that he had not heard from Italy. Then came Douglas's sudden death. So long as that other manuscript was in the world there was no safety for me. Of course, it must be among his effects, and these would be returned to his mother. I set the gang at work. One of them got into the house as servant. I wanted to do the thing honestly. I really and truly did. I was ready to buy the house and everything in it. I offered any price she cared to ask. I only tried the other way when everything else had failed. Now, Mr. Holmes, granting that I was too hard on Douglas – and, God knows, I am sorry for it! – what else could I do with my whole future at stake?'
Sherlock Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
'Well, well,' said he, 'I suppose I shall have to compound a felony as usual. How much does it cost to go round the world in first-class style?'
The lady stared in amazement.
'Could it be done on five thousand pounds?'
'Well, I should think so, indeed!'
'Very good. I think you will sign me a check for that, and I will see that it comes to Mrs. Maberley. You owe her a little change of air. Meantime, lady' – he wagged a cautionary forefinger – 'have a care! Have a care! You can't play with edged tools forever without cutting those dainty hands.'
The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire
Holmes had read carefully a note which the last post had brought him. Then, with the dry chuckle which was his nearest approach to a laugh, he tossed it over to me.
'For a mixture of the modern and the mediaeval, of the practical and of the wildly fanciful, I think this is surely the limit,' said he. 'What do you make of it, Watson?'
I read as follows:
46, OLD JEWRY,
Nov. 19th.
Re Vampires
SIR:
Our client, Mr. Robert Ferguson, of Ferguson and
Muirhead, tea brokers, of Mincing Lane, has made some
inquiry from us in a communication of even date concerning
vampires. As our firm specializes entirely upon the assessment of machinery the matter hardly comes within our
purview, and we have therefore recommended Mr. Ferguson to call upon you and lay the matter before you. We
have not forgotten your successful action in the case of
Matilda Briggs.
We are, sir,
Faithfully yours,
MORRISON, MORRISON, AND DODD.
per E. J. C.
'Matilda Briggs was not the name of a young woman, Watson,' said Holmes in a reminiscent voice. 'It was a ship which is associated with the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared. But what do we know about vampires? Does it come within our purview either? Anything is better than stagnation, but really we seem to have been switched on to a Grimm's fairy tale. Make a long arm, Watson, and see what V has to say.'
I leaned back and took down the great index volume to which he referred. Holmes balanced it on his knee, and his eyes moved slowly and lovingly over the record of old cases, mixed with the accumulated information of a lifetime.
'Voyage of the Gloria Scott,' he read. 'That was a bad business. I have some recollection that you made a
