The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (6 page)

‘Good night, Mister Sherlock Holmes.'

There were several people on the pavement at the time, but the greeting appeared to come from a slim youth in an ulster who had hurried by.

‘I've heard that voice before,' said Holmes, staring down the dimly lit street. ‘Now, I wonder who the deuce that could have been.'

I slept at Baker Street that night, and we were engaged upon our toast and coffee when the King of Bohemia rushed into the room.

‘You have really got it!' he cried, grasping Sherlock Holmes by either shoulder, and looking eagerly into his face.

‘Not yet.'

‘But you have hopes?'

‘I have hopes.'

‘Then, come. I am all impatience to be gone.'

‘We must have a cab.'

‘No, my brougham is waiting.'

‘Then that will simplify matters.'

We descended, and started off once more for Briony Lodge.

‘Irene Adler is married,' remarked Holmes.

‘Married! When?'

‘Yesterday.'

‘But to whom?'

‘To an English lawyer named Norton.'

‘But she could not love him?'

‘I am in hopes that she does.'

‘And why in hopes?'

‘Because it would spare Your Majesty all fear of future annoyance. If the lady loves her husband, she does not love Your Majesty. If she does not love Your Majesty there is no reason why she should interfere with Your Majesty's plan.'

‘It is true. And yet—! Well! I wish she had been of my own station!
What a queen she would have made!' He relapsed into a moody silence which was not broken until we drew up in Serpentine Avenue.

The door of Briony Lodge was open, and an elderly woman stood upon the steps. She watched us with a sardonic eye as we stepped from the brougham.

‘Mr Sherlock Holmes, I believe?' said she.

‘I am Mr Holmes,' answered my companion, looking at her with a questioning and rather startled gaze.

‘Indeed! My mistress told me that you were likely to call. She left this morning with her husband, by the 5.15 train from Charing Cross,
⁴⁴
for the Continent.'

‘What!' Sherlock Holmes staggered back, white with chagrin and surprise. ‘Do you mean that she has left England?'

‘Never to return.'

‘And the papers?' asked the King hoarsely. ‘All is lost.'

‘We shall see.' He pushed past the servant, and rushed into the drawing-room, followed by the King and myself. The furniture was scattered about in every direction, with dismantled shelves, and open drawers, as if the lady had hurriedly ransacked them before her flight. Holmes rushed at the bell-pull, tore back a small sliding shutter, and, plunging in his hand, pulled out a photograph and a letter. The photograph was of Irene Adler herself in evening dress, the letter was superscribed to ‘Sherlock Holmes, Esq. To be left till called for'. My friend tore it open and we all three read it together. It was dated at midnight of the preceding night, and ran in this way:

My Dear Mr Sherlock Holmes,

You really did it very well. You took me in completely. Until after the alarm of fire, I had not a suspicion. But then, when I found how I had betrayed myself, I began to think. I had been warned against you months ago. I had been told that if the King employed an agent, it would certainly be you. And your address had been given me. Yet, with all this, you made me reveal what you wanted to know. Even after I became suspicious, I found it hard to think evil of such a dear, kind old clergyman. But, you know, I have been trained as an actress myself. Male costume is nothing new to me. I often take advantage of the freedom which it gives. I sent John, the coachman, to watch you, ran
upstairs, got into my walking clothes, as I call them, and came down just as you departed.

Well, I followed you to your door and so made sure that I was really an object of interest to the celebrated Mr Sherlock Holmes. Then I, rather imprudently, wished you good night, and started for the Temple to see my husband.

We both thought the best resource was flight when pursued by so formidable an antagonist; so you will find the nest empty when you call tomorrow. As to the photograph, your client may rest in peace. I love and am loved by a better man than he. The King may do what he will without hindrance from one whom he has cruelly wronged. I kept it only to safeguard myself, and to preserve a weapon which will always secure me from any steps which he might take in the future. I leave a photograph which he might care to possess; and I remain, dear Mr Sherlock Holmes, very truly yours,

IRENE NORTON,
née
ADLER

‘What a woman – oh, what a woman!' cried the King of Bohemia, when we had all three read this epistle. ‘Did I not tell you how quick and resolute she was? Would she not have made an admirable queen? Is it not a pity she was not on my level?'

‘From what I have seen of the lady, she seems, indeed, to be on a very different level to Your Majesty,' said Holmes, coldly. ‘I am sorry that I have not been able to bring Your Majesty's business to a more successful conclusion.'

‘On the contrary, my dear sir,' cried the King. ‘Nothing could be more successful. I know that her word is inviolate. The photograph is now as safe as if it were in the fire.'

‘I am glad to hear Your Majesty say so.'

‘I am immensely indebted to you. Pray tell me in what way I can reward you. This ring—' He slipped an emerald snake ring from his finger and held it out upon the palm of his hand.

‘Your Majesty has something which I should value even more highly,' said Holmes.

‘You have but to name it.'

‘This photograph!'

The King stared at him in amazement.

‘Irene's photograph!' he cried. ‘Certainly, if you wish it.'

‘I thank Your Majesty. Then there is no more to be done in the matter. I have the honour to wish you a very good morning.' He bowed, and, turning away without observing the hand which the King stretched out to him, he set off in my company for his chambers.

And that was how a great scandal threatened to affect the kingdom of Bohemia, and how the best plans of Mr Sherlock Holmes were beaten by a woman's wit. He used to make merry over the cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of late. And when he speaks of Irene Adler, or when he refers to her photograph, it is always under the honourable title of
the
woman.

‘My dear fellow,' said Sherlock Holmes, as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, ‘life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most
outré
results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.'
¹

‘And yet I am not convinced of it,' I answered. ‘The cases which come to light in the papers are, as a rule, bald enough, and vulgar enough. We have in our police reports realism pushed to its extreme limits, and yet the result is, it must be confessed, neither fascinating nor artistic.'

‘A certain selection and discretion must be used in producing a realistic effect,' remarked Holmes. ‘This is wanting in the police report, where more stress is laid perhaps upon the platitudes of the magistrate than upon the details, which to an observer contain the vital essence of the whole matter. Depend upon it there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace.'

I smiled and shook my head. ‘I can quite understand you thinking so,' I said. ‘Of course, in your position of unofficial adviser and helper to everybody who is absolutely puzzled, throughout three continents, you are brought in contact with all that is strange and bizarre. But
here' – I picked up the morning paper from the ground – ‘let us put it to a practical test. Here is the first heading upon which I come. “A Husband's Cruelty to His Wife.” There is half a column of print, but I know without reading it that it is all perfectly familiar to me. There is, of course, the other woman, the drink, the push, the blow, the bruise, the sympathetic sister or landlady. The crudest of writers could invent nothing more crude.'

‘Indeed, your example is an unfortunate one for your argument,' said Holmes, taking the paper, and glancing his eye down it. ‘This is the Dundas separation case, and, as it happens, I was engaged in clearing up some small points in connection with it. The husband was a teetotaller, there was no other woman, and the conduct complained of was that he had drifted into the habit of winding up every meal by taking out his false teeth and hurling them at his wife, which you will allow is not an action likely to occur to the imagination of the average story-teller. Take a pinch of snuff, Doctor, and acknowledge that I have scored over you in your example.'

He held out his snuff-box of old gold, with a great amethyst in the centre of the lid. Its splendour was in such contrast to his homely ways and simple life that I could not help commenting upon it.

‘Ah,' said he, ‘I forgot that I had not seen you for some weeks. It is a little souvenir from the King of Bohemia in return for my assistance in the case of the Irene Adler papers.'
²

‘And the ring?' I asked, glancing at a remarkable brilliant which sparkled upon his finger.

‘It was from the reigning family of Holland,
³
though the matter in which I served them was of such delicacy that I cannot confide it even to you, who have been good enough to chronicle one or two of my little problems.'

‘And have you any on hand just now?' I asked with interest.

‘Some ten or twelve, but none which presents any feature of interest. They are important, you understand, without being interesting. Indeed, I have found that it is usually in unimportant matters that there is a field for observation, and for the quick analysis of cause and effect which gives the charm to an investigation. The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime, the more obvious,
as a rule, is the motive. In these cases, save for one rather intricate matter which has been referred to me from Marseilles, there is nothing which presents any features of interest. It is possible, however, that I may have something better before very many minutes are over, for this is one of my clients, or I am much mistaken.'

He had risen from his chair, and was standing between the parted blinds, gazing down into the dull, neutral-tinted London street. Looking over his shoulder I saw that on the pavement opposite there stood a large woman with a heavy fur boa round her neck, and a large curling red feather in a broad-brimmed hat which was tilted in a coquettish Duchess-of-Devonshire fashion
⁴
over her ear. From under this great panoply she peeped up in a nervous, hesitating fashion at our windows, while her body oscillated backwards and forwards, and her fingers fidgeted with her glove buttons. Suddenly, with a plunge, as of the swimmer who leaves the bank, she hurried across the road, and we heard the sharp clang of the bell.

‘I have seen those symptoms before,' said Holmes, throwing his cigarette into the fire. ‘Oscillation upon the pavement always means an
affaire du cœur
. She would like advice, but is not sure that the matter is not too delicate for communication. And yet even here we may discriminate. When a woman has been seriously wronged by a man she no longer oscillates, and the usual symptom is a broken bell wire. Here we may take it that there is a love matter, but that the maiden is not so much angry as perplexed, or grieved. But here she comes in person to resolve our doubts.'

As he spoke there was a tap at the door, and the boy in buttons entered to announce Miss Mary Sutherland, while the lady herself loomed behind his small black figure like a full-sailed merchantman behind a tiny pilot boat. Sherlock Holmes welcomed her with the easy courtesy for which he was remarkable, and having closed the door, and bowed her into an armchair, he looked over her in the minute and yet abstracted fashion which was peculiar to him.

‘Do you not find,' he said, ‘that with your short sight it is a little trying to do so much typewriting?'

‘I did at first,' she answered, ‘but now I know where the letters are without looking.' Then, suddenly realizing the full purport of his
words, she gave a violent start, and looked up with fear and astonishment upon her broad, good-humoured face. ‘You've heard about me, Mr Holmes,' she cried, ‘else how could you know all that?'

‘Never mind,' said Holmes, laughing, ‘it is my business to know things. Perhaps I have trained myself to see what others overlook. If not, why should you come to consult me?'

‘I came to you, sir, because I heard of you from Mrs Etherege, whose husband you found so easy when the police and everyone had given him up for dead. Oh, Mr Holmes, I wish you would do as much for me. I'm not rich, but still I have a hundred a year in my own right, besides the little that I make by the machine, and I would give it all to know what has become of Mr Hosmer Angel.'

‘Why did you come away to consult me in such a hurry?' asked Sherlock Holmes, with his fingertips together, and his eyes to the ceiling.

Again a startled look came over the somewhat vacuous face of Miss Mary Sutherland. ‘Yes, I did bang out of the house,' she said, ‘for it made me angry to see the easy way in which Mr Windibank – that is, my father – took it all. He would not go to the police, and he would not go to you, and so at last, as he would do nothing, and kept on saying that there was no harm done, it made me mad, and I just on with my things and came right away to you.'