The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes (39 page)

intention?"

"In taking vengeance for the greatest wrong which one man can do to another, I had

successfully protected our name from the shame of the scaffold. I could rely on Stephen's

loyalty. As for my wife, though she knew the truth she could not betray me without announcing

to the world her own infidelity. Life held nothing more for me. I determined therefore to allow

myself a day or two in which to get my affairs in order and then to die by my own hand. I

assure you that your discovery of my hiding-place has advanced the event by only an hour or

so. I had left a letter for Stephen, begging him as his final devoir that he would bury my body

secretly in the vaults of my ancestors.

"There, gentlemen, is my story. I am the last of the old line and it lies with you whether or not

it shall go out in dishonour."

Sherlock Holmes laid a hand upon his.

"It is perhaps as well that it has been pointed out to us already that my friend Watson

and I are here in an entirely private capacity," said he quietly. "I am about to summon

Stephen, for I cannot help feeling that you would be more comfortable if he carried this chair

into the priest's hole and closed the sliding panel after you."

We had to bend our heads to catch Lord Jocelyn's response.

"Then a higher tribunal will judge my crime," he whispered faintly, "and the tomb shall

devour my secret. Farewell, and may a dying man's blessing rest upon you."

Our journey back to London was both chilly and depressing. With nightfall, the snow had

recommenced and Holmes was in his least communicative mood, staring out of the window

at the scattered lights of villages and farm-houses that periodically flitted past in the darkness.

"The old year is nodding to its fall," he remarked suddenly, "and in the hearts of all

these kindly, simple folk awaiting the midnight chimes dwells the perennial anticipation that

what is to come will be better than what has been. Hope, however ingenuous and disproven

by past experience, remains the one supreme panacea for all the knocks and bruises which

life metes out to us." He leaned back and began to stuff his pipe with shag.

"Should you eventually write an account of this curious affair in Derbyshire," he went on, "I

would suggest that a suitable title would be 'the Red Widow'."

"Knowing your unreasonable aversion to women, Holmes, I am surprised that you

noticed the colour of her hair."

"I refer, Watson, to the popular sobriquet for a guillotine in the days of the French

Revolution," he said severely.

The hour was late when, at last, we reached our old lodgings in Baker Street where Holmes,

after poking up the fire, lost not a moment in donning his mouse-coloured dressing-gown.

"It is approaching midnight," I observed, "and as I would wish to be with my wife when

this year of 1887 draws to its close, I must be on my way. Let me wish you a happy New

Year, my dear fellow."

"I heartily reciprocate your good wishes, Watson," he replied. "Pray bear my greetings to

your wife and my apologies for your temporary absence."

I had reached the deserted street and, pausing for a moment to raise my collar against the

swirl of the snow-flakes, I was about to set out on my walk when my attention was arrested by

the strains of a violin. Involuntarily, I raised my eyes to the window of our old sitting-room

and there, sharply outlined against the lamplit blind, was the shadow of Sherlock Holmes. I

could see that keen, hawk-like profile which I knew so well, the slight stoop of his shoulders

as he bent over his fiddle, the rise and fall of the bow-tip. But surely this was no dreamy

Italian air, no complicated improvisation of his own creation, that drifted down to me through

the stillness of that bleak winter's night.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And never brought to min'?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And days o' auld lang syne.

A snow-flake must have drifted into my eyes for, as I turned away, the gas-lamps

glimmering down the desolate expanse of Baker Street seemed strangely blurred.

My task is done. My note-books have been
replaced in the black tin deed-box where

they have been kept in recent years and, for the last time, I have dipped my pen in the ink-

well.

Through the window that overlooks the modest lawn of our farm-house, I can see

Sherlock Holmes strolling among his beehives. His hair is quite white, but his long, thin

form is as wiry and energetic as ever, and there is a touch of healthy colour in his cheeks,

placed there by Mother Nature and her clover-laden breezes that carry the scent of the

sea amid these gentle Sussex Downs.

Our lives are drawing towards eventide and old faces and old scenes are gone forever.

And yet, as I lean back in my chair and close my eyes, for a while the past rises up to

obscure the present and I see before me the yellow fogs of Baker Street and I hear once

more the voice of the best and wisest man whom I have ever known.

"Come, Watson, the game's afoot!"

In the case of the Darlington Substitution Scandal it was of use to me, and also in the

Arnsworth Castle business.

FROM "A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA"

• Cover
  
• Copyright
  
• Excerpt from the Cover Flaps
  
• CONTENTS
  
• ALWAYS HOLMES
  
• 1 The Adventure of the Seven Clocks
  
• 2
  The Adventure of the Gold Hunter
  
• 3
  The Adventure of the Wax Gamblers
  
• 4
  The Adventure of the Highgate Miracle
  
• 5
  The Adventure of the Black Baronet
  
• 6
  The Adventure of the Sealed Room
  
• 7
  The Adventure of Foulkes Rath
  
• 8
  The Adventure of the Abbas Ruby
  
• 9
  The Adventure of the Dark Angels
  
• 10
  The Adventure of the Two Women
  
• 11
  The Adventure of the Deptford Horror
  
• 12
  The Adventure of the Red Widow