"If I can help to put him where he belongs, I'm yours to the rattle,"
said our visitor, with fierce energy. There was an intensity of hatred
in her white, set face and her blazing eyes such as woman seldom and
man never can attain. "You needn't go into my past, Mr. Holmes.
That's neither here nor there. But what I am Adelbert Gruner made me.
If I could pull him down!" She clutched frantically with her hands
into the air. "Oh, if I could only pull him into the pit where he has
pushed so many!"
"You know how the matter stands?"
"Porky Shinwell has been telling me. He's after some other poor fool
and wants to marry her this time. You want to stop it. Well, you
surely know enough about this devil to prevent any decent girl in her
senses wanting to be in the same parish with him."
"She is not in her senses. She is madly in love. She has been told
all about him. She cares nothing."
"Told about the murder?"
"Yes."
"My Lord, she must have a nerve!"
"She puts them all down as slanders."
"Couldn't you lay proofs before her silly eyes?"
"Well, can you help us do so?"
"Ain't I a proof myself? If I stood before her and told her how he
used me----"
"Would you do this?"
"Would I? Would I not!"
"Well, it might be worth trying. But he has told her most of his sins
and had pardon from her, and I understand she will not reopen the
question."
"I'll lay he didn't tell her all," said Miss Winter. "I caught a
glimpse of one or two murders besides the one that made such a fuss.
He would speak of someone in his velvet way and then look at me with a
steady eye and say: 'He died within a month.' It wasn't hot air,
either. But I took little notice--you see, I loved him myself at that
time. Whatever he did went with me, same as with this poor fool!
There was just one thing that shook me. Yes, by Gripes! if it had not
been for his poisonous, lying tongue that explains and soothes, I'd
have left him that very night. It's a book he has--a brown leather
book with a lock, and his arms in gold on the outside. I think he was
a bit drunk that night, or he would not have shown it to me."
"What was it, then?"
"I tell you, Mr. Holmes, this man collects women, and takes a pride in
his collection, as some men collect moths or butterflies. He had it
all in that book. Snapshot photographs, names, details, everything
about them. It was a beastly book--a book no man, even if he had come
from the gutter, could have put together. But it was Adelbert Gruner's
book all the same. 'Souls I have ruined.' He could have put that on
the outside if he had been so minded. However, that's neither here nor
there, for the book would not serve you, and, if it would, you can't
get it."
"Where is it?"
"How can I tell you where it is now? It's more than a year since I
left him. I know where he kept it then. He's a precise, tidy cat of a
man in many of his ways, so maybe it is still in the pigeon-hole of the
old bureau in the inner study. Do you know his house?"
"I've been in the study," said Holmes.
"Have you, though? You haven't been slow on the job if you only
started this morning. Maybe dear Adelbert has met his match this time.
The outer study is the one with the Chinese crockery in it--big glass
cupboard between the windows. Then behind his desk is the door that
leads to the inner study--a small room where he keeps papers and
things."
"Is he not afraid of burglars?"
"Adelbert is no coward. His worst enemy couldn't say that of him. He
can look after himself. There's a burglar alarm at night. Besides,
what is there for a burglar--unless they got away with all this fancy
crockery?"
"No good," said Shinwell Johnson, with the decided voice of the expert.
"No fence wants stuff of that sort that you can neither melt nor sell."
"Quite so," said Holmes. "Well, now, Miss Winter, if you would call
here to-morrow evening at five, I would consider in the meanwhile
whether your suggestion of seeing this lady personally may not be
arranged. I am exceedingly obliged to you for your co-operation. I
need not say that my clients will consider liberally----"
"None of that, Mr. Holmes," cried the young woman. "I am not out for
money. Let me see this man in the mud, and I've got all I worked
for--in the mud with my foot on his cursed face. That's my price. I'm
with you to-morrow or any other day so long as you are on his track.
Porky here can tell you always where to find me."
I did not see Holmes again until the following evening, when we dined
once more at our Strand restaurant. He shrugged his shoulders when I
asked him what luck he had had in his interview. Then he told the
story, which I would repeat in this way. His hard, dry statement needs
some little editing to soften it into the terms of real life.
"There was no difficulty at all about the appointment," said Holmes,
"for the girl glories in showing abject filial obedience in all
secondary things in an attempt to atone for her flagrant breach of it
in her engagement. The General 'phoned that all was ready, and the
fiery Miss W. turned up according to schedule, so that at half-past
five a cab deposited us outside 104 Berkeley Square, where the old
soldier resides--one of those awful grey London castles which would
make a church seem frivolous. A footman showed us into a great
yellow-curtained drawing-room, and there was the lady awaiting us,
demure, pale, self-contained, as inflexible and remote as a snow image
on a mountain.
"I don't quite know how to make her clear to you, Watson. Perhaps you
may meet her before we are through, and you can use your own gift of
words. She is beautiful, but with the ethereal other-world beauty of
some fanatic whose thoughts are set on high. I have seen such faces in
the pictures of the old masters of the Middle Ages. How a beast-man
could have laid his vile paws upon such a being of the beyond I cannot
imagine. You may have noticed how extremes call to each other, the
spiritual to the animal, the cave-man to the angel. You never saw a
worse case than this.
"She knew what we had come for, of course--that villain had lost no
time in poisoning her mind against us. Miss Winter's advent rather
amazed her, I think, but she waved us into our respective chairs like a
Reverend Abbess receiving two rather leprous mendicants. If your head
is inclined to swell, my dear Watson, take a course of Miss Violet de
Merville.
"'Well, sir,' said she, in a voice like the wind from an iceberg, 'your
name is familiar to me. You have called, as I understand, to malign my
fiancé, Baron Gruner. It is only by my father's request that I see you
at all, and I warn you in advance that anything you can say could not
possibly have the slightest effect upon my mind.'
"I was sorry for her, Watson. I thought of her for the moment as I
would have thought of a daughter of my own. I am not often eloquent.
I use my head, not my heart. But I really did plead with her with all
the warmth of words that I could find in my nature. I pictured to her
the awful position of the woman who only wakes to a man's character
after she is his wife--a woman who has to submit to be caressed by
bloody hands and lecherous lips. I spared her nothing--the shame, the
fear, the agony, the hopelessness of it all. All my hot words could
not bring one tinge of colour to those ivory cheeks or one gleam of
emotion to those abstracted eyes. I thought of what the rascal had
said about a post-hypnotic influence. One could really believe that
she was living above the earth in some ecstatic dream. Yet there was
nothing indefinite in her replies.
"'I have listened to you with patience, Mr. Holmes,' said she. 'The
effect upon my mind is exactly as predicted. I am aware that Adelbert,
that my fiancé, has had a stormy life in which he has incurred bitter
hatreds and most unjust aspersions. You are only the last of a series
who have brought their slanders before me. Possibly you mean well,
though I learn that you are a paid agent who would have been equally
willing to act for the Baron as against him. But in any case I wish
you to understand once for all that I love him and that he loves me,
and that the opinion of all the world is no more to me than the twitter
of those birds outside the window. If his noble nature has ever for an
instant fallen, it may be that I have been specially sent to raise it
to its true and lofty level. I am not clear,' here she turned her eyes
upon my companion, 'who this young lady may be.'
"I was about to answer when the girl broke in like a whirlwind. If
ever you saw flame and ice face to face, it was those two women.
"'I'll tell you who I am,' she cried, springing out of her chair, her
mouth all twisted with passion--'I am his last mistress. I am one of a
hundred that he has tempted and used and ruined and thrown into the
refuse heap, as he will you also. _Your_ refuse heap is more likely to
be a grave, and maybe that's the best. I tell you, you foolish woman,
if you marry this man he'll be the death of you. It may be a broken
heart or it may be a broken neck, but he'll have you one way or the
other. It's not out of love for you I'm speaking. I don't care a
tinker's curse whether you live or die. It's out of hate for him and
to spite him and to get back on him for what he did to me. But it's
all the same, and you needn't look at me like that, my fine lady, for
you may be lower than I am before you are through with it.'
"'I should prefer not to discuss such matters,' said Miss de Merville
coldly. 'Let me say once for all that I am aware of three passages in
my fiancé's life in which he became entangled with designing women, and
that I am assured of his hearty repentance for any evil that he may
have done.'
"'Three passages!' screamed my companion. 'You fool! You unutterable
fool!'
"'Mr. Holmes, I beg that you will bring this interview to an end,' said
the icy voice. 'I have obeyed my father's wish in seeing you, but I am
not compelled to listen to the ravings of this person.'
"With an oath Miss Winter darted forward, and if I had not caught her
wrist she would have clutched this maddening woman by the hair. I
dragged her towards the door, and was lucky to get her back into the
cab without a public scene, for she was beside herself with rage. In a
cold way I felt pretty furious myself, Watson, for there was something
indescribably annoying in the calm aloofness and supreme
self-complaisance of the woman whom we were trying to save. So now
once again you know exactly how we stand, and it is clear that I must
plan some fresh opening move, for this gambit won't work. I'll keep in
touch with you, Watson, for it is more than likely that you will have
your part to play, though it is just possible that the next move may
lie with them rather than with us."
And it did. Their blow fell--or his blow rather, for never could I
believe that the lady was privy to it. I think I could show you the
very paving-stone upon which I stood when my eyes fell upon the
placard, and a pang of horror passed through my very soul. It was
between the "Grand Hotel" and Charing Cross Station, where a one-legged
news-vendor displayed his evening papers. The date was just two days
after the last conversation. There, black upon yellow, was the
terrible news-sheet:
+-------------+
| MURDEROUS |
| ATTACK |
| UPON |
| SHERLOCK |
| HOLMES. |
+-------------+
I think I stood stunned for some moments. Then I have a confused
recollection of snatching at a paper, of the remonstrance of the man,
whom I had not paid, and, finally, of standing in the doorway of a
chemist's shop while I turned up the fateful paragraph. This was how
it ran:
"We learn with regret that Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the well-known private
detective, was the victim this morning of a murderous assault which has
left him in a precarious position. There are no exact details to hand,
but the event seems to have occurred about twelve o'clock in Regent
Street, outside the Café Royal. The attack was made by two men armed
with sticks, and Mr. Holmes was beaten about the head and body,
receiving injuries which the doctors describe as most serious. He was
carried to Charing Cross Hospital, and afterwards insisted upon being
taken to his rooms in Baker Street. The miscreants who attacked him
appear to have been respectably dressed men, who escaped from the
bystanders by passing through the Café Royal and out into Glasshouse
Street behind it. No doubt they belonged to that criminal fraternity
which has so often had occasion to bewail the activity and ingenuity of
the injured man."
I need not say that my eyes had hardly glanced over the paragraph
before I had sprung into a hansom and was on my way to Baker Street. I
found Sir Leslie Oakshott, the famous surgeon in the hall and his
brougham waiting at the kerb.
"No immediate danger," was his report. "Two lacerated scalp wounds and
some considerable bruises. Several stitches have been necessary.
Morphine has been injected and quiet is essential, but an interview of
a few minutes would not be absolutely forbidden."
With this permission I stole into the darkened room. The sufferer was
wide awake, and I heard my name in a hoarse whisper. The blind was
three-quarters down, but one ray of sunlight slanted through and struck
the bandaged head of the injured man. A crimson patch had soaked
through the white linen compress. I sat beside him and bent my head.
"All right, Watson. Don't look so scared," he muttered in a very weak
voice. "It's not as bad as it seems."
"Thank God for that!"
"I'm a bit of a single-stick expert, as you know. I took most of them
on my guard. It was the second man that was too much for me."
"What can I do, Holmes? Of course, it was that damned fellow who set
them on. I'll go and thrash the hide off him if you give the word."
"Good old Watson! No, we can do nothing there unless the police lay
their hands on the men. But their get-away had been well prepared. We
may be sure of that. Wait a little. I have my plans. The first thing
is to exaggerate my injuries. They'll come to you for news. Put it on
thick, Watson. Lucky if I live the week
out--concussion--delirium--what you like! You can't overdo it."
"But Sir Leslie Oakshott?"
"Oh, he's all right. He shall see the worst side of me. I'll look
after that."
"Anything else?"
"Yes. Tell Shinwell Johnson to get that girl out of the way. Those
beauties will be after her now. They know, of course, that she was
with me in the case. If they dared to do me in it is not likely they
will neglect her. That is urgent. Do it to-night."
"I'll go now. Anything more?"
"Put my pipe on the table--and the tobacco-slipper. Right! Come in
each morning and we will plan our campaign."
I arranged with Johnson that evening to take Miss Winter to a quiet
suburb and see that she lay low until the danger was past.
For six days the public were under the impression that Holmes was at
the door of death. The bulletins were very grave and there were
sinister paragraphs in the papers. My continual visits assured me that
it was not so bad as that. His wiry constitution and his determined
will were working wonders. He was recovering fast, and I had
suspicions at times that he was really finding himself faster than he
pretended, even to me. There was a curious secretive streak in the man
which led to many dramatic effects, but left even his closest friend
guessing as to what his exact plans might be. He pushed to an extreme
the axiom that the only safe plotter was he who plotted alone. I was
nearer him than anyone else, and yet I was always conscious of the gap
between.
On the seventh day the stitches were taken out, in spite of which there
was a report of erysipelas in the evening papers. The same evening
papers had an announcement which I was bound, sick or well, to carry to
my friend. It was simply that among the passengers on the Cunard boat
_Ruritania_, starting from Liverpool on Friday, was the Baron Adelbert
Gruner, who had some important financial business to settle in the
States before his impending wedding to Miss Violet de Merville, only
daughter of, etc., etc. Holmes listened to the news with a cold,
concentrated look upon his pale face, which told me that it hit him
hard.
"Friday!" he cried. "Only three clear days. I believe the rascal
wants to put himself out of danger's way. But he won't, Watson! By
the Lord Harry, he won't! Now, Watson, I want you to do something for
me."
"I am here to be used, Holmes."
"Well, then, spend the next twenty-four hours in an intensive study of
Chinese pottery."
He gave no explanations and I asked for none. By long experience I had
learned the wisdom of obedience. But when I had left his room I walked
down Baker Street, revolving in my head how on earth I was to carry out
so strange an order. Finally I drove to the London Library in St.
James's Square, put the matter to my friend Lomax, the sub-librarian,
and departed to my rooms with a goodly volume under my arm.
It is said that the barrister who crams up a case with such care that
he can examine an expert witness upon the Monday has forgotten all his
forced knowledge before the Saturday. Certainly I should not like now
to pose as an authority upon ceramics. And yet all that evening, and
all that night with a short interval for rest, and all next morning I
was sucking in knowledge and committing names to memory. There I
learned of the hall-marks of the great artist-decorators, of the
mystery of cyclical dates, the marks of the Hung-wu and the beauties of
the Yung-lo, the writings of Tang-ying, and the glories of the
primitive period of the Sung and the Yuan. I was charged with all this
information when I called upon Holmes next evening. He was out of bed
now, though you would not have guessed it from the published reports,
and he sat with his much-bandaged head resting upon his hand in the
depth of his favourite arm-chair.
"Why, Holmes," I said, "if one believed the papers you are dying."
"That," said he, "is the very impression which I intended to convey.
And now, Watson, have you learned your lessons?"
"At least I have tried to."
"Good. You could keep up an intelligent conversation on the subject?"
"I believe I could."
"Then hand me that little box from the mantel-piece."
He opened the lid and took out a small object most carefully wrapped in
some fine Eastern silk. This he unfolded, and disclosed a delicate
little saucer of the most beautiful deep-blue colour.
"It needs careful handling, Watson. This is the real egg-shell pottery
of the Ming dynasty. No finer piece ever passed through Christie's. A
complete set of this would be worth a king's ransom--in fact, it is
doubtful if there is a complete set outside the Imperial palace of
Peking. The sight of this would drive a real connoisseur wild."
"What am I to do with it?"
Holmes handed me a card upon which was printed: "Dr. Hill Barton, 369
Half Moon Street."
"That is your name for the evening, Watson. You will call upon Baron
Gruner. I know something of his habits, and at half-past eight he
would probably be disengaged. A note will tell him in advance that you
are about to call, and you will say that you are bringing him a
specimen of an absolutely unique set of Ming china. You may as well be
a medical man, since that is a part which you can play without
duplicity. You are a collector, this set has come your way, you have
heard of the Baron's interest in the subject, and you are not averse to
selling at a price."
"What price?"
"Well asked, Watson. You would certainly fall down badly if you did
not know the value of your own wares. This saucer was got for me by
Sir James, and comes, I understand, from the collection of his client.
You will not exaggerate if you say that it could hardly be matched in
the world."
"I could perhaps suggest that the set should be valued by an expert."
"Excellent, Watson! You scintillate to-day. Suggest Christie or
Sotheby. Your delicacy prevents your putting a price for yourself."
"But if he won't see me?"
"Oh, yes, he will see you. He has the collection mania in its most
acute form--and especially on this subject, on which he is an
acknowledged authority. Sit down, Watson, and I will dictate the
letter. No answer needed. You will merely say that you are coming,
and why."
It was an admirable document, short, courteous, and stimulating to the
curiosity of the connoisseur. A district messenger was duly dispatched
with it. On the same evening, with the precious saucer in my hand and
the card of Dr. Hill Barton in my pocket, I set off on my own adventure.
The beautiful house and grounds indicated that Baron Gruner was, as Sir
James had said, a man of considerable wealth. A long winding drive,
with banks of rare shrubs on either side, opened out into a great
gravelled square adorned with statues. The place had been built by a
South African gold king in the days of the great boom, and the long,
low house with the turrets at the corners, though an architectural
nightmare, was imposing in its size and solidity. A butler who would
have adorned a bench of bishops showed me in, and handed me over to a
plush-clad footman, who ushered me into the Baron's presence.
He was standing at the open front of a great case which stood between
the windows, and which contained part of his Chinese collection. He
turned as I entered with a small brown vase in his hand.
"Pray sit down, doctor," said he. "I was looking over my own treasures
and wondering whether I could really afford to add to them. This
little Tang specimen, which dates from the seventh century, would
probably interest you. I am sure you never saw finer workmanship or a
richer glaze. Have you the Ming saucer with you of which you spoke?"
I carefully unpacked it and handed it to him. He seated himself at his
desk, pulled over the lamp, for it was growing dark, and set himself to
examine it. As he did so the yellow light beat upon his own features,
and I was able to study them at my ease.
He was certainly a remarkably handsome man. His European reputation
for beauty was fully deserved. In figure he was not more than of
middle size, but was built upon graceful and active lines. His face
was swarthy, almost Oriental, with large, dark, languorous eyes which
might easily hold an irresistible fascination for women. His hair and
moustache were raven black, the latter short, pointed, and carefully
waxed. His features were regular and pleasing, save only his straight,
thin-lipped mouth. If ever I saw a murderer's mouth it was there--a
cruel, hard gash in the face, compressed, inexorable, and terrible. He
was ill-advised to train his moustache away from it, for it was
Nature's danger-signal, set as a warning to his victims. His voice was
engaging and his manners perfect. In age I should have put him at
little over thirty, though his record afterwards showed that he was
forty-two.
"Very fine--very fine indeed!" he said at last. "And you say you have
a set of six to correspond. What puzzles me is that I should not have
heard of such magnificent specimens. I only know of one in England to
match this, and it is certainly not likely to be in the market. Would
it be indiscreet if I were to ask you, Dr. Hill Barton, how you
obtained this?"
"Does it really matter?" I asked, with as careless an air as I could
muster. "You can see that the piece is genuine, and, as to the value,
I am content to take an expert's valuation."
"Very mysterious," said he, with a quick, suspicious flash of his dark
eyes. "In dealing with objects of such value, one naturally wishes to
know all about the transaction. That the piece is genuine is certain.
I have no doubts at all about that. But suppose--I am bound to take
every possibility into account--that it should prove afterwards that
you had no right to sell?"
"I would guarantee you against any claim of the sort."
"That, of course, would open up the question as to what your guarantee
was worth."
"My bankers would answer that."
"Quite so. And yet the whole transaction strikes me as rather unusual."
"You can do business or not," said I, with indifference. "I have given
you the first offer as I understood that you were a connoisseur, but I
shall have no difficulty in other quarters."
"Who told you I was a connoisseur?"
"I was aware that you had written a book upon the subject."
"Have you read the book?"
"No."
"Dear me, this becomes more and more difficult for me to understand!
You are a connoisseur and collector with a very valuable piece in your
collection, and yet you have never troubled to consult the one book
which would have told you of the real meaning and value of what you
held. How do you explain that?"
"I am a very busy man. I am a doctor in practice."
"That is no answer. If a man has a hobby he follows it up, whatever
his other pursuits may be. You said in your note that you were a
connoisseur."
"So I am."
"Might I ask you a few questions to test you? I am obliged to tell
you, doctor--if you are indeed a doctor--that the incident becomes more
and more suspicious. I would ask you what do you know of the Emperor
Shomu and how do you associate him with the Shoso-in near Nara? Dear
me, does that puzzle you? Tell me a little about the Northern Wei
dynasty and its place in the history of ceramics."