“I am sorry,” said Holmes. “I am accustomed to have mystery at one end of my cases, but to have it at both ends is too confusing. I fear, Sir James, that I must decline to act.”

“I may add that your problem interests me, and that I shall be prepared to look into it.”

When our visitor had left us Holmes sat so long in deep thought that it seemed to me that he had forgotten my presence. At last, however, he came briskly back to earth.

“Well, Watson, I love to come to close grips with my man. I like to meet him eye to eye and read for myself the stuff that he is made of.”

“He is an excellent antagonist, cool as ice, silky voiced and soothing as one of your fashionable consultants, and poisonous as a cobra.”

“Must you interfere? Does it really matter if he marries the girl?”
“Considering that he undoubtedly murdered his last wife, I should say it mattered very much. Besides, the client!”

“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.” (Kitty Winter)

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.

“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.”

“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.”

“All right, Watson. Don’t look so scared,” he muttered in a very weak voice. “It’s not as bad as it seems.”

"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.”

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.

Holmes listened to the news with a cold, concentrated look upon his pale face, which told me that it hit him hard.

He gave no explanations and I asked for none. By long experience I had learned the wisdom of obedience.

Holmes was seated in his familiar chair, looking very pale and exhausted. Apart from his injuries, even his iron nerves had been shocked by the events of the evening, and he listened with horror to my account of the Baron’s transformation.

“I have found out who our client is,” I cried, bursting with my great news. “Why, Holmes, it is —”
“It is a loyal friend and a chivalrous gentleman,” said Holmes, holding up a restraining hand. “Let that now and forever be enough for us.”

Tags: ILLU