The old man had just finished his lunch, and certainly hisempty dish bore evidence to the good appetite with which hishousekeeper had credited him. He was, indeed, a weird figure ashe turned his white mane and his glowing eyes towards us. Theeternal cigarette smouldered in his mouth. He had been dressedand was seated in an armchair by the fire.
“Well, Mr. Holmes, have you solved this mystery yet?” Heshoved the large tin of cigarettes which stood on a table besidehim towards my companion. Holmes stretched out his hand at thesame moment, and between them they tipped the box over theedge. For a minute or two we were all on our knees retrieving straycigarettes from impossible places. When we rose again, I observedHolmes’s eyes were shining and his cheeks tinged with colour.
Only at a crisis have I seen those battle-signals flying.
“Yes,” said he, “I have solved it.”
Stanley Hopkins and I stared in amazement. Something like asneer quivered over the gaunt features of the old professor.
“Indeed! In the garden?”
“No, here.”
“Here! When?”
“This instant.”
“You are surely joking, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. You compel meto tell you that this is too serious a matter to be treated in such afashion.”
“I have forged and tested every link of my chain, ProfessorCoram, and I am sure that it is sound. What your motives are, orwhat exact part you play in this strange business, I am not yet ableto say. In a few minutes I shall probably hear it from your own lips.
Meanwhile I will reconstruct what is past for your benefit, so thatyou may know the information which I still require.
“A lady yesterday entered your study. She came with theintention of possessing herself of certain documents which were inyour bureau. She had a key of her own. I have had an opportunityof examining yours, and I do not find that slight discolourationwhich the scratch made upon the varnish would have produced.
You were not an accessory, therefore, and she came, so far as I canread the evidence, without your knowledge to rob you.”
The professor blew a cloud from his lips. “This is mostinteresting and instructive,” said he. “Have you no more to add?
Surely, having traced this lady so far, you can also say what hasbecome of her.”
“I will endeavour to do so. In the first place she was seized byyour secretary, and stabbed him in order to escape. This catastropheI am inclined to regard as an unhappy accident, for I am convincedthat the lady had no intention of inflicting so grievous an injury.
An assassin does not come unarmed. Horrified by what she haddone, she rushed wildly away from the scene of the tragedy.
Unfortunately for her, she had lost her glasses in the scuffle, andas she was extremely short-sighted she was really helpless withoutthem. She ran down a corridor, which she imagined to be that bywhich she had come—both were lined with cocoanut matting—and it was only when it was too late that she understood that shehad taken the wrong passage, and that her retreat was cut off behindher. What was she to do? She could not go back. She could notremain where she was. She must go on. She went on. She mounted astair, pushed open a door, and found herself in your room.”
The old man sat with his mouth open, staring wildly at Holmes.
Amazement and fear were stamped upon his expressive features.
Now, with an effort, he shrugged his shoulders and burst intoinsincere laughter.
“All very fine, Mr. Holmes,” said he. “But there is one little flawin your splendid theory. I was myself in my room, and I never leftit during the day.”
“I am aware of that, Professor Coram.”
“And you mean to say that I could lie upon that bed and not beaware that a woman had entered my room?”
“I never said so. You WERE aware of it. You spoke with her.
You recognized her. You aided her to escape.”
Again the professor burst into high-keyed laughter. He had risento his feet, and his eyes glowed like embers.
“You are mad!” he cried. “You are talking insanely. I helped herto escape? Where is she now?”
“She is there,” said Holmes, and he pointed to a high bookcasein the corner of the room.
I saw the old man throw up his arms, a terrible convulsionpassed over his grim face, and he fell back in his chair. At the sameinstant the bookcase at which Holmes pointed swung round upona hinge, and a woman rushed out into the room. “You are right!”
she cried, in a strange foreign voice. “You are right! I am here.”
She was brown with the dust and draped with the cobwebswhich had come from the walls of her hiding-place. Her face, too,was streaked with grime, and at the best she could never havebeen handsome, for she had the exact physical characteristicswhich Holmes had divined, with, in addition, a long andobstinate chin. What with her natural blindness, and what withthe change from dark to light, she stood as one dazed, blinkingabout her to see where and who we were. And yet, in spite of allthese disadvantages, there was a certain nobility in the woman’sbearing—a gallantry in the defiant chin and in the upraised head,which compelled something of respect and admiration.
Stanley Hopkins had laid his hand upon her arm and claimedher as his prisoner, but she waved him aside gently, and yet with anover-mastering dignity which compelled obedience. The old manlay back in his chair with a twitching face, and stared at her withbrooding eyes.
“Yes, sir, I am your prisoner,” she said. “From where I stood Icould hear everything, and I know that you have learned the truth.
I confess it all. It was I who killed the young man. But you areright—you who say it was an accident. I did not even know that itwas a knife which I held in my hand, for in my despair I snatchedanything from the table and struck at him to make him let me go.
It is the truth that I tell.”
“Madam,” said Holmes, “I am sure that it is the truth. I fearthat you are far from well.”
She had turned a dreadful colour, the more ghastly under thedark dust-streaks upon her face. She seated herself on the side ofthe bed; then she resumed.
