“Those two pictures will help you, gentlemen, to understandthe story. I was a poor circus girl brought up on the sawdust, anddoing springs through the hoop before I was ten. When I becamea woman this man loved me, if such lust as his can be called love,and in an evil moment I became his wife. From that day I was inhell, and he the devil who tormented me. There was no one inthe show who did not know of his treatment. He deserted mefor others. He tied me down and lashed me with his riding-whipwhen I complained. They all pitied me and they all loathed him,but what could they do? They feared him, one and all. For he wasterrible at all times, and murderous when he was drunk. Again andagain he was had up for assault, and for cruelty to the beasts, buthe had plenty of money and the fines were nothing to him. Thebest men all left us, and the show began to go downhill. It wasonly Leonardo and I who kept it up—with little Jimmy Griggs, theclown. Poor devil, he had not much to be funny about, but he didwhat he could to hold things together.
“Then Leonardo came more and more into my life. You see whathe was like. I know now the poor spirit that was hidden in thatsplendid body, but compared to my husband he seemed like theangel Gabriel. He pitied me and helped me, till at last our intimacyturned to love—deep, deep, passionate love, such love as I haddreamed of but never hoped to feel. My husband suspected it, butI think that he was a coward as well as a bully, and that Leonardowas the one man that he was afraid of. He took revenge in his ownway by torturing me more than ever. One night my cries broughtLeonardo to the door of our van. We were near tragedy that night,and soon my lover and I understood that it could not be avoided.
My husband was not fit to live. We planned that he should die.
“Leonardo had a clever, scheming brain. It was he who plannedit. I do not say that to blame him, for I was ready to go with himevery inch of the way. But I should never have had the wit to thinkof such a plan. We made a club—Leonardo made it—and in theleaden head he fastened five long steel nails, the points outward,with just such a spread as the lion’s paw. This was to give myhusband his death-blow, and yet to leave the evidence that it wasthe lion which we would loose who had done the deed.
“It was a pitch-dark night when my husband and I went down,as was our custom, to feed the beast. We carried with us the rawmeat in a zinc pail. Leonardo was waiting at the corner of the bigvan which we should have to pass before we reached the cage. Hewas too slow, and we walked past him before he could strike, buthe followed us on tiptoe and I heard the crash as the club smashedmy husband’s skull. My heart leaped with joy at the sound. Isprang forward, and I undid the catch which held the door of thegreat lion’s cage.
“And then the terrible thing happened. You may have heardhow quick these creatures are to scent human blood, and howit excites them. Some strange instinct had told the creature inone instant that a human being had been slain. As I slipped thebars it bounded out and was on me in an instant. Leonardo couldhave saved me. If he had rushed forward and struck the beastwith his club he might have cowed it. But the man lost his nerve.
I heard him shout in his terror, and then I saw him turn and fly.
At the same instant the teeth of the lion met in my face. Its hot,filthy breath had already poisoned me and I was hardly consciousof pain. With the palms of my hands I tried to push the greatsteaming, blood-stained jaws away from me, and I screamed forhelp. I was conscious that the camp was stirring, and then dimlyI remembered a group of men. Leonardo, Griggs, and others,dragging me from under the creature’s paws. That was my lastmemory, Mr. Holmes, for many a weary month. When I cameto myself and saw myself in the mirror, I cursed that lion—oh,how I cursed him! —not because he had torn away my beauty butbecause he had not torn away my life. I had but one desire, Mr. Holmes, and I had enough money to gratify it. It was that I shouldcover myself so that my poor face should be seen by none, andthat I should dwell where none whom I had ever known shouldfind me. That was all that was left to me to do—and that is what Ihave done. A poor wounded beast that has crawled into its hole todie—that is the end of Eugenia Ronder.”
We sat in silence for some time after the unhappy woman hadtold her story. Then Holmes stretched out his long arm and pattedher hand with such a show of sympathy as I had seldom knownhim to exhibit.
“Poor girl!” he said. “Poor girl! The ways of fate are indeed hardto understand. If there is not some compensation hereafter, thenthe world is a cruel jest. But what of this man Leonardo?”
“I never saw him or heard from him again. Perhaps I have beenwrong to feel so bitterly against him. He might as soon have lovedone of the freaks whom we carried round the country as the thingwhich the lion had left. But a woman’s love is not so easily setaside. He had left me under the beast’s claws, he had deserted mein my need, and yet I could not bring myself to give him to thegallows. For myself, I cared nothing what became of me. Whatcould be more dreadful than my actual life? But I stood betweenLeonardo and his fate.”
“And he is dead?”
“He was drowned last month when bathing near Margate. I sawhis death in the paper.”
“And what did he do with this five-clawed club, which is themost singular and ingenious part of all your story?”
“I cannot tell, Mr. Holmes. There is a chalk-pit by the camp,with a deep green pool at the base of it. Perhaps in the depths ofthat pool——”
“Well, well, it is of little consequence now. The case is closed.”
“Yes,” said the woman, “the case is closed.”
We had risen to go, but there was something in the woman’svoice which arrested Holmes’s attention. He turned swiftly uponher.
“Your life is not your own,” he said. “Keep your hands off it.”
“What use is it to anyone?”
“How can you tell? The example of patient suffering is in itselfthe most precious of all lessons to an impatient world.”
