“A savage?” said I, linking my facts after the fashion of myillustrious friend.
“Exactly. That describes him very well. He is a bulky, bearded,sunburned fellow, who looks as if he would be more at home ina farmers’ inn than in a fashionable hotel. A hard, fierce man, Ishould think, and one whom I should be sorry to offend.”
Already the mystery began to define itself, as figures growclearer with the lifting of a fog. Here was this good and pious ladypursued from place to place by a sinister and unrelenting figure.
She feared him, or she would not have fled from Lausanne. Hehad still followed. Sooner or later he would overtake her. Hadhe already overtaken her? Was that the secret of her continuedsilence? Could the good people who were her companions notscreen her from his violence or his blackmail? What horriblepurpose, what deep design, lay behind this long pursuit? There wasthe problem which I had to solve.
To Holmes I wrote showing how rapidly and surely I had gotdown to the roots of the matter. In reply I had a telegram askingfor a description of Dr. Shlessinger’s left ear. Holmes’s ideas ofhumour are strange and occasionally offensive, so I took no noticeof his ill-timed jest—indeed, I had already reached Montpellier inmy pursuit of the maid, Marie, before his message came.
I had no difficulty in finding the ex-servant and in learning allthat she could tell me. She was a devoted creature, who had onlyleft her mistress because she was sure that she was in good hands,and because her own approaching marriage made a separationinevitable in any case. Her mistress had, as she confessed withdistress, shown some irritability of temper towards her duringtheir stay in Baden, and had even questioned her once as if shehad suspicions of her honesty, and this had made the partingeasier than it would otherwise have been. Lady Frances had givenher fifty pounds as a wedding-present. Like me, Marie viewedwith deep distrust the stranger who had driven her mistress fromLausanne. With her own eyes she had seen him seize the lady’swrist with great violence on the public promenade by the lake.
He was a fierce and terrible man. She believed that it was out ofdread of him that Lady Frances had accepted the escort of theShlessingers to London. She had never spoken to Marie about it,but many little signs had convinced the maid that her mistresslived in a state of continual nervous apprehension. So far she hadgot in her narrative, when suddenly she sprang from her chair andher face was convulsed with surprise and fear. “See!” she cried. “Themiscreant follows still! There is the very man of whom I speak.”
Through the open sitting-room window I saw a huge, swarthyman with a bristling black beard walking slowly down the centreof the street and staring eagerly at the numbers of the houses. Itwas clear that, like myself, he was on the track of the maid. Actingupon the impulse of the moment, I rushed out and accosted him.
“You are an Englishman,” I said.
“What if I am?” he asked with a most villainous scowl.
“May I ask what your name is?”
“No, you may not,” said he with decision.
The situation was awkward, but the most direct way is often thebest.
“Where is the Lady Frances Carfax?” I asked.
He stared at me in amazement.
“What have you done with her? Why have you pursued her? Iinsist upon an answer!” said I.
The fellow gave a below of anger and sprang upon me like atiger. I have held my own in many a struggle, but the man had agrip of iron and the fury of a fiend. His hand was on my throat andmy senses were nearly gone before an unshaven French ouvrier ina blue blouse darted out from a cabaret opposite, with a cudgel inhis hand, and struck my assailant a sharp crack over the forearm,which made him leave go his hold. He stood for an instant fumingwith rage and uncertain whether he should not renew his attack.
Then, with a snarl of anger, he left me and entered the cottagefrom which I had just come. I turned to thank my preserver, whostood beside me in the roadway.
“Well, Watson,” said he, “a very pretty hash you have made ofit! I rather think you had better come back with me to London bythe night express.”
An hour afterwards, Sherlock Holmes, in his usual garb andstyle, was seated in my private room at the hotel. His explanationof his sudden and opportune appearance was simplicity itself,for, finding that he could get away from London, he determinedto head me off at the next obvious point of my travels. In thedisguise of a workingman he had sat in the cabaret waiting for myappearance.
“And a singularly consistent investigation you have made,my dear Watson,” said he. “I cannot at the moment recall anypossible blunder which you have omitted. The total effect of yourproceeding has been to give the alarm everywhere and yet todiscover nothing.”
“Perhaps you would have done no better,” I answered bitterly.
“There is no ‘perhaps’ about it. I have done better. Here is theHon. Philip Green, who is a fellow-lodger with you in this hotel,and we may find him the starting-point for a more successfulinvestigation.”
A card had come up on a salver, and it was followed by the samebearded ruffian who had attacked me in the street. He startedwhen he saw me.
“What is this, Mr. Holmes?” he asked. “I had your note and Ihave come. But what has this man to do with the matter?”
“This is my old friend and associate, Dr. Watson, who is helpingus in this affair.”
The stranger held out a huge, sunburned hand, with a few wordsof apology.
“I hope I didn’t harm you. When you accused me of hurtingher I lost my grip of myself. Indeed, I’m not responsible in thesedays. My nerves are like live wires. But this situation is beyond me.
What I want to know, in the first place, Mr. Holmes, is, how inthe world you came to hear of my existence at all.”
“I am in touch with Miss Dobney, Lady Frances’s governess.”
“Old Susan Dobney with the mob cap! I remember her well.”
“And she remembers you. It was in the days before—before youfound it better to go to South Africa.”