The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries

by The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries (retail) (epub)

  “His words were quiet, but he had a rasping way of saying them, which was very menacing. I sat in silence wondering what on earth could be his reason for kidnapping me in this extraordinary fashion. Whatever it might be, it was perfectly clear that there was no possible use in my resisting, and that I could only wait to see what might befall.

  “For nearly two hours we drove without my having the least clue as to where we were going. Sometimes the rattle of the stones told of a paved causeway, and at others our smooth, silent course suggested asphalt; but, save by this variation in sound, there was nothing at all which could in the remotest way help me to form a guess as to where we were. The paper over each window was impenetrable to light, and a blue curtain was drawn across the glasswork in front. It was a quarter-past seven when we left Pall Mall, and my watch showed me that it was ten minutes to nine when we at last came to a standstill. My companion let down the window, and I caught a glimpse of a low, arched doorway with a lamp burning above it. As I was hurried from the carriage it swung open, and I found myself inside the house, with a vague impression of a lawn and trees on each side of me as I entered. Whether these were private grounds, however, or bona-fide country was more than I could possibly venture to say.

  “There was a coloured gas-lamp inside which was turned so low that I could see little save that the hall was of some size and hung with pictures. In the dim light I could make out that the person who had opened the door was a small, mean-looking, middle-aged man with rounded shoulders. As he turned towards us the glint of the light showed me that he was wearing glasses.

  “ ‘Is this Mr. Melas, Harold?’ said he.

  “ ‘Yes.’

  “ ‘Well done, well done! No ill-will, Mr. Melas, I hope, but we could not get on without you. If you deal fair with us you’ll not regret it, but if you try any tricks, God help you!’ He spoke in a nervous, jerky fashion, and with little giggling laughs in between, but somehow he impressed me with fear more than the other.

  “ ‘What do you want with me?’ I asked.

  “ ‘Only to ask a few questions of a Greek gentleman who is visiting us, and to let us have the answers. But say no more than you are told to say, or’—here came the nervous giggle again—‘you had better never have been born.’

  “As he spoke he opened a door and showed the way into a room which appeared to be very richly furnished, but again the only light was afforded by a single lamp half-turned down. The chamber was certainly large, and the way in which my feet sank into the carpet as I stepped across it told me of its richness. I caught glimpses of velvet chairs, a high white marble mantelpiece, and what seemed to be a suit of Japanese armour at one side of it. There was a chair just under the lamp, and the elderly man motioned that I should sit in it. The younger had left us, but he suddenly returned through another door, leading with him a gentleman clad in some sort of loose dressing-gown who moved slowly towards us. As he came into the circle of dim light which enabled me to see him more clearly I was thrilled with horror at his appearance. He was deadly pale and terribly emaciated, with the protruding, brilliant eyes of a man whose spirit was greater than his strength. But what shocked me more than any signs of physical weakness was that his face was grotesquely criss-crossed with sticking-plaster, and that one large pad of it was fastened over his mouth.

  “ ‘Have you the slate, Harold?’ cried the older man, as this strange being fell rather than sat down into a chair. ‘Are his hands loose? Now, then, give him the pencil. You are to ask the questions, Mr. Melas, and he will write the answers. Ask him first of all whether he is prepared to sign the papers?’

  “The man’s eyes flashed fire.

  “ ‘Never!’ he wrote in Greek upon the slate.

  “ ‘On no conditions?’ I asked at the bidding of our tyrant.

  “ ‘Only if I see her married in my presence by a Greek priest whom I know.’

  “The man giggled in his venomous way.

  “ ‘You know what awaits you, then?’

  “ ‘I care nothing for myself.’

  “These are samples of the questions and answers which made up our strange half-spoken, half-written conversation. Again and again I had to ask him whether he would give in and sign the documents. Again and again I had the same indignant reply. But soon a happy thought came to me. I took to adding on little sentences of my own to each question, innocent ones at first, to test whether either of our companions knew anything of the matter, and then, as I found that they showed no sign I played a more dangerous game. Our conversation ran something like this:

  “ ‘You can do no good by this obstinacy. Who are you?’

  “ ‘I care not. I am a stranger in London.’

  “ ‘Your fate will be on your own head. How long have you been here?’

  “ ‘Let it be so. Three weeks.’

  “ ‘The property can never be yours. What ails you?’

  “ ‘It shall not go to villains. They are starving me.’

  “ ‘You shall go free if you sign. What house is this?’

  “ ‘I will never sign. I do not know.’

  “ ‘You are not doing her any service. What is your name?’

  “ ‘Let me hear her say so. Kratides.’

  “ ‘You shall see her if you sign. Where are you from?’

  “ ‘Then I shall never see her. Athens.’

  “Another five minutes, Mr. Holmes, and I should have wormed out the whole story under their very noses. My very next question might have cleared the matter up, but at that instant the door opened and a woman stepped into the room. I could not see her clearly enough to know more than that she was tall and graceful, with black hair, and clad in some sort of loose white gown.

  “ ‘Harold,’ said she, speaking English with a broken accent. ‘I could not stay away longer. It is so lonely up there with only——Oh, my God, it is Paul!’

  “These last words were in Greek, and at the same instant the man with a convulsive effort tore the plaster from his lips, and screaming out ‘Sophy! Sophy!’ rushed into the woman’s arms. Their embrace was but for an instant, however, for the younger man seized the woman and pushed her out of the room, while the elder easily overpowered his emaciated victim and dragged him away through the other door. For a moment I was left alone in the room, and I sprang to my feet with some vague idea that I might in some way get a clue to what this house was in which I found myself. Fortunately, however, I took no steps, for looking up I saw that the older man was standing in the doorway, with his eyes fixed upon me.

  “ ‘That will do, Mr. Melas,’ said he. ‘You perceive that we have taken you into our confidence over some very private business. We should not have troubled you, only that our friend who speaks Greek and who began these negotiations has been forced to return to the East. It was quite necessary for us to find someone to take his place, and we were fortunate in hearing of your powers.’

  “I bowed.

  “ ‘There are five sovereigns here,’ said he, walking up to me, ‘which will, I hope, be a sufficient fee. But remember,’ he added, tapping me lightly on the chest and giggling, ‘if you speak to a human soul about this—one human soul, mind—well, may God have mercy upon your soul!’

  “I cannot tell you the loathing and horror with which this insignificant-looking man inspired me. I could see him better now as the lamp-light shone upon him. His features were peaky and sallow, and his little pointed beard was thready and ill-nourished. He pushed his face forward as he spoke and his lips and eyelids were continually twitching like a man with St. Vitus’s dance. I could not help thinking that his strange, catchy little laugh was also a symptom of some nervous malady. The terror of his face lay in his eyes, however, steel gray, and glistening coldly with a malignant, inexorable cruelty in their depths.

  “ ‘We shall know if you speak of this,’ said
he. ‘We have our own means of information. Now you will find the carriage waiting, and my friend will see you on your way.’

  “I was hurried through the hall and into the vehicle, again obtaining that momentary glimpse of trees and a garden. Mr. Latimer followed closely at my heels and took his place opposite to me without a word. In silence we again drove for an interminable distance with the windows raised, until at last, just after midnight, the carriage pulled up.

  “ ‘You will get down here, Mr. Melas,’ said my companion. ‘I am sorry to leave you so far from your house, but there is no alternative. Any attempt upon your part to follow the carriage can only end in injury to yourself.’

  “He opened the door as he spoke, and I had hardly time to spring out when the coachman lashed the horse and the carriage rattled away. I looked around me in astonishment. I was on some sort of a heathy common mottled over with dark clumps of furze-bushes. Far away stretched a line of houses, with a light here and there in the upper windows. On the other side I saw the red signal-lamps of a railway.

  “The carriage which had brought me was already out of sight. I stood gazing round and wondering where on earth I might be, when I saw someone coming towards me in the darkness. As he came up to me I made out that he was a railway porter.

  “ ‘Can you tell me what place this is?’ I asked.

  “ ‘Wandsworth Common,’ said he.

  “ ‘Can I get a train into town?’

  “ ‘If you walk on a mile or so to Clapham Junction,’ said he, ‘you’ll just be in time for the last to Victoria.’

  “So that was the end of my adventure, Mr. Holmes. I do not know where I was, nor whom I spoke with, nor anything save what I have told you. But I know that there is foul play going on, and I want to help that unhappy man if I can. I told the whole story to Mr. Mycroft Holmes next morning, and subsequently to the police.”

  We all sat in silence for some little time after listening to this extraordinary narrative. Then Sherlock looked across at his brother.

  “Any steps?” he asked.

  Mycroft picked up the Daily News, which was lying on the side-table.

  “Anybody supplying any information as to the where-abouts of a Greek gentleman named Paul Kratides, from Athens, who is unable to speak English, will be rewarded. A similar reward paid to anyone giving information about a Greek lady whose first name is Sophy. X 2473.

  “That was in all the dailies. No answer.”

  “How about the Greek legation?”

  “I have inquired. They know nothing.”

  “A wire to the head of the Athens police, then?”

  “Sherlock has all the energy of the family,” said Mycroft, turning to me. “Well, you take the case up by all means and let me know if you do any good.”

  “Certainly,” answered my friend, rising from his chair. “I’ll let you know, and Mr. Melas also. In the meantime, Mr. Melas, I should certainly be on my guard if I were you, for of course they must know through these advertisements that you have betrayed them.”

  As we walked home together, Holmes stopped at a telegraph office and sent off several wires.

  “You see, Watson,” he remarked, “our evening has been by no means wasted. Some of my most interesting cases have come to me in this way through Mycroft. The problem which we have just listened to, although it can admit of but one explanation, has still some distinguishing features.”

  “You have hopes of solving it?”

  “Well, knowing as much as we do, it will be singular indeed if we fail to discover the rest. You must yourself have formed some theory which will explain the facts to which we have listened.”

  “In a vague way, yes.”

  “What was your idea, then?”

  “It seemed to me to be obvious that this Greek girl had been carried off by the young Englishman named Harold Latimer.”

  “Carried off from where?”

  “Athens, perhaps.”

  Sherlock Holmes shook his head. “This young man could not talk a word of Greek. The lady could talk English fairly well. Inference—that she had been in England some little time, but he had not been in Greece.”

  “Well, then, we will presume that she had once come on a visit to England, and that this Harold had persuaded her to fly with him.”

  “That is more probable.”

  “Then the brother—for that, I fancy, must be the relationship—comes over from Greece to interfere. He imprudently puts himself into the power of the young man and his older associate. They seize him and use violence towards him in order to make him sign some papers to make over the girl’s fortune—of which he may be trustee—to them. This he refuses to do. In order to negotiate with him they have to get an interpreter, and they pitch upon this Mr. Melas, having used some other one before. The girl is not told of the arrival of her brother and finds it out by the merest accident.”

  “Excellent, Watson!” cried Holmes. “I really fancy that you are not far from the truth. You see that we hold all the cards, and we have only to fear some sudden act of violence on their part. If they give us time we must have them.”

  “But how can we find where this house lies?”

  “Well, if our conjecture is correct and the girl’s name is or was Sophy Kratides, we should have no difficulty in tracing her. That must be our main hope, for the brother is, of course, a complete stranger. It is clear that some time has elapsed since this Harold established these relations with the girl—some weeks, at any rate—since the brother in Greece has had time to hear of it and come across. If they have been living in the same place during this time, it is probable that we shall have some answer to Mycroft’s advertisement.”

  We had reached our house in Baker Street while we had been talking. Holmes ascended the stair first, and as he opened the door of our room he gave a start of surprise. Looking over his shoulder, I was equally astonished. His brother Mycroft was sitting smoking in the armchair.

  “Come in, Sherlock! Come in, sir,” said he blandly, smiling at our surprised faces. “You don’t expect such energy from me, do you, Sherlock? But somehow this case attracts me.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “I passed you in a hansom.”

  “There has been some new development?”

  “I had an answer to my advertisement.”

  “Ah!”

  “Yes, it came within a few minutes of your leaving.”

  “And to what effect?”

  Mycroft Holmes took out a sheet of paper.

  “Here it is,” said he, “written with a J pen on royal cream paper by a middle-aged man with a weak constitution.

  “Sir [he says]:

  “In answer to your advertisement of to-day’s date, I beg to inform you that I know the young lady in question very well. If you should care to call upon me I could give you some particulars as to her painful history. She is living at present at The Myrtles, Beckenham.

  “Yours faithfully,

  “J. Davenport.”

  “He writes from Lower Brixton,” said Mycroft Holmes. “Do you not think that we might drive to him now, Sherlock, and learn these particulars?”

  “My dear Mycroft, the brother’s life is more valuable than the sister’s story. I think we should call at Scotland Yard for Inspector Gregson and go straight out to Beckenham. We know that a man is being done to death, and every hour may be vital.”

  “Better pick up Mr. Melas on our way,” I suggested. “We may need an interpreter.”

  “Excellent,” said Sherlock Holmes. “Send the boy for a four-wheeler, and we shall be off at once.” He opened the table-drawer as he spoke, and I noticed that he slipped his revolver into his pocket. “Yes,” said he in answer to my glance, “I should say, from what we have heard, that we are dealing with a particularly dangerous gang.”

&nb
sp; It was almost dark before we found ourselves in Pall Mall, at the rooms of Mr. Melas. A gentleman had just called for him, and he was gone.

  “Can you tell me where?” asked Mycroft Holmes.

  “I don’t know, sir,” answered the woman who had opened the door; “I only know that he drove away with the gentleman in a carriage.”

  “Did the gentleman give a name?”

  “No, sir.”

  “He wasn’t a tall, handsome, dark young man?”

  “Oh, no, sir. He was a little gentleman, with glasses, thin in the face, but very pleasant in his ways, for he was laughing all the time that he was talking.”

  “Come along!” cried Sherlock Holmes abruptly. “This grows serious,” he observed as we drove to Scotland Yard. “These men have got hold of Melas again. He is a man of no physical courage, as they are well aware from their experience the other night. This villain was able to terrorize him the instant that he got into his presence. No doubt they want his professional services, but, having used him, they may be inclined to punish him for what they will regard as his treachery.”

  Our hope was that, by taking the train, we might get to Beckenham as soon as or sooner than the carriage. On reaching Scotland Yard, however, it was more than an hour before we could get Inspector Gregson and comply with the legal formalities which would enable us to enter the house. It was a quarter to ten before we reached London Bridge, and half past before the four of us alighted on the Beckenham platform. A drive of half a mile brought us to The Myrtles—a large, dark house standing back from the road in its own grounds. Here we dismissed our cab and made our way up the drive together.

  “The windows are all dark,” remarked the inspector. “The house seems deserted.”

  “Our birds are flown and the nest empty,” said Holmes.

  “Why do you say so?”

  “A carriage heavily loaded with luggage has passed out during the last hour.”