"Well, Mrs. Warren, I cannot see that you have any particular
cause for uneasiness, nor do I understand why I, whose time is of
some value, should interfere in the matter. I really have other
things to engage me." So spoke Sherlock Holmes and turned back
to the great scrapbook in which he was arranging and indexing
some of his recent material.
But the landlady had the pertinacity and also the cunning of her
"You arranged an affair for a lodger of mine last year," she
said--"Mr. Fairdale Hobbs."
"Ah, yes--a simple matter."
"But he would never cease talking of it--your kindness, sir, and
the way in which you brought light into the darkness. I
remembered his words when I was in doubt and darkness myself. I
know you could if you only would."
Holmes was accessible upon the side of flattery, and also, to do
him justice, upon the side of kindliness. The two forces made
him lay down his gum-brush with a sigh of resignation and push
back his chair.
"Well, well, Mrs. Warren, let us hear about it, then. You don't
object to tobacco, I take it? Thank you, Watson--the matches!
You are uneasy, as I understand, because your new lodger remains
in his rooms and you cannot see him. Why, bless you, Mrs.
Warren, if I were your lodger you often would not see me for
weeks on end."
"No doubt, sir; but this is different. It frightens me, Mr.
Holmes. I can't sleep for fright. To hear his quick step moving
here and moving there from early morning to late at night, and
yet never to catch so much as a glimpse of him--it's more than I
can stand. My husband is as nervous over it as I am, but he is
out at his work all day, while I get no rest from it. What is he
hiding for? What has he done? Except for the girl, I am all
alone in the house with him, and it's more than my nerves can
stand."
Holmes leaned forward and laid his long, thin fingers upon the
woman's shoulder. He had an almost hypnotic power of soothing
when he wished. The scared look faded from her eyes, and her
agitated features smoothed into their usual commonplace. She sat
down in the chair which he had indicated.
"If I take it up I must understand every detail," said he. "Take
time to consider. The smallest point may be the most essential.
You say that the man came ten days ago and paid you for a
fortnight's board and lodging?"
"He asked my terms, sir. I said fifty shillings a week. There
is a small sitting-room and bedroom, and all complete, at the top
of the house."
"Well?"
"He said, 'I'll pay you five pounds a week if I can have it on my
own terms.' I'm a poor woman, sir, and Mr. Warren earns little,
and the money meant much to me. He took out a ten-pound note,
and he held it out to me then and there. 'You can have the same
every fortnight for a long time to come if you keep the terms,'
he said. 'If not, I'll have no more to do with you.'
"What were the terms?"
"Well, sir, they were that he was to have a key of the house.
That was all right. Lodgers often have them. Also, that he was
to be left entirely to himself and never, upon any excuse, to be
disturbed."
"Nothing wonderful in that, surely?"
"Not in reason, sir. But this is out of all reason. He has been
there for ten days, and neither Mr. Warren, nor I, nor the girl
has once set eyes upon him. We can hear that quick step of his
pacing up and down, up and down, night, morning, and noon; but
except on that first night he had never once gone out of the
house."
"Oh, he went out the first night, did he?"
"Yes, sir, and returned very late--after we were all in bed. He
told me after he had taken the rooms that he would do so and
asked me not to bar the door. I heard him come up the stair
after midnight."
"But his meals?"
"It was his particular direction that we should always, when he
rang, leave his meal upon a chair, outside his door. Then he
rings again when he has finished, and we take it down from the
same chair. If he wants anything else he prints it on a slip of
paper and leaves it."
"Prints it?"
"Yes, sir; prints it in pencil. Just the word, nothing more.
Here's the one I brought to show you--soap. Here's another--
match. This is one he left the first morning--daily gazette. I
leave that paper with his breakfast every morning."
"Dear me, Watson," said Homes, staring with great curiosity at
the slips of foolscap which the landlady had handed to him, "this
is certainly a little unusual. Seclusion I can understand; but
why print? Printing is a clumsy process. Why not write? What
would it suggest, Watson?"
"That he desired to conceal his handwriting."
"But why? What can it matter to him that his landlady should
have a word of his writing? Still, it may be as you say. Then,
again, why such laconic messages?"
"I cannot imagine."
"It opens a pleasing field for intelligent speculation. The words
are written with a broad-pointed, violet-tinted pencil of a not
unusual pattern. You will observe that the paper is torn away at
the side here after the printing was done, so that the 's' of
'soap' is partly gone. Suggestive, Watson, is it not?"
"Of caution?"
"Exactly. There was evidently some mark, some thumbprint,
something which might give a clue to the person's identity. Now.
Mrs. Warren, you say that the man was of middle size, dark, and
bearded. What age would he be?"
"Youngish, sir--not over thirty."
"Well, can you give me no further indications?"
"He spoke good English, sir, and yet I thought he was a foreigner
by his accent."
"And he was well dressed?"
"Very smartly dressed, sir--quite the gentleman. Dark clothes--
nothing you would note."
"He gave no name?"
"No, sir."
"And has had no letters or callers?"
"None."
"But surely you or the girl enter his room of a morning?"
"No, sir; he looks after himself entirely."
"Dear me! that is certainly remarkable. What about his luggage?"
"He had one big brown bag with him--nothing else."
"Well, we don't seem to have much material to help us. Do you
say nothing has come out of that room--absolutely nothing?"
The landlady drew an envelope from her bag; from it she shook out
two burnt matches and a cigarette-end upon the table.
"They were on his tray this morning. I brought them because I
had heard that you can read great things out of small ones."
Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
"There is nothing here," said he. "The matches have, of course,
been used to light cigarettes. That is obvious from the
shortness of the burnt end. Half the match is consumed in
lighting a pipe or cigar. But, dear me! this cigarette stub is
certainly remarkable. The gentleman was bearded and moustached,
you say?"
"Yes, sir."
"I don't understand that. I should say that only a clean-shaven
man could have smoked this. Why, Watson, even your modest
moustache would have been singed."
"A holder?" I suggested.
"No, no; the end is matted. I suppose there could not be two
people in your rooms, Mrs. Warren?"
"No, sir. He eats so little that I often wonder it can keep life
in one."
"Well, I think we must wait for a little more material. After
all, you have nothing to complain of. You have received your
rent, and he is not a troublesome lodger, though he is certainly
an unusual one. He pays you well, and if he chooses to lie
concealed it is no direct business of yours. We have no excuse
for an intrusion upon his privacy until we have some reason to
think that there is a guilty reason for it. I've taken up the
matter, and I won't lose sight of it. Report to me if anything
fresh occurs, and rely upon my assistance if it should be needed.
"There are certainly some points of interest in this case,
Watson," he remarked when the landlady had left us. "It may, of
course, be trivial--individual eccentricity; or it may be very
much deeper than appears on the surface. The first thing that
strike one is the obvious possibility that the person now in the
rooms may be entirely different from the one who engaged them."
"Why should you think so?"
"Well, apart form this cigarette-end, was it not suggestive that
the only time the lodger went out was immediately after his
taking the rooms? He came back--or someone came back--when all
witnesses were out of the way. We have no proof that the person
who came back was the person who went out. Then, again, the man
who took the rooms spoke English well. This other, however,
prints 'match' when it should have been 'matches.' I can imagine
that the word was taken out of a dictionary, which would give the
noun but not the plural. The laconic style may be to conceal the
absence of knowledge of English. Yes, Watson, there are good
reasons to suspect that there has been a substitution of
lodgers."
"But for what possible end?"
"Ah! there lies our problem. There is one rather obvious line of
investigation." He took down the great book in which, day by
day, he filed the agony columns of the various London journals.
"Dear me!" said he, turning over the pages, "what a chorus of
groans, cries, and bleatings! What a rag-bag of singular
happenings! But surely the most valuable hunting-ground that
ever was given to a student of the unusual! This person is alone
and cannot be approached by letter without a breach of that
absolute secrecy which is desired. How is any news or any
message to reach him from without? Obviously by advertisement
through a newspaper. There seems no other way, and fortunately
we need concern ourselves with the one paper only. Here are the
Daily Gazette extracts of the last fortnight. 'Lady with a black
boa at Prince's Skating Club'--that we may pass. 'Surely Jimmy
will not break his mother's heart'--that appears to be
irrelevant. 'If the lady who fainted on Brixton bus'--she does
not interest me. 'Every day my heart longs--' Bleat, Watson--
unmitigated bleat! Ah, this is a little more possible. Listen
to this: 'Be patient. Will find some sure means of
communications. Meanwhile, this column. G.' That is two days
after Mrs. Warren's lodger arrived. It sounds plausible, does it
not? The mysterious one could understand English, even if he
could not print it. Let us see if we can pick up the trace
again. Yes, here we are--three days later. 'Am making
successful arrangements. Patience and prudence. The clouds will
pass. G.' Nothing for a week after that. Then comes something
much more definite: 'The path is clearing. If I find chance
signal message remember code agreed--One A, two B, and so on.
You will hear soon. G.' That was in yesterday's paper, and
there is nothing in to-day's. It's all very appropriate to Mrs.
Warren's lodger. If we wait a little, Watson, I don't doubt that
the affair will grow more intelligible."
So it proved; for in the morning I found my friend standing on
the hearthrug with his back to the fire and a smile of complete
satisfaction upon his face.
"How's this, Watson?" he cried, picking up the paper from the
table. "'High red house with white stone facings. Third floor.
Second window left. After dusk. G.' That is definite enough.
I think after breakfast we must make a little reconnaissance of
Mrs. Warren's neighbourhood. Ah, Mrs. Warren! what news do you
bring us this morning?"
Our client had suddenly burst into the room with an explosive
energy which told of some new and momentous development.
"It's a police matter, Mr. Holmes!" she cried. "I'll have no
more of it! He shall pack out of there with his baggage. I
would have gone straight up and told him so, only I thought it
was but fair to you to take your opinion first. But I'm at the
end of my patience, and when it comes to knocking my old man
about--"
"Knocking Mr. Warren about?"
"Using him roughly, anyway."
"But who used him roughly?"
"Ah! that's what we want to know! It was this morning, sir. Mr.
Warren is a timekeeper at Morton and Waylight's, in Tottenham
Court Road. He has to be out of the house before seven. Well,
this morning he had not gone ten paces down the road when two men
came up behind him, threw a coat over his head, and bundled him
into a cab that was beside the curb. They drove him an hour,
and then opened the door and shot him out. He lay in the roadway
so shaken in his wits that he never saw what became of the cab.
When he picked himself up he found he was on Hampstead Heath; so
he took a bus home, and there he lies now on his sofa, while I
came straight round to tell you what had happened."
"Most interesting," said Holmes. "Did he observe the appearance
of these men--did he hear them talk?"
"No; he is clean dazed. He just knows that he was lifted up as
if by magic and dropped as if by magic. Two a least were in it,
and maybe three."
"And you connect this attack with your lodger?"
"Well, we've lived there fifteen years and no such happenings
ever came before. I've had enough of him. Money's not
everything. I'll have him out of my house before the day is
done."
"Wait a bit, Mrs. Warren. Do nothing rash. I begin to think that
this affair may be very much more important than appeared at
first sight. It is clear now that some danger is threatening
your lodger. It is equally clear that his enemies, lying in wait
for him near your door, mistook your husband for him in the foggy
morning light. On discovering their mistake they released him.
What they would have done had it not been a mistake, we can only
conjecture."
"Well, what am I to do, Mr. Holmes?"
"I have a great fancy to see this lodger of yours, Mrs. Warren."
"I don't see how that is to be managed, unless you break in the
door. I always hear him unlock it as I go down the stair after I
leave the tray."
"He has to take the tray in. Surely we could conceal ourselves
and see him do it."
The landlady thought for a moment.
"Well, sir, there's the box-room opposite. I could arrange a
looking-glass, maybe, and if you were behind the door--"
"Excellent!" said Holmes. "When does he lunch?"
"About one, sir."
"Then Dr. Watson and I will come round in time. For the present,
Mrs. Warren, good-bye."
At half-past twelve we found ourselves upon the steps of Mrs.
Warren's house--a high, thin, yellow-brick edifice in Great Orme
Street, a narrow thoroughfare at the northeast side of the
British Museum. Standing as it does near the corner of the
street, it commands a view down Howe Street, with its ore
pretentious houses. Holmes pointed with a chuckle to one of
these, a row of residential flats, which projected so that they
could not fail to catch the eye.
"See, Watson!" said he. "'High red house with stone facings.'
There is the signal station all right. We know the place, and we
know the code; so surely our task should be simple. There's a
'to let' card in that window. It is evidently an empty flat to
which the confederate has access. Well, Mrs. Warren, what now?"
"I have it all ready for you. If you will both come up and leave
your boots below on the landing, I'll put you there now."
It was an excellent hiding-plate which she had arranged. The
mirror was so placed that, seated in the dark, we could very
plainly see the door opposite. We had hardly settled down in it,
and Mrs. Warren left us, when a distant tinkle announced that our
mysterious neighbour had rung. Presently the landlady appeared
with the tray, laid it down upon a chair beside the closed door,
and then, treading heavily, departed. Crouching together in the
angle of the door, we kept our eyes fixed upon the mirror.
Suddenly, as the landlady's footsteps died away, there was the
creak of a turning key, the handle revolved, and two thin hands
darted out and lifted the tray form the chair. An instant later
it was hurriedly replaced, and I caught a glimpse of a dark,
beautiful, horrified face glaring at the narrow opening of the
box-room. Then the door crashed to, the key turned once more,
and all was silence. Holmes twitched my sleeve, and together we
stole down the stair.
"I will call again in the evening," said he to the expectant
landlady. "I think, Watson, we can discuss this business better
in our own quarters."
"My surmise, as you saw, proved to be correct," said he, speaking
from the depths of his easy-chair. "There has been a
substitution of lodgers. What I did not foresee is that we
should find a woman, and no ordinary woman, Watson."
"She saw us."
"Well, she saw something to alarm her. That is certain. The
general sequence of events is pretty clear, is it not? A couple
seek refuge in London from a very terrible and instant danger.
The measure of that danger is the rigour of their precautions.
The man, who has some work which he must do, desires to leave the
woman in absolute safety while he does it. It is not an easy
problem, but he solved it in an original fashion, and so
effectively that her presence was not even known to the landlady
who supplies her with food. The printed messages, as is now
evident, were to prevent her sex being discovered by her writing.
The man cannot come near the woman, or he will guide their
enemies to her. Since he cannot communicate with her direct, he
has recourse to the agony column of a paper. So far all is
clear."
"But what is at the root of it?"
"Ah, yes, Watson--severely practical, as usual! What is at the
root of it all? Mrs. Warren's whimsical problem enlarges
somewhat and assumes a more sinister aspect as we proceed. This
much we can say: that it is no ordinary love escapade. You saw
the woman's face at the sign of danger. We have heard, too, of
the attack upon the landlord, which was undoubtedly meant for the
lodger. These alarms, and the desperate need for secrecy, argue
that the matter is one of life or death. The attack upon Mr.
Warren further shows that the enemy, whoever they are, are
themselves not aware of the substitution of the female lodger for
the male. It is very curious and complex, Watson."
"Why should you go further in it? What have you to gain from
it?"
"What, indeed? It is art for art's sake, Watson. I suppose when
you doctored you found yourself studying cases without thought of
a fee?"
"For my education, Holmes."
"Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons with
the greatest for the last. This is an instructive case. There
is neither money nor credit in it, and yet one would wish to tidy
it up. When dusk comes we should find ourselves one stage
advanced in our investigation."
When we returned to Mrs. Warren's rooms, the gloom of a London
winter evening had thickened into one gray curtain, a dead
monotone of colour, broken only by the sharp yellow squares of
the windows and the blurred haloes of the gas-lamps. As we
peered from the darkened sitting-room of the lodging-house, one
more dim light glimmered high up through the obscurity.
"Someone is moving in that room," said Holmes in a whisper, his
gaunt and eager face thrust forward to the window-pane. "Yes, I
can see his shadow. There he is again! He has a candle in his
hand. Now he is peering across. He wants to be sure that she is
on the lookout. Now he begins to flash. Take the message also,
Watson, that we may check each other. A single flash--that is A,
surely. Now, then. How many did you make it? Twenty. Do did
In. That should mean T. AT--that's intelligible enough.
Another T. Surely this is the beginning of a second word. Now,
then--TENTA. Dead stop. That can't be all, Watson? ATTENTA
gives no sense. Nor is it any better as three words AT, TEN, TA,
unless T. A. are a person's initials. There it goes again!
What's that? ATTE--why, it is the same message over again.
Curious, Watson, very curious. Now he is off once more! AT--why
he is repeating it for the third time. ATTENTA three times! How
often will he repeat it? No, that seems to be the finish. He
has withdrawn form the window. What do you make of it, Watson?"
"A cipher message, Holmes."
My companion gave a sudden chuckle of comprehension. "And not a
very obscure cipher, Watson," said he. "Why, of course, it is
Italian! The A means that it is addressed to a woman. 'Beware!
Beware! Beware!' How's that, Watson?
"I believe you have hit it."
"Not a doubt of it. It is a very urgent message, thrice repeated
to make it more so. But beware of what? Wait a bit, he is
coming to the window once more."
Again we saw the dim silhouette of a crouching man and the whisk
of the small flame across the window as the signals were renewed.
They came mor rapidly than before--so rapid that it was hard to
follow them.
"PERICOLO--pericolo--eh, what's that, Watson? 'Danger,' isn't
it? Yes, by Jove, it's a danger signal. There he goes again!
PERI. Halloa, what on earth--"
The light had suddenly gone out, the glimmering square of window
had disappeared, and the third floor formed a dark band round the
lofty building, with its tiers of shining casements. That last
warning cry had been suddenly cut short. How, and by whom? The
same thought occurred on the instant to us both. Holmes sprang
up from where he crouched by the window.
"This is serious, Watson," he cried. "There is some devilry
going forward! Why should such a message stop in such a way? I
should put Scotland Yard in touch with this business--and yet, it
is too pressing for us to leave."
"Shall I go for the police?"
"We must define the situation a little more clearly. It may bear
some more innocent interpretation. Come, Watson, let us go
across ourselves and see what we can make of it."
Two
As we walked rapidly down Howe Street I glanced back at the
building which we had left. There, dimly outlined at the top
window, I could see the shadow of a head, a woman's head, gazing
tensely, rigidly, out into the night, waiting with breathless
suspense for the renewal of that interrupted message. At the
doorway of the Howe Street flats a man, muffled in a cravat and
greatcoat, was leaning against the railing. He started as the
hall-light fell upon our faces.
"Holmes!" he cried.
"Why, Gregson!" said my companion as he shook hands with the
Scotland Yard detective. "Journeys end with lovers' meetings.
What brings you here?"
"The same reasons that bring you, I expect," said Gregson. "How
you got on to it I can't imagine."
"Different threads, but leading up to the same tangle. I've been
taking the signals."
"Signals?"
"Yes, from that window. They broke off in the middle. We came
over to see the reason. But since it is safe in your hands I see
no object in continuing this business."
"Wait a bit!" cried Gregson eagerly. "I'll do you this justice,
Mr. Holmes, that I was never in a case yet that I didn't feel
stronger for having you on my side. There's only the one exit to
these flats, so we have him safe."
"Who is he?"
"Well, well, we score over you for once, Mr. Holmes. You must
give us best this time." He struck his stick sharply upon the
ground, on which a cabman, his whip in his hand, sauntered over
from a four-wheeler which stood on the far side of the street.
"May I introduce you to Mr. Sherlock Holmes?" he said to the
cabman. "This is Mr. Leverton, of Pinkerton's American Agency."
"The hero of the Long Island cave mystery?" said Holmes. "Sir, I
am pleased to meet you."
The American, a quiet, businesslike young man, with a clean-
shaven, hatchet face, flushed up at the words of commendation.
"I am on the trail of my life now, Mr. Holmes," said he. "If I
can get Gorgiano--"
"What! Gorgiano of the Red Circle?"
"Oh, he has a European fame, has he? Well, we've learned all
about him in America. We KNOW he is at the bottom of fifty
murders, and yet we have nothing positive we can take him on. I
tracked him over from New York, and I've been close to him for a
week in London, waiting some excuse to get my hand on his collar.
Mr. Gregson and I ran him to ground in that big tenement house,
and there's only one door, so he can't slip us. There's three
folk come out since he went in, but I'll swear he wasn't one of
them."
"Mr. Holmes talks of signals," said Gregson. "I expect, as
usual, he knows a good deal that we don't."
In a few clear words Holmes explained the situation as it had
appeared to us. The American struck his hands together with
vexation.
"He's on to us!" he cried.
"Why do you think so?"
"Well, it figures out that way, does it not? Here he is, sending
out messages to an accomplice--there are several of his gang in
London. Then suddenly, just as by your own account he was
telling them that there was danger, he broke short off. What
could it mean except that from the window he had suddenly either
caught sight of us in the street, or in some way come to
understand how close the danger was, and that he must act right
away if he was to avoid it? What do you suggest, Mr. Holmes?"
"That we go up at once and see for ourselves."
"But we have no warrant for his arrest."
"He is in unoccupied premises under suspicious circumstances,"
said Gregson. "That is good enough for the moment. When we have
him by the heels we can see if New York can't help us to keep
him. I'll take the responsibility of arresting him now."
Our official detectives may blunder in the matter of
intelligence, but never in that of courage. Gregson climbed the
stair to arrest this desperate murderer with the same absolutely
quiet and businesslike bearing with which he would have ascended
the official staircase of Scotland Yard. The Pinkerton man had
tried to push past him, but Gregson had firmly elbowed him back.
London dangers were the privilege of the London force.
The door of the left-hand flat upon the third landing was
standing ajar. Gregson pushed it open. Within all was absolute
silence and darkness. I struck a match and lit the detective's
lantern. As I did so, and as the flicker steadied into a flame,
we all gave a gasp of surprise. On the deal boards of the
carpetless floor there was outlined a fresh track of blood. The
red steps pointed towards us and led away from an inner room, the
door of which was closed. Gregson flung it open and held his
light full blaze in front of him, while we all peered eagerly
over his shoulders.
In the middle of the floor of the empty room was huddled the
figure of an enormous man, his clean-shaven, swarthy face
grotesquely horrible in its contortion and his head encircled by
a ghastly crimson halo of blood, lying in a broad wet circle upon
the white woodwork. His knees were drawn up, his hands thrown
out in agony, and from the centre of his broad, brown, upturned
throat there projected the white haft of a knife driven blade-
deep into his body. Giant as he was, the man must have gone down
like a pole-axed ox before that terrific blow. Beside his right
hand a most formidable horn-handled, two-edged dagger lay upon
the floor, and near it a black kid glove.
"By George! it's Black Gorgiano himself!" cried the American
detective. "Someone has got ahead of us this time."
"Here is the candle in the window, Mr. Holmes," said Gregson.
"Why, whatever are you doing?"
Holmes had stepped across, had lit the candle, and was passing it
backward and forward across the window-panes. Then he peered
into the darkness, blew the candle out, and threw it on the
floor.
"I rather think that will be helpful," said he. He came over and
stood in deep thought while the two professionals were examining
the body. "You say that three people came out form the flat while
you were waiting downstairs," said he at last. "Did you observe
them closely?"
"Yes, I did."
"Was there a fellow about thirty, black-bearded, dark, of middle
size?"
"Yes; he was the last to pass me."
"That is your man, I fancy. I can give you his description, and
we have a very excellent outline of his footmark. That should be
enough for you."
"Not much, Mr. Holmes, among the millions of London."
"Perhaps not. That is why I thought it best to summon this lady
to your aid."
We all turned round at the words. There, framed in the doorway,
was a tall and beautiful woman--the mysterious lodger of
Bloomsbury. Slowly she advanced, her face pale and drawn with a
frightful apprehension, her eyes fixed and staring, her terrified
gaze riveted upon the dark figure on the floor.
"You have killed him!" she muttered. "Oh, Dio mio, you have
killed him!" Then I heard a sudden sharp intake of her breath,
and she sprang into the air with a cry of joy. Round and round
the room she danced, her hands clapping, her dark eyes gleaming
with delighted wonder, and a thousand pretty Italian exclamations
pouring from her lips. It was terrible and amazing to see such a
woman so convulsed with joy at such a sight. Suddenly she
stopped and gazed at us all with a questioning stare.
"But you! You are police, are you not? You have killed Giuseppe
Gorgiano. Is it not so?"
"We are police, madam."
She looked round into the shadows of the room.
"But where, then, is Gennaro?" she asked. "He is my husband,
Gennaro Lucca. I am Emilia Lucca, and we are both from New York.
Where is Gennaro? He called me this moment from this window, and
I ran with all my speed."
"It was I who called," said Holmes.
"You! How could you call?"
"Your cipher was not difficult, madam. Your presence here was
desirable. I knew that I had only to flash 'Vieni' and you would
surely come."
The beautiful Italian looked with awe at my companion.
"I do not understand how you know these things," she said.
"Giuseppe Gorgiano--how did he--" She paused, and then suddenly
her face lit up with pride and delight. "Now I see it! My
Gennaro! My splendid, beautiful Gennaro, who has guarded me safe
from all harm, he did it, with his own strong hand he killed the
monster! Oh, Gennaro, how wonderful you are! What woman could
every be worthy of such a man?"
"Well, Mrs. Lucca," said the prosaic Gregson, laying his hand
upon the lady's sleeve with as little sentiment as if she were a
Notting Hill hooligan, "I am not very clear yet who you are or
what you are; but you've said enough to make it very clear that
we shall want you at the Yard."
"One moment, Gregson," said Holmes. "I rather fancy that this
lady may be as anxious to give us information as we can be to get
it. You understand, madam, that your husband will be arrested
and tried for the death of the man who lies before us? What you
say may be used in evidence. But if you think that he has acted
from motives which are not criminal, and which he would wish to
have known, then you cannot serve him better than by telling us
the whole story."
"Now that Gorgiano is dead we fear nothing," said the lady. "He
was a devil and a monster, and there can be no judge in the world
who would punish my husband for having killed him."
"In that case," said Holmes, "my suggestion is that we lock this
door, leave things as we found them, go with this lady to her
room, and form our opinion after we have heard what it is that
she has to say to us."
Half an hour later we were seated, all four, in the small
sitting-room of Signora Lucca, listening to her remarkable
narrative of those sinister events, the ending of which we had
chanced to witness. She spoke in rapid and fluent but very
unconventional English, which, for the sake of clearness, I will
make grammatical.
"I was born in Posilippo, near Naples," said she, "and was the
daughter of Augusto Barelli, who was the chief lawyer and once
the deputy of that part. Gennaro was in my father's employment,
and I came to love him, as any woman must. He had neither money
nor position--nothing but his beauty and strength and energy--so
my father forbade the match. We fled together, were married at
Bari, and sold my jewels to gain the money which would take us to
America. This was four years ago, and we have been in New York
ever since.
"Fortune was very good to us at first. Gennaro was able to do a
service to an Italian gentleman--he saved him from some ruffians
in the place called the Bowery, and so made a powerful friend.
His name was Tito Castalotte, and he was the senior partner of
the great firm of Castalotte and Zamba, who are the chief fruit
importers of New York. Signor Zamba is an invalid, and our new
friend Castalotte has all power within the firm, which employs
more than three hundred men. He took my husband into his
employment, made him head of a department, and showed his good-
will towards him in every way. Signor Castalotte was a bachelor,
and I believe that he felt as if Gennaro was his son, and both my
husband and I loved him as if he were our father. We had taken
and furnished a little house in Brooklyn, and our whole future
seemed assured when that black cloud appeared which was soon to
overspread our sky.
"One night, when Gennaro returned from his work, he brought a
fellow-countryman back with him. His name was Gorgiano, and he
had come also from Posilippo. He was a huge man, as you can
testify, for you have looked upon his corpse. Not only was his
body that of a giant but everything about him was grotesque,
gigantic, and terrifying. His voice was like thunder in our
little house. There was scarce room for the whirl of his great
arms as he talked. His thoughts, his emotions, his passions, all
were exaggerated and monstrous. He talked, or rather roared,
with such energy that others could but sit and listen, cowed with
the mighty stream of words. His eyes blazed at you and held you
at his mercy. He was a terrible and wonderful man. I thank God
that he is dead!
"He came again and again. Yet I was aware that Gennaro was no
more happy than I was in his presence. My poor husband would sit
pale and listless, listening to the endless raving upon politics
and upon social questions which made up or visitor's
conversation. Gennaro said nothing, but I, who knew him so well,
could read in his face some emotion which I had never seen there
before. At first I thought that it was dislike. And then,
gradually, I understood that it was more than dislike. It was
fear--a deep, secret, shrinking fear. That night--the night that
I read his terror--I put my arms round him and I implored him by
his love for me and by all that he held dear to hold nothing from
me, and to tell me why this huge man overshadowed him so.
"He told me, and my own heart grew cold as ice as I listened. My
poor Gennaro, in his wild and fiery days, when all the world
seemed against him and his mind was driven half mad by the
injustices of life, had joined a Neapolitan society, the Red
Circle, which was allied to the old Carbonari. The oaths and
secrets of this brotherhood were frightful, but once within its
rule no escape was possible. When we had fled to America Gennaro
thought that he had cast it all off forever. What was his horror
one evening to meet in the streets the very man who had initiated
him in Naples, the giant Gorgiano, a man who had earned the name
of 'Death' in the south of Italy, for he was red to the elbow in
murder! He had come to New York to avoid the Italian police, and
he had already planted a branch of this dreadful society in his
new home. All this Gennaro told me and showed me a summons which
he had received that very day, a Red Circle drawn upon the head
of it telling him that a lodge would be held upon a certain date,
and that his presence at it was required and ordered.
"That was bad enough, but worse was to come. I had noticed for
some time that when Gorgiano came to us, as he constantly did, in
the evening, he spoke much to me; and even when his words were to
my husband those terrible, glaring, wild-beast eyes of his were
always turned upon me. One night his secret came out. I had
awakened what he called 'love' within him--the love of a brute--a
savage. Gennaro had not yet returned when he came. He pushed
his way in, seized me in his mighty arms, hugged me in his bear's
embrace, covered me with kisses, and implored me to come away
with him. I was struggling and screaming when Gennaro entered
and attacked him. He struck Gennaro senseless and fled from the
house which he was never more to enter. It was a deadly enemy
that we made that night.
"A few days later came the meeting. Gennaro returned from it
with a face which told me that something dreadful had occurred.
It was worse than we could have imagined possible. The funds of
the society were raised by blackmailing rich Italians and
threatening them with violence should they refuse the money. It
seems that Castalotte, our dear friend and benefactor, had been
approached. He had refused to yield to threats, and he had
handed the notices to the police. It was resolved now that such
an example should be made of them as would prevent any other
victim from rebelling. At the meeting it was arranged that he and
his house should be blown up with dynamite. There was a drawing
of lots as to who should carry out the deed. Gennaro saw our
enemy's cruel face smiling at him as he dipped his hand in the
bag. No doubt it had been prearranged in some fashion, for it was
the fatal disc with the Red Circle upon it, the mandate for
murder, which lay upon his palm. He was to kill his best friend,
or he was to expose himself and me to the vengeance of his
comrades. It was part of their fiendish system to punish those
whom they feared or hated by injuring not only their own persons
but those whom they loved, and it was the knowledge of this which
hung as a terror over my poor Gennaro's head and drove him nearly
crazy with apprehension.
"All that night we sat together, our arms round each other, each
strengthening each for the troubles that lay before us. The very
next evening had been fixed for the attempt. By midday my
husband and I were on our way to London, but not before he had
given our benefactor full warning of this danger, and had also
left such information for the police as would safeguard his life
for the future.
"The rest, gentlemen, you know for yourselves. We were sure that
our enemies would be behind us like our own shadows. Gorgiano
had his private reasons for vengeance, but in any case we knew
how ruthless, cunning, and untiring he could be. Both Italy and
America are full of stories of his dreadful powers. If ever they
were exerted it would be now. My darling made use of the few
clear days which our start had given us in arranging for a refuge
for me in such a fashion that no possible danger could reach me.
For his own part, he wished to be free that he might communicate
both with the American and with the Italian police. I do not
myself know where he lived, or how. All that I learned was
through the columns of a newspaper. But once as I looked through
my window, I saw two Italians watching the house, and I
understood that in some way Gorgiano had found our retreat.
Finally Gennaro told me, through the paper, that he would signal
to me from a certain window, but when the signals came they were
nothing but warnings, which were suddenly interrupted. It is
very clear to me now that he knew Gorgiano to be close upon him,
and that, thank God! he was ready for him when he came. And now,
gentleman, I would ask you whether we have anything to fear from
the law, or whether any judge upon earth would condemn my Gennaro
for what he has done?"
"Well, Mr. Gregson," said the American, looking across at the
official, "I don't know what your British point of view may be,
but I guess that in New York this lady's husband will receive a
pretty general vote of thanks."
"She will have to come with me and see the chief," Gregson
answered. "If what she says is corroborated, I do not think she
or her husband has much to fear. But what I can't make head or
tail of, Mr. Holmes, is how on earth YOU got yourself mixed up in
the matter."
"Education, Gregson, education. Still seeking knowledge at the
old university. Well, Watson, you have one more specimen of the
tragic and grotesque to add to your collection. By the way, it
is not eight o'clock, and a Wagner night at Covent Garden! If we
hurry, we might be in time for the second act."