“Three days of absolute fast does not improve one’s beauty,Watson. For the rest, there is nothing which a sponge may notcure. With vaseline upon one’s forehead, belladonna in one’seyes, rouge over the cheek-bones, and crusts of beeswax roundone’s lips, a very satisfying effect can be produced. Malingeringis a subject upon which I have sometimes thought of writing amonograph. A little occasional talk about half-crowns, oysters,or any other extraneous subject produces a pleasing effect ofdelirium.”
“But why would you not let me near you, since there was intruth no infection?”
“Can you ask, my dear Watson? Do you imagine that I have norespect for your medical talents? Could I fancy that your astutejudgment would pass a dying man who, however weak, had norise of pulse or temperature? At four yards, I could deceive you.
If I failed to do so, who would bring my Smith within my grasp?
No, Watson, I would not touch that box. You can just see if youlook at it sideways where the sharp spring like a viper’s toothemerges as you open it. I dare say it was by some such device thatpoor Savage, who stood between this monster and a reversion,was done to death. My correspondence, however, is, as you know,a varied one, and I am somewhat upon my guard against anypackages which reach me. It was clear to me, however, that bypretending that he had really succeeded in his design I mightsurprise a confession. That pretence I have carried out with thethoroughness of the true artist. Thank you, Watson, you must helpme on with my coat. When we have finished at the police-stationI think that something nutritious at Simpson’s would not be outof place.”
The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax
“But why Turkish?” asked Mr. Sherlock Holmes, gazing fixedlyat my boots. I was reclining in a cane-backed chair at the moment,and my protruded feet had attracted his ever-active attention.
“English,” I answered in some surprise. “I got them at Latimer’s,in Oxford Street.”
Holmes smiled with an expression of weary patience.
“The bath!” he said; “the bath! Why the relaxing and expensiveTurkish rather than the invigorating home-made article?”
“Because for the last few days I have been feeling rheumatic andold. A Turkish bath is what we call an alterative in medicine—afresh starting-point, a cleanser of the system.
“By the way, Holmes,” I added, “I have no doubt the connectionbetween my boots and a Turkish bath is a perfectly self-evidentone to a logical mind, and yet I should be obliged to you if youwould indicate it.”
“The train of reasoning is not very obscure, Watson,” saidHolmes with a mischievous twinkle. “It belongs to the sameelementary class of deduction which I should illustrate if I were toask you who shared your cab in your drive this morning.”
“I don’t admit that a fresh illustration is an explanation,” said Iwith some asperity.
“Bravo, Watson! A very dignified and logical remonstrance. Letme see, what were the points? Take the last one first—the cab. Youobserve that you have some splashes on the left sleeve and shoulderof your coat. Had you sat in the centre of a hansom you wouldprobably have had no splashes, and if you had they would certainlyhave been symmetrical. Therefore it is clear that you sat at the side.
Therefore it is equally clear that you had a companion.”
“That is very evident.”
“Absurdly commonplace, is it not?”
“But the boots and the bath?”
“Equally childish. You are in the habit of doing up your bootsin a certain way. I see them on this occasion fastened with anelaborate double bow, which is not your usual method of tyingthem. You have, therefore, had them off. Who has tied them? Abootmaker—or the boy at the bath. It is unlikely that it is thebootmaker, since your boots are nearly new. Well, what remains?
The bath. Absurd, is it not? But, for all that, the Turkish bath hasserved a purpose.”
“What is that?”
“You say that you have had it because you need a change. Letme suggest that you take one. How would Lausanne do, my dearWatson—first-class tickets and all expenses paid on a princelyscale?”
“Splendid! But why?”
Holmes leaned back in his armchair and took his notebookfrom his pocket.
“One of the most dangerous classes in the world,” said he, “isthe drifting and friendless woman. She is the most harmless andoften the most useful of mortals, but she is the inevitable inciterof crime in others. She is helpless. She is migratory. She hassufficient means to take her from country to country and fromhotel to hotel. She is lost, as often as not, in a maze of obscurepensions and boarding-houses. She is a stray chicken in a world offoxes. When she is gobbled up she is hardly missed. I much fearthat some evil has come to the Lady Frances Carfax.”
I was relieved at this sudden descent from the general to theparticular. Holmes consulted his notes.
“Lady Frances,” he continued, “is the sole survivor of the directfamily of the late Earl of Rufton. The estates went, as you mayremember, in the male line. She was left with limited means, butwith some very remarkable old Spanish jewellery of silver andcuriously cut diamonds to which she was fondly attached—tooattached, for she refused to leave them with her banker and alwayscarried them about with her. A rather pathetic figure, the LadyFrances, a beautiful woman, still in fresh middle age, and yet, by astrange change, the last derelict of what only twenty years ago wasa goodly fleet.”
“What has happened to her, then?”
“Ah, what has happened to the Lady Frances? Is she alive ordead? There is our problem. She is a lady of precise habits, and forfour years it has been her invariable custom to write every secondweek to Miss Dobney, her old governess, who has long retired andlives in Camberwell. It is this Miss Dobney who has consulted me.
