Podstrony
|
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Peters had suddenly vanished into the house, and they obeyed
these new orders. "Quick, Watson, quick! Here is a screw-
driver!" he shouted as the coffin was replaced upon the table.
"Here's one for you, my man! A sovreign if the lid comes off in
a minute! Ask no questions--work away! That's good! Another!
And another! Now pull all together! It's giving! It's giving!
Ah, that does it at last."
With a united effort we tore off the coffin-lid. As we did so
there came from the inside a stupefying and overpowering smell of
chloroform. A body lay within, its head all wreathed in cotton-
wool, which had been soaked in the narcotic. Holmes plucked it
off and disclosed the statuesque face of a handsome and spiritual
woman of middle age. In an instant he had passed his arm round
the figure and raised her to a sitting position.
"Is she gone, Watson? Is there a spark left? Surely we are not
too late!"
For half an hour it seemed that we were. What with actual
suffocation, and what with the poisonous fumes of the chloroform,
the Lady Frances seemed to have passed the last point of recall.
And then, at last, with artificial respiration, with injected
ether, and with every device that science could suggest, some
flutter of life, some quiver of the eyelids, some dimming of a
mirror, spoke of the slowly returning life. A cab had driven up,
and Holmes, parting the blind, looked out at it. "Here is
Lestrade with his warrant," said he. "He will find that his
birds have flown. And here," he added as a heavy step hurried
along the passage, "is someone who has a better right to nurse
this lady than we have. Good morning, Mr. Green; I think that
the sooner we can move the Lady Frances the better. Meanwhile,
the funeral may proceed, and the poor old woman who still lies in
that coffin may go to her last resting-place alone."
a
a
T
T
n
n
s
s
F
F
f
f
o
o
D
D
r
r
P
P
m
m
Y
Y
e
e
Y
Y
r
r
B
B
2
2
.
.
B
B
A
A
Click here to buy
Click here to buy
w
w
m
m
w
w
o
o
w
w
c
c
.
.
.
.
A
A
Y
Y
B
B
Y
Y
B
B
r r
"Should you care to add the case to your annals, my dear Watson,"
said Holmes that evening, "it can only be as an example of that
temporary eclipse to which even the best-balanced mind may be
exposed. Such slips are common to all mortals, and the greatest
is he who can recognize and repair them. To this modified credit
I may, perhaps, make some claim. My night was haunted by the
thought that somewhere a clue, a strange sentence, a curious
observation, had come under my notice and had been too easily
dismissed. Then, suddenly, in the gray of the morning, the words
came back to me. It was the remark of the undertaker's wife, as
reported by Philip Green. She had said, 'It should be there
before now. It took longer, being out of the ordinary.' It was
the coffin of which she spoke. It had been out of the ordinary.
That could only mean that it had been made to some special
measurement. But why? Why? Then in an instant I remembered the
deep sides, and the little wasted figure at the bottom. Why so
large a coffin for so small a body? To leave room for another
body. Both would be buried under the one certificate. It had all
been so clear, if only my own sight had not been dimmed. At
eight the Lady Frances would be buried. Our one chance was to
stop the coffin before it left the house.
"It was a desperate chance that we might find her alive, but it
WAS a chance, as the result showed. These people had never, to
my knowledge, done a murder. They might shrink from actual
violence at the last. The could bury her with no sign of how she
met her end, and even if she were exhumed there was a chance for
them. I hoped that such considerations might prevail with them.
You can reconstruct the scene well enough. You saw the horrible
den upstairs, where the poor lady had been kept so long. They
rushed in and overpowered her with their chloroform, carried her
down, poured more into the coffin to insure against her waking,
and then screwed down the lid. A clever device, Watson. It is
new to me in the annals of crime. If our ex-missionary friends
escape the clutches of Lestrade, I shall expect to hear of some
brilliant incidents in their future career."
End of Project Gutenberg Etext The Disappearance of Lady Frances
Carfax
a
a
T
T
n
n
s
s
F
F
f
f
o
o
D
D
r
r
P
P
m
m
Y
Y
e
e
Y
Y
r
r
B
B
2
2
.
.
B
B
A
A
Click here to buy
Click here to buy
w
w
m
m
w
w
o
o
w
w
c
c
.
.
.
.
A
A
Y
Y
B
B
Y
Y
B
B
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plkskarol.keep.pl
|
