She was very happy at Lausanne. There was every reason tobelieve that she intended to remain for the season in her luxuriousrooms overlooking the lake. And yet she had left at a single day’snotice, which involved her in the useless payment of a week’srent. Only Jules Vibart, the lover of the maid, had any suggestionto offer. He connected the sudden departure with the visit tothe hotel a day or two before of a tall, dark, bearded man. “Unsauvage—un veritable sauvage!” cried Jules Vibart. The man hadrooms somewhere in the town. He had been seen talking earnestlyto Madame on the promenade by the lake. Then he had called.
She had refused to see him. He was English, but of his name therewas no record. Madame had left the place immediately afterwards.
Jules Vibart, and, what was of more importance, Jules Vibart’ssweetheart, thought that this call and the departure were causeand effect. Only one thing Jules would not discuss. That was thereason why Marie had left her mistress. Of that he could or wouldsay nothing. If I wished to know, I must go to Montpellier and askher.
So ended the first chapter of my inquiry. The second wasdevoted to the place which Lady Frances Carfax had sought whenshe left Lausanne. Concerning this there had been some secrecy,which confirmed the idea that she had gone with the intentionof throwing someone off her track. Otherwise why should nother luggage have been openly labelled for Baden? Both she1186 The Complete Sherlock Holmes
and it reached the Rhenish spa by some circuitous route. Thismuch I gathered from the manager of Cook’s local office. So toBaden I went, after dispatching to Holmes an account of all myproceedings and receiving in reply a telegram of half-humorouscommendation.
At Baden the track was not difficult to follow. Lady Franceshad stayed at the Englischer Hof for a fortnight. While thereshe had made the acquaintance of a Dr. Shlessinger and hiswife, a missionary from South America. Like most lonely ladies,Lady Frances found her comfort and occupation in religion. Dr.
Shlessinger’s remarkable personality, his whole hearted devotion,and the fact that he was recovering from a disease contractedin the exercise of his apostolic duties affected her deeply. Shehad helped Mrs. Shlessinger in the nursing of the convalescentsaint. He spent his day, as the manager described it to me, upon alounge-chair on the veranda, with an attendant lady upon eitherside of him. He was preparing a map of the Holy Land, withspecial reference to the kingdom of the Midianites, upon whichhe was writing a monograph. Finally, having improved much inhealth, he and his wife had returned to London, and Lady Franceshad started thither in their company. This was just three weeksbefore, and the manager had heard nothing since. As to the maid,Marie, she had gone off some days beforehand in floods of tears,after informing the other maids that she was leaving serviceforever. Dr. Shlessinger had paid the bill of the whole party beforehis departure.
“By the way,” said the landlord in conclusion, “you are not theonly friend of Lady Frances Carfax who is inquiring after her justnow. Only a week or so ago we had a man here upon the sameerrand.”
“Did he give a name?” I asked.
“None; but he was an Englishman, though of an unusual type.”
“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 infarmers’ 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 notThe Adventure of Wisteria Lodge 1187
screen 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 deion 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.”