Sherlock Holmes was too irritable for conversation and toorestless for sleep. I left him smoking hard, with his heavy, darkThe Adventure of Wisteria Lodge 1197 brows knotted together, and his long, nervous fingers tappingupon the arms of his chair, as he turned over in his mind everypossible solution of the mystery. Several times in the course of thenight I heard him prowling about the house. Finally, just after Ihad been called in the morning, he rushed into my room. He wasin his dressing-gown, but his pale, hollow-eyed face told me thathis night had been a sleepless one.
“What time was the funeral? Eight, was it not?” he asked eagerly.
“Well, it is 7:20 now. Good heavens, Watson, what has becomeof any brains that God has given me? Quick, man, quick! It’s lifeor death—a hundred chances on death to one on life. I’ll neverforgive myself, never, if we are too late!”
Five minutes had not passed before we were flying in a hansomdown Baker Street. But even so it was twenty-five to eight as wepassed Big Ben, and eight struck as we tore down the BrixtonRoad. But others were late as well as we. Ten minutes after thehour the hearse was still standing at the door of the house, andeven as our foaming horse came to a halt the coffin, supported bythree men, appeared on the threshold. Holmes darted forward andbarred their way.
“Take it back!” he cried, laying his hand on the breast of theforemost. “Take it back this instant!”
“What the devil do you mean? Once again I ask you, where isyour warrant?” shouted the furious Peters, his big red face glaringover the farther end of the coffin.
“The warrant is on its way. The coffin shall remain in the houseuntil it comes.”
The authority in Holmes’s voice had its effect upon the bearers.
Peters had suddenly vanished into the house, and they obeyed thesenew orders. “Quick, Watson, quick! Here is a screw-driver!” heshouted as the coffin was replaced upon the table. “Here’s one foryou, my man! A sovereign if the lid comes off in a minute! Ask noquestions—work away! That’s good! Another! And another! Nowpull 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 sothere came from the inside a stupefying and overpowering smellof chloroform. A body lay within, its head all wreathed in cottonwool,which had been soaked in the narcotic. Holmes plucked itoff and disclosed the statuesque face of a handsome and spiritualwoman of middle age. In an instant he had passed his arm roundthe figure and raised her to a sitting position.
“Is she gone, Watson? Is there a spark left? Surely we are not toolate!”
For half an hour it seemed that we were. What with actualsuffocation, and what with the poisonous fumes of the chloroform,1198 The Complete Sherlock Holmesthe Lady Frances seemed to have passed the last point of recall.
And then, at last, with artificial respiration, with injected ether,with every device that science could suggest, some flutter of life,some quiver of the eyelids, some dimming of a mirror, spoke ofthe slowly returning life. A cab had driven up, and Holmes, partingthe blind, looked out at it. “Here is Lestrade with his warrant,”said he. “He will find that his birds have flown. And here,” headded as a heavy step hurried along the passage, “is someone whohas a better right to nurse this lady than we have. Good morning,Mr. Green; I think that the sooner we can move the Lady Francesthe better. Meanwhile, the funeral may proceed, and the poor oldwoman who still lies in that coffin may go to her last resting-placealone.”
“Should you care to add the case to your annals, my dearWatson,” said Holmes that evening, “it can only be as an exampleof that temporary eclipse to which even the best-balanced mindmay be exposed. Such slips are common to all mortals, and thegreatest is he who can recognize and repair them. To this modifiedcredit I may, perhaps, make some claim. My night was haunted bythe thought that somewhere a clue, a strange sentence, a curiousobservation, had come under my notice and had been too easilydismissed. Then, suddenly, in the gray of the morning, the wordscame back to me. It was the remark of the undertaker’s wife, asreported by Philip Green. She had said, ‘It should be there beforenow. It took longer, being out of the ordinary.’ It was the coffin ofwhich she spoke. It had been out of the ordinary. That could onlymean that it had been made to some special measurement. Butwhy? Why? Then in an instant I remembered the deep sides, andthe little wasted figure at the bottom. Why so large a coffin forso small a body? To leave room for another body. Both would beburied under the one certificate. It had all been so clear, if only myown sight had not been dimmed. At eight the Lady Frances wouldbe buried. Our one chance was to stop the coffin before it left thehouse.
“It was a desperate chance that we might find her alive, but itwas a chance, as the result showed. These people had never, tomy knowledge, done a murder. They might shrink from actualviolence at the last. The could bury her with no sign of how shemet her end, and even if she were exhumed there was a chance forthem. I hoped that such considerations might prevail with them.
You can reconstruct the scene well enough. You saw the horribleden upstairs, where the poor lady had been kept so long. Theyrushed in and overpowered her with their chloroform, carried herdown, poured more into the coffin to insure against her waking,and then screwed down the lid. A clever device, Watson. It is newThe Adventure of Wisteria Lodge 1199 brilliantincidents in their future career.”