When our hansom deposited us at the house of Mrs. Merrilow,we found that plump lady blocking up the open door of herhumble but retired abode. It was very clear that her chiefpreoccupation was lest she should lose a valuable lodger, and sheimplored us, before showing us up, to say and do nothing whichcould lead to so undesirable an end. Then, having reassured her,we followed her up the straight, badly carpeted staircase and wereshown into the room of the mysterious lodger.
It was a close, musty, ill-ventilated place, as might be expected,since its inmate seldom left it. From keeping beasts in a cage,The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes 1383the woman seemed, by some retribution of fate, to have becomeherself a beast in a cage. She sat now in a broken armchair inthe shadowy corner of the room. Long years of inaction hadcoarsened the lines of her figure, but at some period it must havebeen beautiful, and was still full and voluptuous. A thick darkveil covered her face, but it was cut off close at her upper lip anddisclosed a perfectly shaped mouth and a delicately rounded chin.
I could well conceive that she had indeed been a very remarkablewoman. Her voice, too, was well modulated and pleasing.
“My name is not unfamiliar to you, Mr. Holmes,” said she. “Ithought that it would bring you.”
“That is so, madam, though I do not know how you are awarethat I was interested in your case.”
“I learned it when I had recovered my health and was examinedby Mr. Edmunds, the county detective. I fear I lied to him.
Perhaps it would have been wiser had I told the truth.”
“It is usually wiser to tell the truth. But why did you lie to him?”
“Because the fate of someone else depended upon it. I knowthat he was a very worthless being, and yet I would not have hisdestruction upon my conscience. We had been so close—so close!”
“But has this impediment been removed?”
“Yes, sir. The person that I allude to is dead.”
“Then why should you not now tell the police anything youknow?”
“Because there is another person to be considered. That otherperson is myself. I could not stand the scandal and publicity whichwould come from a police examination. I have not long to live,but I wish to die undisturbed. And yet I wanted to find one manof judgment to whom I could tell my terrible story, so that when Iam gone all might be understood.”
“You compliment me, madam. At the same time, I am a responsibleperson. I do not promise you that when you have spoken I maynot myself think it my duty to refer the case to the police.”
“I think not, Mr. Holmes. I know your character and methodstoo well, for I have followed your work for some years. Readingis the only pleasure which fate has left me, and I miss little whichpasses in the world. But in any case, I will take my chance of the usewhich you may make of my tragedy. It will ease my mind to tell it.”
“My friend and I would be glad to hear it.”
The woman rose and took from a drawer the photograph of aman. He was clearly a professional acrobat, a man of magnificentphysique, taken with his huge arms folded across his swollen chestand a smile breaking from under his heavy moustache—the selfsatisfiedsmile of the man of many conquests.
“That is Leonardo,” she said.
The Complete Sherlock Holmes
“Leonardo, the strong man, who gave evidence?”
“The same. And this—this is my husband.”
It was a dreadful face—a human pig, or rather a human wildboar, for it was formidable in its bestiality. One could imaginethat vile mouth champing and foaming in its rage, and one couldconceive those small, vicious eyes darting pure malignancy asthey looked forth upon the world. Ruffian, bully, beast—it was allwritten on that heavy-jowled face.
“Those two pictures will help you, gentlemen, to understandthe story. I was a poor circus girl brought up on the sawdust, anddoing springs through the hoop before I was ten. When I becamewoman this man loved me, if such lust as his can be called love,and in an evil moment I became his wife. From that day I was inhell, and he the devil who tormented me. There was no one inthe show who did not know of his treatment. He deserted mefor others. He tied me down and lashed me with his riding-whipwhen I complained. They all pitied me and they all loathed him,but what could they do? They feared him, one and all. For he wasterrible at all times, and murderous when he was drunk. Again andagain he was had up for assault, and for cruelty to the beasts, buthe had plenty of money and the fines were nothing to him. Thebest men all left us, and the show began to go downhill. It wasonly Leonardo and I who kept it up—with little Jimmy Griggs, theclown. Poor devil, he had not much to be funny about, but he didwhat he could to hold things together.
“Then Leonardo came more and more into my life. You see whathe was like. I know now the poor spirit that was hidden in thatsplendid body, but compared to my husband he seemed like theangel Gabriel. He pitied me and helped me, till at last our intimacyturned to love—deep, deep, passionate love, such love as I haddreamed of but never hoped to feel. My husband suspected it, butthink that he was a coward as well as a bully, and that Leonardowas the one man that he was afraid of. He took revenge in his ownway by torturing me more than ever. One night my cries broughtLeonardo to the door of our van. We were near tragedy that night,and soon my lover and I understood that it could not be avoided.
My husband was not fit to live. We planned that he should die.
“Leonardo had a clever, scheming brain. It was he who plannedit. I do not say that to blame him, for I was ready to go with himevery inch of the way. But I should never have had the wit to thinkof such a plan. We made a club—Leonardo made it—and in theleaden head he fastened five long steel nails, the points outward,with just such a spread as the lion’s paw. This was to give myhusband his death-blow, and yet to leave the evidence that it wasthe lion which we would loose who had done the deed.