The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax

by Arthur Conan Doyle

(Adapted book. Upper-Intermediate level)

‘Turkish, Watson?’ asked Sherlock Holmes, looking at my shoes.

‘No, they are English, of course!’ I answered. ‘I bought them here in London, at Latimer’s in Oxford Street.’

Holmes smiled.

‘I was not talking about your shoes, Watson,’ he said. ‘I was talking about the bath! You have had a Turkish bath today, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, I have. But how did you know that, Holmes?’

‘My dear Watson, I looked at your shoes.’

‘Perhaps I am a little slow,’ I said, ‘but I don’t understand how a pair of English shoes and a Turkish bath can be connected! Won’t you explain?’

‘It is very simple,’ he said. ‘You are in the habit of tying your shoes in a particular way. But today they are tied with a beautiful double knot. So it is clear that you have taken them off. And somebody else has tied them for you. Who was this person? A man in a shoe shop? No. You bought some new shoes only a week ago. It was not a man in a shoe shop. It was the servant at the Turkish bath. It is simple, isn’t it? And why, Watson, did you go to the Turkish bath?’

‘Because I have been feeling old and ill for the last few days. A Turkish bath usually makes me feel well again.’

‘You need a change, Watson. I suggest Switzerland. Would you like to stay at the best hotel in Lausanne? You would live like a king, and it would be completely free! And of course you would travel first class on the train.’

‘That would be wonderful,’ I said. ‘But why are you offering me an opportunity like this?’

Holmes did not answer. Instead, he leaned back in his chair and took his notebook from his pocket.

‘Unmarried women who wander around the world from one hotel to another put themselves in great danger from evil people. If such a lady disappears, nobody misses her. I very much fear that some terrible harm has come to Lady Frances Carfax,’ he said finally.

‘Lady Frances,’ he continued, ‘is the last member of her direct family. Her father and her brothers are all dead but the family fortune followed the male line. She is not a rich woman, but she has some fine old Spanish silver jewellery, and some very unusual and beautiful diamonds. She loves this jewellery so much that she has always refused to leave it at her bank for safety. So she carries her diamonds with her wherever she goes. I feel sorry for Lady Frances Carfax, Watson. She is still quite young and beautiful, but she is completely alone in the world.’

‘And what has happened to her?’ I asked.

‘Ah, Watson, that is the mystery we have to solve! I don’t even know whether she is alive or dead. She is a lady of very regular habits, and for the last four years she has written a letter every two weeks to her old nurse. The nurse, whose name is Miss Dobney, lives in Camberwell, here in London. It is Miss Dobney who has asked for my help. Lady Frances has not written to her for nearly five weeks. Her last letter came from the National Hotel in Lausanne. The manager of the hotel says that the lady left without telling anybody her new address. Miss Dobney is very anxious about her, and so are Lady Frances’s rich cousins. We shall not run short of money, Watson!’

‘Is Miss Dobney the only person Lady Frances writes to here in England?’

‘No. There is also the manager of her bank. I have talked to him. He showed me her used cheques, and there were two recent ones. The first was for a very large amount, much more than enough to pay her hotel bill. The second cheque was for fifty pounds, and was made out to Miss Marie Devine. The money was paid to Miss Devine less than three weeks ago, at a bank in Montpellier in the south of France.’

‘And who is Miss Marie Devine?’ I asked.

‘I have already found that out,’ Holmes answered. ‘She was Lady Frances’s maid. I have not yet found out why Lady Frances gave her that cheque. But I have no doubt that you will be able to discover the reason.’

‘I, Holmes!’

‘Yes, Watson. That was why I suggested a holiday in Switzerland. You know that I cannot possibly leave London just now The London police would feel lonely if I went abroad! So you must go, Watson. Send me a telegram if you need my advice.’

* * *

Two days later I was at the National Hotel in Lausanne. The manager, Mr Moser, told me that Lady Frances had stayed there for several weeks. Everyone who met her had liked her very much. She was not more than forty years old. Mr Moser did not know that she had any valuable jewellery, but the servants had noticed that there was one large heavy box that was always locked. Marie Devine was as popular as Lady Frances herself; in fact she was going to marry one of the waiters at the hotel, so I had no difficulty in getting her address. It was 11 rue de Trajan Montpellier, France. I wrote all this down in a little notebook. I was proud of my cleverness: Holmes himself could not have collected more facts!

But the biggest mystery still remained. What was the reason for Lady Frances’s sudden decision to leave? She was very happy in Lausanne; everyone had expected her to stay for several months. She had had lovely rooms with a view of Lake Geneva. But she had left so suddenly! She had even paid a week’s rent for nothing! Mr Moser could not understand it. Only Jules Vibart, the waiter who was going to marry Marie Devine, was able to give me any useful information. A day or two before Lady Frances left, a tall, dark man with a beard had visited the hotel, the sort of man that you would think twice before offending.

‘He looked like a wild animal!’ cried Jules Vibart.

The man had rooms somewhere in the town, and Vibart and Marie had seen him by the lake with Lady Frances, talking very earnestly to her. The next time the man came to the hotel, though, Lady Frances had refused to see him. He was English, but Vibart did not know his name. Lady Frances had left Lausanne immediately afterwards. Vibart and Marie both thought that the strange Englishman’s visit was the cause of Lady Frances’s decision to leave.

I asked Vibart why Marie had left her post, but he refused to answer.

‘I cannot tell you that, sir,’ he said. ‘If you want to find out, you must go to Montpellier and ask Marie herself.’

After my conversations with Mr Moser and Vibart, I tried to find out where Lady Frances had travelled to from Lausanne. Perhaps Lady Frances had been trying to escape from someone? Certainly it was strange that her cases and boxes had not been clearly marked. She had, though, reached Baden-Baden in Germany after a very long and indirect journey. I found this out from one of the local travel companies.

I therefore bought a ticket to Baden-Baden myself. Before I left Lausanne I sent Holmes a telegram, giving him an account of everything I had done. In his reply he said that he was proud of me, but I did not know whether he was joking or serious.

* * *

At Baden-Baden I was told that Lady Frances had stayed at the English Hotel for two weeks. At the hotel she had met a man called Dr Schlessinger and his wife. Dr Schlessinger was a religious man who had been working in South America, where he had fallen ill.

Lady Frances herself was a very religious woman, and for her it was an honour to know such a man. She gladly helped Mrs Schlessinger to look after him, and he used to sit all day outside the hotel with one of the ladies on each side of him, reading and writing on religious matters.

Finally, when Dr Schlessinger s health had improved a little, he and his wife had returned to London. Lady Frances had gone with them, and Dr Schlessinger had paid her hotel bill. It was now three weeks since they had left.

I asked the manager about Marie Devine, Lady Frances’s maid.

‘She left a few days before the Schlessingers and Lady Frances went to England,’ he answered. ‘She was crying bitterly, and she told me that she never wanted to work as a servant again.’

The manager went on, after a pause:

‘You are not the first person who has asked for information about Lady Frances Carfax. About a week ago another Englishman came here asking questions about her.’

‘Did he tell you his name?’ I asked.

‘No. He was a very strange man!’

‘Did he look like a wild animal?’ I was thinking of what Jules Vibart had told me in Lausanne.

‘Yes! A wild animal,’ said the manager. ‘That is a perfect description of him. He was a large man with a sunburnt face and a beard. I would not like to be his enemy!’ Already the solution to the mystery was becoming clear. This evil, cruel man was chasing the poor lady from place to place. It was obvious that she was terribly afraid of him, otherwise she would not have left Lausanne. And now he had followed her as far as Baden-Baden. Sooner or later he would catch up with her! Had he already caught up with her, perhaps? Was that the explanation for her disappearance?

I just hoped that the good Dr Schlessinger and his wife would be able to protect her from this evil man.

In another telegram to Holmes I told him that I had discovered who was to blame for her continuing disappearance. But instead of a reply I received this:

DESCRIBE DR SCHLESSINGER’S LEFT EAR, PLEASE. HOLMES.

Holmes’s little joke did not amuse me. In fact I was rather annoyed by it.

* * *

Next I went to Montpellier to see Marie Devine. She was very helpful. She had been fond of Lady Frances and completely loyal to her, she said, but recently Lady Frances had not been kind to her, and had even once accused her of stealing.

I asked her about the cheque for fifty pounds.

‘It was a present, sir,’ she replied. ‘I am going to be married soon.’

We then spoke of the strange Englishman.

‘Ah, he is a bad man, sir!’ said Marie. ‘A violent man. I myself have seen him seize Lady Frances by the wrist, and hurt her. It was by the lake at Lausanne, sir.’

Marie was sure that fear of this man was the cause of Lady Frances’s sudden journeys. The poor lady was trying to escape from him.

‘But look, sir!’ Marie suddenly said. ‘He’s out there - the man himself!’ She sounded frightened.

I looked out of the window. A very tall, dark man with a large black beard was walking slowly down the centre of the street, looking up at the numbers of the houses. It was clear that, like myself, he was looking for Marie. I ran out of the house and spoke to him angrily.

‘You are an Englishman,’ I said.

‘I don’t want to speak to you,’ he said rudely.

‘May I ask what your name is?’

‘No, you may not!’ he answered.

It was a difficult situation. The only way to deal with it was to use the direct method of shock.

‘Where is Lady Frances Carfax?’ I asked.

He looked at me in surprise.

‘What have you done with her?’ I continued. ‘Why have you been following her? I want an answer from you immediately!’

The man gave a shout of anger and jumped on me. I am not a weak man, but he was as strong as a horse. He fought like a devil, and soon his hands were round my throat. I was nearly unconscious when a French workman rushed out of a small hotel and saved me. He struck the Englishman on the arm with his stick: this made him loosen his hold on my throat. The wild man then stood near us for a moment, unable to decide whether to attack me again. Finally he turned angrily away and went into the house where Marie lived. I began to thank the kind Frenchman beside me.

‘Well, Watson,’ the “Frenchman” said, ‘you haven’t done very well this time! I think you had better come back with me to London by the night train.’

An hour later Sherlock Holmes, wearing his own clothes now, was with me in my private sitting room at my hotel.

‘I did not expect to be able to get away from London,’ he said, ‘but here I am after all!’

‘And how did you know that I would be here in Montpellier?’ I asked him.

‘It was easy to guess that Montpellier would be the next stage of your travels,’ Holmes said. ‘Since I arrived I have been sitting in that small hotel, waiting for you. And really, Watson, what a situation you have got into!’

‘Perhaps you would not have done any better yourself,’ I answered, annoyed.

‘I have done better, Watson!’

Just then one of the hotel servants brought somebody’s card in. Holmes looked at it.

‘Ah, here is Mr Philip Green. Mr Green is staying at this hotel, and he may be able to help us to find out what has happened to Lady Frances Carfax.’

The man who came in was the same violent person who had attacked me in the street. He did not look pleased when he saw me.

‘I received your letter, Mr Holmes,’ he said. ‘But why is this man here? In what way can he be connected with the affair?’

‘This is my old friend Dr Watson,’ replied Holmes. ‘He is helping us in this case.’

The stranger held out his large brown hand.

‘I am very sorry about what happened, Dr Watson,’ he said. ‘When you blamed me for hurting Frances I lost all my self- control. I am in a terrible state, you know. I don’t understand this affair at all. And, Mr Holmes, I don’t even know who told you of my existence!’

‘I have spoken to Miss Dobney, Lady Frances’s old nurse.’ Holmes said.

‘Old Susan Dobney with the funny hat!’ said Green. ‘I remember her well.’

‘And she remembers you. She knew you in the days before you went to South Africa.’

‘Ah, I see that you know my whole story. I will not hide anything from you, Mr Holmes. I have loved Frances all my life. When I was a young man I made a few mistakes and got into trouble. And she was always so pure and good! So when somebody told her how I was living, she refused to speak to me again. But she certainly loved me. She loved me well enough to remain single. I stayed in South Africa for many years, and I became rich there. When I came back to Europe, I decided to find her - to try to persuade her to marry me. I found her in Lausanne, and I think I almost persuaded her, but her will was strong. The next time I went to her hotel I was told that she had left town. I tracked her as far as Baden-Baden, and then after a time I learned that her servant was here. I am a rough sort of person; I have had a rough sort of life, and when Doctor Watson spoke to me as he did I became quite wild for a moment. But, Mr Holmes, tell me what has happened to Lady Frances!’

‘We will do our best to find that out,’ said Holmes in a serious voice. ‘What is your address in London, Mr Green?’

‘You can send letters or messages to the Langham Hotel.’

‘I think you should return to London,’ Holmes said. ‘I may need you. I promise you that everything possible will be done for the safety of Lady Frances. Here is my card with my address on it. Now, Watson, while you are packing your bag, I will send a telegram to Mrs Hudson. I will ask her to prepare a good dinner for two hungry travellers at half past seven tomorrow evening.’

* * *

At home the following evening, we found a telegram for Holmes on our table.

‘TORN, from injury’ was the message, which came from Baden-Baden.

‘What does this mean?’ I asked.

‘It is the answer to a question about Dr Schlessinger’s ear. You may remember my telegram. You did not answer it.’

‘I thought it was a joke.’

‘Really? Well, I sent the same message to the manager of the English Hotel. This telegram is his answer. An important answer, Watson - very important!’

‘What does it prove?’

‘It proves, my dear Watson, that we are dealing with a clever and dangerous man. His name is Henry Peters, or ‘Peters the Priest’, from Adelaide in Australia. He is one of the most evil men in the world, Watson. He is specially skilful at robbing lonely ladies by making use of their religious feelings. He is helped in this by a friend of his, a woman called Annie Fraser, who pretends to be his wife. I suspected that “Dr Schlessinger” was really Mr Peters. The matter of the torn ear makes it quite certain.’

‘And how did Peters the Priest get his torn ear?’ I asked.

‘He was hurt in a fight at an Adelaide hotel,’ Holmes replied. ‘It happened about six years ago. Well, Watson, poor Lady Frances is in the hands of a terrible pair. Perhaps she is already dead. In fact that is quite likely. If she is still alive, she is certainly a prisoner somewhere. She is unable to write letters to Miss Dobney or to anybody else. I believe that Lady Frances is here in London, where it is easy to keep a person a prisoner in complete secrecy. After dinner I will go along to Scotland Yard and speak to our friend Lestrade.’

But the police did not manage to discover anything. The three people we wanted to find had completely disappeared. We advertised in the newspapers, but that failed. The police watched all Peters the Priest’s old friends, but he did not visit them. And then, suddenly, after a week of waiting, something happened. A piece of old Spanish jewellery, made of silver and diamonds, had been received by a pawnbroker in Westminster Road. The man who brought it in was a large man who looked like a priest, and gave a name and address which were clearly false. The pawnbroker had not noticed his ear, but we were sure that the description was that of Peters the Priest.

Philip Green had already come to see us twice, anxiously hoping for news. The third time he came, we were able to tell him something at last.

‘Peters has taken some of Lady Frances’s jewellery to a pawnbroker’s shop,’ Holmes told him. ‘We are going to catch him now.’

‘But does this mean that any harm has come to Lady Frances?’ asked Green.

Holmes gave him a very serious look. ‘If Peters and Annie Fraser have kept her a prisoner until now, they cannot set her free without danger to themselves. I fear the worst, Mr Green.’

‘Please give me something to do, Mr Holmes!’ said Green.

‘Do these people know you?’ asked Holmes.

‘No.’

‘Peters will probably go back to the same pawnbroker’s when he needs money again. I will give you a letter to the pawnbroker, and he will let you wait in the shop. If Peters comes in, you must follow him home. But you must not let him see you. And of course you must not attack him. Please do nothing without telling me.’

* * *

For two days Green brought us no news. Then, on the evening of the third day, he rushed into our sitting room, pale and trembling with excitement.

‘We have caught him!’ he cried. ‘We have caught him!’

He was so excited that he could hardly speak. Holmes pushed him into an armchair.

‘Please, Mr Green,’ he said, ‘tell us what has happened.’

‘She came into the shop an hour ago. It was the wife this time, but the piece of jewellery she brought was just like the other. She is a tall, pale woman, with eyes like a rat’s.’

‘That is the woman,’ said Holmes.

‘She left the shop and I followed her. She walked up Kennington Road. Then she went into another shop. Mr Holmes, it was an undertaker’s!’

I could see the shock on Holmes’s face.

‘Go on,’ he said, forcing himself to speak calmly.

‘I went in too,’ said Green. ‘She was talking to the undertaker inside. I heard her say: ‘It is late.’ The undertaker replied: ‘It has probably arrived by now. It took longer than an ordinary one would take.’ Then they both stopped and looked at me. So I asked the undertaker the way to Waterloo Station and then left the shop.’

‘You have done well, Mr Green,’ said Holmes. ‘Very well! And what happened next?’

‘The woman came out. I had hidden in the doorway of another shop. I think she was suspicious of me, because I saw her looking round for me. Then she called a carriage and got in. I managed to get another and so to follow hers. She got out at 36 Poultney Square, in Brixton. I drove past, left the carriage at the corner of the square, and watched the house.’

‘Did you see anyone?’ asked Holmes.

‘There was only one light on, in a window on the ground floor. I could not see in. I was standing there, wondering what to do next, when a cart stopped outside the house. Two men got out, took something out of the cart, and carried it up the steps to the front door. Mr Holmes, it was a coffin!’

‘Ah!’

‘For a moment I thought of rushing into the house. The door had been opened to let in the men with the coffin. It was the woman who had opened it. But as I stood there, she saw me. I think she recognized me. I saw her face change, and she closed the door immediately. I remembered my promise to you, and here I am.’

‘You have done excellent work,’ said Holmes. He wrote a few words on a half-sheet of paper. ‘Please take this note to Mr Lestrade at Scotland Yard. We need to search the place and he will arrange everything. There may be some difficulty, but the matter of the jewellery is good enough proof of some crime, I think.’

‘But Frances may be murdered before then!’ said Green. ‘That coffin must surely be for her.’

‘We will do everything that can be done, Mr Green. We will not waste any time. Now, Watson,’ he said, as Green hurried away, ‘to me the situation seems so terrible that we must act now, without the help of the law. You and I are the unofficial police of London. We must go to Poultney Square immediately.’

When we were in the carriage, travelling at high speed over Westminster Bridge, Holmes gave me his views on Peters the Priest’s plans.

‘These evil people have persuaded this poor lady to dismiss her servant and to come to London with them. If she has written any letters, they have been stolen and destroyed. The criminals have rented a house. They have made her a prisoner, and now they have taken possession of her jewellery, the original reason for their interest in Lady Frances. Already they have begun to get money for it from the pawnbroker. They do not know that she has friends who are tracking them. They cannot set her free, and they cannot keep her a prisoner for ever. So they must kill her.’

‘That seems very clear,’ I said.

‘And the arrival of the coffin proves, I fear, that she is already dead. Oh, Watson, there is the undertaker’s, I think. Stop, driver! Will you go in, Watson? Ask the undertaker when the Poultney Square funeral is going to take place.’

The man in the shop told me that it was arranged for eight o’clock the next morning.

When I reported this to Holmes he looked unhappy.

‘I can’t understand it at all,’ he said. ‘Murderers usually bury the body in a hole in the back garden. These murderers seem to fear nothing! We must go forward and attack, Watson. Are you armed?’

‘I have my stick, at least.’

‘Well, well, we shall be strong enough. We simply cannot afford to wait for the police. Thank you, driver; you can go.’

Holmes rang the bell of a great dark house in the centre of Poultney Square. The door was opened immediately by a tall woman.

‘Well, what do you want?’ she said rudely.

‘I want to speak to Dr Schlessinger,’ said Holmes.

‘There is no Dr Schlessinger here,’ she answered. Then she tried to close the door, but Holmes had put his foot in the way.

‘Well, I want to see the man who lives here. I don’t care what he calls himself,’ he said firmly.

She thought for a moment. Then she pulled the door wide open.

‘Well, come in!’ she said. ‘My husband is not afraid to see any man in the world.’ She closed the door behind us, and took us into a sitting room on the right of the hall. Before she left us she turned up the gas light in the room. ‘Mr Peters will be with you soon,’ she said.

Almost immediately a man entered the dusty sitting room. Peters the Priest was a big man with a large fat red face, who would have looked pleasant if he had not had such a cruel mouth.

‘You have surely made a mistake, gentlemen,’ he said in an oily voice. ‘I think you have come to the wrong house. If you tried further down the street, perhaps ...’

‘You are wasting your breath,’ said my friend. ‘My name is Sherlock Holmes. You are Henry Peters, of Adelaide, formerly Dr Schlessinger of Baden-Baden and South America.’

‘I am not afraid of you, Mr Holmes. What is your business in my house?’

‘I want to know what you have done with Lady Frances Carfax, who came away with you from Baden-Baden.’

‘I would be very glad if you could tell me where she is.’ Peters answered calmly. ‘She borrowed nearly a hundred pounds from me, and has not paid it back. All I have until she pays her debt is some almost worthless jewellery. I paid her hotel bill at Baden-Baden and I bought her a ticket from there to London. We lost her at Victoria Station. If you can find her, Mr Holmes, I shall be very grateful to you.’

‘I am going to find her,’ said Sherlock Holmes. ‘I am going to search this house until I do find her.’

Holmes took out a gun from his pocket.

‘So you are a common thief!’ said Peters.

‘That is right. And my friend Watson is also a dangerous man. We are now going to search your house together.’

Peters opened the door.

‘Call a policeman, Annie!’ he called out.

We heard the woman run across the hall and go out through the front door.

‘We have very little time, Watson,’ said Holmes. ‘If you try to stop us, Peters, you will certainly get hurt. Where is the coffin that was brought into this house?’

‘Why do you want to look at the coffin?’ Peters asked. ‘It is in use. There is a body in it.’

‘I must see that body.’

‘I refuse to show it to you!’

But Holmes had pushed him out of the way. We went together into the next room. It was the dining room of the house. The gas light was burning low, but we saw the coffin immediately. It was on the table. Holmes turned up the gas and opened the coffin. Deep down at the bottom there was the body of a small, very thin, and very, very old woman. It was certainly not Lady Frances Carfax.

‘Thank God!’ whispered Holmes. ‘It is someone else.’

‘You have made a bad mistake, haven’t you, Mr Holmes?’ said Peters, who had followed us into the room.

‘Who is this dead woman?’ asked Holmes.

‘You have no right to ask, but I will tell you. She is my wife’s old nurse, Rose Spender. We found her in a hospital for old people in Brixton, and brought her here. We called in a Dr Horsom. Yes, please write down his address in your notebook, Mr Holmes! It is 13 Firbank Street. He took good care of her, but on the third day she died. She was ninety years old, after all. The funeral is to be at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. The undertaker is Mr Stimson, of Kennington Road.’

‘I am going to search your house;’ said Holmes.

‘I don’t think you are,’ said Peters, who had heard policemen in the hall. ‘Come in here, please!’ he called out to them. ‘These men are in my house without permission. Help me to get rid of them.’

Holmes took out one of his cards.

‘This is my name and address,’ he said to the policemen, ‘and this gentleman is my friend, Dr Watson.’

‘We know you very well, sir,’ said one of the policemen, ‘but you can’t stay here and search the house without a court order.’

‘Of course not. I realize that,’ said Holmes.

‘Take him to the police station!’ cried Peters.

‘We know where to find this gentleman if he is wanted,’ said the policeman in reply; ‘but you must go now, Mr Holmes. That is the law.’

We went next to the hospital in Brixton. There we were told that two kind people had claimed a dying woman as a former servant of theirs, and had received permission to take her away with them.

We then went to see Dr Horsom, who had looked after the old woman immediately before her death.

‘I was with her when she died,’ he told us. ‘Old age was the cause of death. There was nothing suspicious about it at all.’

‘Did you notice anything suspicious in the house?’ asked Holmes.

‘No. Only that Mr and Mrs Peters had no servants. That is unusual for people of their class.’

The doctor was unable to tell us anything more.

Finally we went to Scotland Yard. We were told that the court order allowing a search of the house would probably not be signed until next morning at about nine.

Sherlock Holmes did not go to bed that night. He smoked for hours, and wandered about the house. At twenty past seven in the morning he rushed into my room.

‘The funeral is at eight, Watson! It is 7.20 now. And my thoughts on the Carfax mystery have only just become clear! We must hurry. If we are too late ...’

In less than five minutes we were in a carriage. But it was twenty-five to eight as we went over Westminster Bridge, and ten past eight when we arrived in Poultney Square. Fortunately the undertaker’s men were also a little late, and we were in time to see them carrying the coffin out of the house. Holmes rushed forward.

‘Take that coffin back!’ he cried, putting his hand on the chest of the first man to push him back into the hall. ‘Take it back immediately!’

Then Peters appeared behind the coffin. His red face was very angry.

‘Mr Holmes, you have no right to give orders here!’ he shouted. ‘Show me your court order!’

‘It is on its way,’ Holmes answered. ‘This coffin must remain in the house until it comes.’

The firmness in Holmes’s voice had its effect on the undertaker’s men. Peters had suddenly disappeared, and they obeyed these new instructions.

They put the coffin back on the dining-room table. In less than a minute we had managed to open it. As we did so, a strong smell of chloroform came out. There was a body in the coffin. The head was wrapped in bandages, which were still wet with the chloroform. Holmes unwrapped the bandages and there was the face of an attractive middle-aged woman. He quickly lifted the body to a sitting position.

‘Is she alive, Watson? Surely we are not too late!’

For half an hour it seemed that we were. But in the end our efforts to bring the lady back to life were successful. Her breathing returned; her eyes began to open. A carriage had just arrived, and Holmes went to the window and looked out.

‘Here is Lestrade with his court order,’ he said. ‘But Peters the Priest and Annie Fraser have already escaped. And here is a man who has a better right to nurse this lady than we have! Good morning, Mr Green. I think Lady Frances should be taken away from here as soon as possible. Now the funeral may continue. The poor old woman at the bottom of that coffin can now be buried - alone!’

* * *

‘I have been very stupid, Watson,’ said Holmes that evening. ‘I knew that I had heard something important, but I did not know what it was until seven o’clock this morning. It was something the undertaker said to Annie Fraser. Our friend Green heard him say it. “It took longer,” the man said, “than an ordinary one would take of course he was talking about the coffin. It was an unusual one. Its measurements were not the ordinary ones. It had been made specially - but why? Why? Then I suddenly remembered the deep sides, and the thin little body at the bottom. Why had such a large coffin been made for such a small body?

‘There could be only one explanation. It was to leave room for another body: the body of Lady Frances Carfax.’

- THE END -

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