The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes

Chapter 174 The Last Greeting (17)
"Mr. Holmes," said the chaplain passionately, "the most tragic event, the most singular of which has ever been heard, happened last night. It so happens that you are here, and, thank God, you are the only person we need in all England. "

I looked at the pastor who broke in suddenly with unfriendly eyes.Holmes drew out his pipe and sat up straight in his armchair, as if a seasoned hound had heard it called.He pointed to the sofa with his finger.Our terrified visitor sat down next to his restless companion on the sofa.Mr. Mortimer Tregennis was in better control of his emotions than the clergyman, but the constant twitching of his bony hands and the gleam of his black eyes showed that there was no difference between them.

"I, or you?" he asked the pastor.

"Well, no matter what it is, it seems that you discovered it, and the pastor learned it from you. That's up to you," said Holmes.

The priest's clothes were put on hastily.His lodger, sitting next to him, was neatly dressed.I find it a little funny that Holmes' simple inference made them look surprised.

"Let me speak first," said the pastor. "After listening to what I have to say, you can see whether you want to hear Mr. Tregennis' details, or whether we should rush to the scene immediately. Let me explain, our The friend played cards last night with his two brothers, Owen and George, and sister Brenda at Terri Danick Vasa's house. The house is near a stone cross in the swamp. They played cards at the dinner table, spirit Well, in high spirits. He left them after ten o'clock. He was always up early. This morning, before breakfast, he walked in that direction. Dr. Richard's carriage drove up ahead of him. Dr. Richard said that he had just been asked to go to the emergency department in Tredanick Vassar. Mr. Mortimer Tregennis went with him. He arrived in Tredanick Vassar, and there was a shocking scene In front of him: his two brothers and sister still sitting at the table, the cards still in front of them as he had left, the bottom of the candlestick burned to the ground by the candle. The sister died on the chair, the two Brothers sat on either side of her, laughing and singing, going crazy. A dead woman and two crazy men—they all had a look of horror on their faces so hideous it was hard to look at. Except No one else has been there except Mrs. Porter, the old cook and housekeeper. Mrs. Porter said she slept soundly and heard nothing during the night. Nothing was stolen or turned over. What was it like It is inconceivable that fear can kill a woman, and drive two strong men mad. That is about it, Mr. Holmes, and if you can solve the case, you will be doing a great thing."

I was going to use some way to distract my companion and return to the purpose of our trip, to return to that calmness, but as soon as I saw his excited face and frowning, I knew my plan was in vain up.He sat for a while without saying a word, contemplating the case that had broken our tranquility.

"Let me ponder," he said at last, "the case appears to be of an unusual character. Have you been there, Mr. Roundhay?"

"No, Mr. Holmes. Mr. Tregennis went back to the vicarage to speak of the matter, and I came here with him at once."

"How far is the tragedy from here?"

"About a mile inland."

"Then let us go together. But before we go, Mr. Mortimer Tregennis, I need to ask you a few questions."

Tregennis remained silent.However, I could see that he was trying to suppress his inner excitement.He sat there with a pale face and furrowed brows, watching Holmes with uneasiness in his eyes, and his two thin hands tremblingly clasped together.When he was listening to the horrific experience of his family, his pale lips trembled, and his black eyes seemed to express his fear of the scene.

"Ask any questions you may have, Mr. Holmes," said he. "It is an unlucky thing to say, but I will answer them truthfully."

"Tell me about last night."

"Yes, Mr. Holmes. I dined there, and my brother George suggested a game of whist, as the vicar said. We sat down to play cards about nine o'clock. It was a quarter past ten when I left. I When they left, they were all gathered around the table, in high spirits."

"Who opened the door for you?"

"Mrs. Potter is asleep. I opened the door myself. I closed the door. The windows of their room are closed, and the shutters are not down. I went to see them this morning. The doors and windows are still the same, and there is no sign that outsiders have entered." .but they're still sitting there, some freaked out, Brenda dead, with her head slumped on the arm of the chair. I can never get that room out of my mind unless I died."

"The circumstances you describe are very curious," said Holmes. "I do not suppose that you yourself can give any reason for them?"

"The devil, Mr. Holmes, it's the devil!" cried Mortimer Tregennis. "That's not a thing of this world. Something came into that room and extinguished the fires of their minds. What can a human being have?" power to do this?"

"I am afraid," said Holmes, "that if the matter is not within the reach of man, it is beyond my reach. But before we are compelled to believe in the theory, we must try our best to find a scientific explanation. They live together, and you yourself live elsewhere, Mr. Tregennis, are you separated from them?"

"Yes, Mr. Holmes, though the matter is over and over. We were tin miners and lived at Redruth, but we have sold this adventurous enterprise to a company, and we have given up the business. , so I still have plenty of money. I admit that we had some conflicts for a while because of money sharing, but this has been forgiven and I didn’t keep it in mind. Now we are good friends.”

"Recall the evening you spent together. Is there anything left to illustrate the tragedy? Think carefully, Mr. Tregennis, for any clue would be helpful to me."

"No, sir."

"Is your loved one in a normal mood?"

"Very normal."

"Are they a little neurotic? Is there any apprehension that suggests danger is going to happen?"

"No."

"Don't you have any information to help me?"

Mortimer Tregennis thought hard for a while.

"One thing comes to mind," he said, "when we were sitting at the table, my back was to the window, and my brother George and I were cardmates, and he was facing the window. Once I saw him keep looking over my back, so I also turned my head to look. The shutters were not down, the window was closed, and there seemed to be something moving in the bushes on the grass. I wasn't sure if it was a human or an animal, but I thought there was something there. I asked him Looking at something, he said it was the same as I felt. That's all I can say."

"Have you checked it out?"

"No, I didn't take it to heart."

"And then you left them without any omens?"

"Not at all."

"I don't understand how you got the news so early this morning."

"I'm used to getting up early, and I usually go for a walk before breakfast. The doctor came this morning before I had time to go for a walk. He told me that old Mrs. Potter had sent him an urgent message from a boy. I got into the carriage. , sat next to him, and we were on our way. When we got there, we looked into the horrible room. The candles and fire had been burned out hours ago. The three of them should have been sitting in the dark till daybreak. The doctor said Brenda had been dead for at least six hours with no signs of violence. She was leaning on the arm of the chair with a horrified look on her face. George and Owen were rapping and singing something, like Two gorillas. Oh, that was a horrible scene! I couldn't bear it. The doctor's face was white as a sheet of paper, and he was a little dizzy, and he fell on the chair, and almost asked us to attend to him."

"Strange, very strange!" said Holmes, standing up and taking up his hat. "It seems to me that we had better go to Terry Dannick Vassar and set off at once. I admit that the first thing is so strange. I have seldom come across a case with such a problem.”

Our first morning operation went nowhere.It is worth mentioning, however, that when I first began my investigation, an accident made an ominous impression on my mind.On our way to the scene of the crime, in a narrow winding country lane, we heard a wagon creaking towards us just as we were going, and we stopped by the side of the road to let it pass.As the carriage passed, I saw through the closed window a horribly distorted grinning face staring at us, its wide eyes and clenched teeth flashing past us like a terrible phantom.

"That's my brothers!" cried Mortimer Tregennis, his lips turning white. "This is sending them to Helston."

With horror, we watched the black carriage go away.Then we turned and walked towards the haunted house where their misfortune had happened.

It was a bright, large cottage, not a village house.There is a large garden, which is in full bloom in the Cornish climate.The window of the living room looked on to the garden.According to Mortimer Tregennis, that fiendish thing must have appeared in the garden and frightened the brothers into foolishness.Holmes walked in the garden thinking, and followed the path, until we entered the porch.I remember, he was so absorbed that he tripped over the watering can.The water from the kettle poured out and wet our feet and the garden path.Entering the house, we met Mrs. Porter, Cornish's old housekeeper, and a little girl helped her with housework.Mrs. Potter readily answered Holmes' question.At night, she heard nothing.Her employer has been in a good mood lately.This morning, when she walked into the house and saw the horrific sight, she fainted with fright.When she awoke, she opened the window to let in the morning air, and then ran out into the alley to send a village boy to the doctor.The dead woman was lying upstairs on the bed.It took four strong men to put the two brothers into the carriage bound for the mental hospital.She did not want to stay in the house another day, and was going back to St. Ives that afternoon to join her family.

We went upstairs and looked at the body.Miss Brenda Tregennis, though approaching middle age, was still very pretty.Even though the person is dead, the face is still beautiful, but there is a kind of frightened expression on it.Leaving her bedroom, we descended to the living room where the tragedy took place.Charcoal from the previous night remained in the grate.There were four burnt candles on the table, and the table was strewn with playing cards.The chairs have been moved to lean against the wall, and everything is still the same as the night before.Holmes paced softly up and down the room.He sat in each of the three chairs, moved them and put them back again.He tested how far he could see the garden, then checked the floor, ceiling, and fireplace.However, every time I didn't see his expression with shining eyes and tight lips.Whenever this expression appeared, I would know that he had found a ray of light in the darkness.

"Why a fire?" he asked once. "Do they always have a fire in this cabin on spring evenings?"

Mortimer Tregennis explained that the night was cold and wet, so he built the fire when he arrived. "What are you going to do now, Mr. Holmes?" he asked.

My friend smiled, and put his hand on my arm. "I think, Watson, that I need to study tobacco poisoning, which you so often and quite rightly accuse," he said. "Gentlemen, if you agree, we Going back to our lodgings now, as I don't think there will be any new leads here worth our attention. I'm going to think about all the circumstances, Mr. Tregennis, and I'll let you and the priest know as soon as I have news. .Now, good morning to you all."

The silence was broken by Holmes not long after we had returned to the Villa at Porto Bay.He was curled up in the armchair, smoking a cigarette, the smoke almost covering his haggard serious face.He frowned, his eyes blank.At last he put down his pipe and stood up.

"That won't work, Watson!" he said, laughing. "Let's walk along the cliff together and look for flint arrows. I'd rather look for flint arrows than to find a clue to this problem. I don't have enough material to use my brains. It would seem wasteful to let an engine idle. With sea air, sunshine, and patience, Watson, everything else will come."

"Let us now analyze our situation soberly, Watson," he went on, as we walked along the precipice, "that we must hold fast to what we have so that, should new circumstances arise, we First of all, I don't think you or I will believe that the devil haunts the world. We should completely eliminate this idea before we start our investigation. Yes, there is sufficient evidence that three people were killed Some serious attack by human action, whether intentional or not. When, then? If what Mr. Mortimer Tregennis said is true, it apparently happened shortly after he left the room Yes. This is very crucial. Assuming it was within a few minutes of his departure, because the cards were still on the table, they didn't change their positions, they didn't push the chairs under the table, and the usual bedtime was past. No Wrong, it should have happened shortly after he left, no later than eleven o'clock last night.

"Our next step is to try to find out where Mr. Mortimer Tregennis has gone since he left. There is no great difficulty in that, and there is nothing to suspect. My methods are well known to you. Of course you have seen my clumsiness." The reason why I tripped over the watering pot. In this way, I got his footprints on the wet muddy path, which was much clearer than the footprints obtained by other methods. Wonderful, you remember that last night was also wet, and there was It was not difficult to discern his whereabouts from the footprints of others, and thus understand his movements. It seems that he walked in the direction of the vicarage.

"If Mortimer Tregennis was not there, and someone outside alarmed the card players, how were we to find him? How did that feeling of terror come about? Mrs. Potter Clearly innocent. Is there any evidence that someone climbed on the garden window and somehow created a horrific effect that would drive anyone who saw him crazy? The only thought on the subject is mo Timo Tregennis himself brought it up. He said his brother saw movement in the garden. It was strange, because it was rainy and cloudy that night, and it was dark. It was necessary to press his face against the glass before others found him, but no trace of footprints was found. It is unimaginable how someone outside could make several people in the house feel so terrible; and this painstaking effort What is the purpose of this move? Do you see the difficulty we face, Watson?"

"The difficulty at hand is all too clear," I replied with certainty.

"However, a few more clues may prove that these difficulties are not insurmountable," said Holmes. "I suspect, Watson, that you may have, in your extensive case, a case which is almost indistinct. Now, let's put this case aside and wait until we have more definite clues. There is still a little time in the morning, so let's track down the Neolithic people."

I wanted to speak of the tenacity with which my friend concentrates on a problem, but on this Cornish spring morning he talked for two full hours of stone chisels, arrowheads, and broken china with such ease that it seemed There seemed to be no sinister secret waiting for him to investigate, which surprised me.We did not return to our lodging until the afternoon, and a visitor was already waiting for us.He immediately brought our thoughts back to the matter we were about to investigate.We all know who this visitor is, tall, with a serious, wrinkled face with fierce eyes, a hooked nose, gray hair that almost reaches the ceiling, and a blond beard , and a white beard near the smoke-stained lips, all this is as well known in London as in Africa, and only brings to mind the great lion-hunter and explorer Leon A tall figure of Dr. Sterndale.

We had heard of his coming to this part of the country, and once or twice had seen his tall figure in the country road.We don't have much contact with each other, because everyone knows that he likes to be reclusive.During the intervals between his travels, he lived mostly in a small bungalow in the forest of Buchamp-Arans, buried alone among the piles of books and maps, devoted to satisfying his simple desires, and never caring about his neighbors. things.I was therefore very surprised to hear him inquiring in a tone of enthusiasm whether Holmes had made any progress in the curious case. "There's nothing the county police can do about it," he said, "but your experience may have found some conceivable explanation. I hope you consider me a confidant, because I live here often, to Tregennis. The family is very understanding. To be honest, my mother is from Cornish, and they are my distant relatives from my mother. I was shocked to hear the news of their tragedy. I can tell you that I was I’m going to Africa, and I’ve already arrived in Plymouth. After getting the news this morning, I hurried back.”

(End of this chapter)