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“The case worried me at the time, Watson. Here are my
marginal notes to prove it. I confess that I could make nothing of it. And yet I was
convinced that the coroner was wrong. Have you no recollection of the Abbas Parva
tragedy?”
“None, Holmes.”
“And yet you were with me then. But certainly my own
impression was very superficial. For there was nothing to go by, and none of the parties
had engaged my services. Perhaps you would care to read the papers?”
“Could you not give me the points?”
“That is very easily done. It will probably come back to
your memory as I talk. Ronder, of course, was a household word. He was the rival of
Wombwell, and of Sanger, one of the greatest showmen of his day. There is evidence,
however, that he took to drink, and that both he and his show were on the down grade at
the time of the great tragedy. The caravan had halted for the night at Abbas Parva, which
is a small village in Berkshire, when this horror occurred. They were on their way to
Wimbledon, travelling by road, and they were simply camping and not exhibiting, as the
place is so small a one that it would not have paid them to open.
“They had among their exhibits a very fine North African
lion. Sahara King was its name, and it was the habit, both of Ronder and his wife, to give
exhibitions inside its cage. Here, you see, is a photograph of the performance by which
you will perceive that Ronder was a huge porcine person and that his wife was a very
magnificent woman. It was deposed at the inquest that there had been some signs that the
lion was dangerous, but, as usual, familiarity begat contempt, and no notice was taken of
the fact.
“It was usual for either Ronder or his wife to feed the
lion at night. Sometimes one went, sometimes both, but they never allowed anyone else to
do it, for they believed that so long as they were the food-carriers he would regard them
as benefactors and would never molest them. On this particular night, seven years ago,
they both went, and a very terrible happening followed, the details of which have never
been made clear.
“It seems that the whole camp was roused near midnight by
the roars of the animal and the screams of the woman. The different grooms and employees
rushed from their tents, carrying lanterns, and by their light an awful sight was
revealed. Ronder lay, with the back of his head crushed in and deep claw-marks across his
scalp, some ten yards from the cage, which was open. Close to the door of the cage lay
Mrs. Ronder upon her back, with the creature squatting and snarling above her. It had torn
her face in such a fashion that it was never thought that she could live. Several of the
circus men, headed by Leonardo, the strong man, and Griggs, the clown, drove the creature
off with poles, upon which it sprang back into the cage and was at once locked in. How it
had got loose was a mystery. It was conjectured that the pair intended to enter the cage,
but that when the door was loosed the creature bounded out upon them. There was no other
point of interest in the evidence save that the woman in a delirium of agony kept
screaming, ‘Coward! Coward!’ as she was carried back to the van in which they
lived. It was six months before she was fit to give evidence, but the inquest was duly
held, with the obvious verdict of death from misadventure.”
[1098] “What
alternative could be conceived?” said I.
“You may well say so. And yet there were one or two
points which worried young Edmunds, of the Berkshire Constabulary. A smart lad that! He
was sent later to Allahabad. That was how I came into the matter, for he dropped in and
smoked a pipe or two over it.”
“A thin, yellow-haired man?”
“Exactly. I was sure you would pick up the trail
presently.”
“But what worried him?”
“Well, we were both worried. It was so deucedly difficult
to reconstruct the affair. Look at it from the lion’s point of view. He is liberated.
What does he do? He takes half a dozen bounds forward, which brings him to Ronder. Ronder
turns to fly–the claw-marks were on the back of his head–but the lion strikes
him down. Then, instead of bounding on and escaping, he returns to the woman, who was
close to the cage, and he knocks her over and chews her face up. Then, again, those cries
of hers would seem to imply that her husband had in some way failed her. What could the
poor devil have done to help her? You see the difficulty?”
“Quite.”
“And then there was another thing. It comes back to me
now as I think it over. There was some evidence that just at the time the lion roared and
the woman screamed, a man began shouting in terror.”
“This man Ronder, no doubt.”
“Well, if his skull was smashed in you would hardly
expect to hear from him again. There were at least two witnesses who spoke of the cries of
a man being mingled with those of a woman.”
“I should think the whole camp was crying out by then. As
to the other points, I think I could suggest a solution.”
“I should be glad to consider it.”
“The two were together, ten yards from the cage, when the
lion got loose. The man turned and was struck down. The woman conceived the idea of
getting into the cage and shutting the door. It was her only refuge. She made for it, and
just as she reached it the beast bounded after her and knocked her over. She was angry
with her husband for having encouraged the beast’s rage by turning. If they had faced
it they might have cowed it. Hence her cries of ‘Coward!’ ”
“Brilliant, Watson! Only one flaw in your diamond.”
“What is the flaw, Holmes?”
“If they were both ten paces from the cage, how came the
beast to get loose?”
“Is it possible that they had some enemy who loosed
it?”
“And why should it attack them savagely when it was in
the habit of playing with them, and doing tricks with them inside the cage?”
“Possibly the same enemy had done something to enrage
it.”
Holmes looked thoughtful and remained in silence for some
moments.
“Well, Watson, there is this to be said for your theory.
Ronder was a man of many enemies. Edmunds told me that in his cups he was horrible. A huge
bully of a man, he cursed and slashed at everyone who came in his way. I expect those
cries about a monster, of which our visitor has spoken, were nocturnal reminiscences of
the dear departed. However, our speculations are futile until we have all the facts. There
is a cold partridge on the sideboard, Watson, and a bottle of Montrachet. Let us renew our
energies before we make a fresh call upon them.”
When our hansom deposited us at the house of Mrs. Merrilow, we
found that [1099] plump
lady blocking up the open door of her humble but retired abode. It was very clear that her
chief preoccupation was lest she should lose a valuable lodger, and she implored us,
before showing us up, to say and do nothing which could lead to so undesirable an end.
Then, having reassured her, we followed her up the straight, badly carpeted staircase and
were shown 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 woman
seemed, by some retribution of fate, to have become herself a beast in a cage. She sat now
in a broken armchair in the shadowy corner of the room. Long years of inaction had
coarsened the lines of her figure, but at some period it must have been beautiful, and was
still full and voluptuous. A thick dark veil covered her face, but it was cut off close at
her upper lip and disclosed a perfectly shaped mouth and a delicately rounded chin. I
could well conceive that she had indeed been a very remarkable woman. Her voice, too, was
well modulated and pleasing.
“My name is not unfamiliar to you, Mr. Holmes,” said
she. “I thought that it would bring you.”
“That is so, madam, though I do not know how you are
aware that I was interested in your case.”
“I learned it when I had recovered my health and was
examined by 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
know that he was a very worthless being, and yet I would not have his destruction 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 you
know?”
“Because there is another person to be considered. That
other person is myself. I could not stand the scandal and publicity which would come from
a police examination. I have not long to live, but I wish to die undisturbed. And yet I
wanted to find one man of judgment to whom I could tell my terrible story, so that when I
am gone all might be understood.”
“You compliment me, madam. At the same time, I am a
responsible person. I do not promise you that when you have spoken I may not myself think
it my duty to refer the case to the police.”
“I think not, Mr. Holmes. I know your character and
methods too well, for I have followed your work for some years. Reading is the only
pleasure which fate has left me, and I miss little which passes in the world. But in any
case, I will take my chance of the use which 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 a man.
He was clearly a professional acrobat, a man of magnificent physique, taken with his huge
arms folded across his swollen chest and a smile breaking from under his heavy
moustache–the self-satisfied smile of the man of many conquests.
“That is Leonardo,” she said.
“Leonardo, the strong man, who gave evidence?”
[1100] “The
same. And this–this is my husband.”
It was a dreadful face–a human pig, or rather a human
wild boar, for it was formidable in its bestiality. One could imagine that vile mouth
champing and foaming in its rage, and one could conceive those small, vicious eyes darting
pure malignancy as they looked forth upon the world. Ruffian, bully, beast–it was all
written on that heavy-jowled face.
“Those two pictures will help you, gentlemen, to
understand the story. I was a poor circus girl brought up on the sawdust, and doing
springs through the hoop before I was ten. When I became a woman 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 in hell, and he the devil who tormented me. There was no one in the show who did
not know of his treatment. He deserted me for others. He tied me down and lashed me with
his riding-whip when I complained. They all pitied me and they all loathed him, but what
could they do? They feared him, one and all. For he was terrible at all times, and
murderous when he was drunk. Again and again he was had up for assault, and for cruelty to
the beasts, but he had plenty of money and the fines were nothing to him. The best men all
left us, and the show began to go downhill. It was only Leonardo and I who kept it
up– with little Jimmy Griggs, the clown. Poor devil, he had not much to be funny
about, but he did what he could to hold things together.
“Then Leonardo came more and more into my life. You see
what he was like. I know now the poor spirit that was hidden in that splendid body, but
compared to my husband he seemed like the angel Gabriel. He pitied me and helped me, till
at last our intimacy turned to love–deep, deep, passionate love, such love as I had
dreamed of but never hoped to feel. My husband suspected it, but I think that he was a
coward as well as a bully, and that Leonardo was the one man that he was afraid of. He
took revenge in his own way by torturing me more than ever. One night my cries brought
Leonardo 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
planned it. I do not say that to blame him, for I was ready to go with him every inch of
the way. But I should never have had the wit to think of such a plan. We made a club–
Leonardo made it–and in the leaden head he fastened five long steel nails, the points
outward, with just such a spread as the lion’s paw. This was to give my husband his
death-blow, and yet to leave the evidence that it was the lion which we would loose who
had done the deed.
“It was a pitch-dark night when my husband and I went
down, as was our custom, to feed the beast. We carried with us the raw meat in a zinc
pail. Leonardo was waiting at the corner of the big van which we should have to pass
before we reached the cage. He was too slow, and we walked past him before he could
strike, but he followed us on tiptoe and I heard the crash as the club smashed my
husband’s skull. My heart leaped with joy at the sound. I sprang forward, and I undid
the catch which held the door of the great lion’s cage.
“And then the terrible thing happened. You may have
heard how quick these creatures are to scent human blood, and how it excites them. Some
strange instinct had told the creature in one instant that a human being had been slain.
As I slipped the bars it bounded out and was on me in an instant. Leonardo could have
saved me. If he had rushed forward and struck the beast with his club he might have [1101] cowed it. But the man lost his
nerve. I heard him shout in his terror, and then I saw him turn and fly. At the same
instant the teeth of the lion met in my face. Its hot, filthy breath had already poisoned
me and I was hardly conscious of pain. With the palms of my hands I tried to push the
great steaming, blood-stained jaws away from me, and I screamed for help. I was conscious
that the camp was stirring, and then dimly I remembered a group of men. Leonardo, Griggs,
and others, dragging me from under the creature’s paws. That was my last memory, Mr.
Holmes, for many a weary month. When I came to myself and saw myself in the mirror, I
cursed that lion–oh, how I cursed him! –not because he had torn away my beauty
but because he had not torn away my life. I had but one desire, Mr. Holmes, and I had
enough money to gratify it. It was that I should cover myself so that my poor face should
be seen by none, and that I should dwell where none whom I had ever known should find me.
That was all that was left to me to do–and that is what I have done. A poor wounded
beast that has crawled into its hole to die–that is the end of Eugenia Ronder.”
We sat in silence for some time after the unhappy woman had
told her story. Then Holmes stretched out his long arm and patted her hand with such a
show of sympathy as I had seldom known him to exhibit.
“Poor girl!” he said. “Poor girl! The ways of
fate are indeed hard to understand. If there is not some compensation hereafter, then the
world is a cruel jest. But what of this man Leonardo?”
“I never saw him or heard from him again. Perhaps I have
been wrong to feel so bitterly against him. He might as soon have loved one of the freaks
whom we carried round the country as the thing which the lion had left. But a woman’s
love is not so easily set aside. He had left me under the beast’s claws, he had
deserted me in my need, and yet I could not bring myself to give him to the gallows. For
myself, I cared nothing what became of me. What could be more dreadful than my actual
life? But I stood between Leonardo and his fate.”
“And he is dead?”
“He was drowned last month when bathing near Margate. I
saw his death in the paper.”
“And what did he do with this five-clawed club, which is
the most singular and ingenious part of all your story?”
“I cannot tell, Mr. Holmes. There is a chalk-pit by the
camp, with a deep green pool at the base of it. Perhaps in the depths of that pool–
–”
“Well, well, it is of little consequence now. The case is
closed.”
“Yes,” said the woman, “the case is
closed.”
We had risen to go, but there was something in the
woman’s voice which arrested Holmes’s attention. He turned swiftly upon her.
“Your life is not your own,” he said. “Keep
your hands off it.”
“What use is it to anyone?”
“How can you tell? The example of patient suffering is in
itself the most precious of all lessons to an impatient world.”
The woman’s answer was a terrible one. She raised her
veil and stepped forward into the light.
“I wonder if you would bear it,” she said.
It was horrible. No words can describe the framework of a face
when the face itself is gone. Two living and beautiful brown eyes looking sadly out from
that [1102] grisly ruin did
but make the view more awful. Holmes held up his hand in a gesture of pity and protest,
and together we left the room.
Two days later, when I called upon my friend, he pointed
with some pride to a small blue bottle upon his mantelpiece. I picked it up. There was a
red poison label. A pleasant almondy odour rose when I opened it.
“Prussic acid?” said I.
“Exactly. It came by post. ‘I send you my
temptation. I will follow your advice.’ That was the message. I think, Watson, we can
guess the name of the brave woman who sent it.”
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