The Adventure at Baskerville Hall & Other Cases

smiled enigmatically but, to one who knew him as I did, it was clear that a sea-change had come over him: somehow he had tied up the last loose ends and found the solution to the mystery. "Well, good morning, Mrs. Maberley. I trust that you will feel better soon. I will drop you a line in the evening, when I hope that I will be able to set your mind completely at rest."
    * * * *
    "Now, Watson, we are at the last lap of our little journey," said Holmes when we were back in the roar of central London once more. "I think we had best clear the matter up at once, and it would be well that you should come with me, for it is safer to have a witness when you are dealing with such a lady as Isadora Klein."
    We had taken a cab and were speeding to an address in Grosvenor Square through the brown slush that was the swift fate of any snow to fall on this dirty city. Holmes had been sunk in thought, but he roused himself suddenly.
    "By the way, Watson, I suppose you see it all clearly?"
    I had to confess that I did not, but gamely said that I supposed that we were going to see the lady to whom Susan had referred the previous morning, the lady who was behind all this.
    Holmes looked as though he were barely suppressing a scathing comment at my failure to draw the correct conclusions from available facts, but contented himself with a brief explanation.
    "Isadora Klein is, of course, a celebrated beauty. There was never a woman to touch her. She is pure Spanish, the real blood of the masterful Conquistadors, and her people have been leaders in Pernambuco for generations. She married the aged German sugar king, Klein, and presently found herself the richest as well as the loveliest widow upon earth. Then there was an interval of adventure when she pleased her own tastes. She had several lovers, and Douglas Maberley, one of the most striking men in Rome, was one of them. It was by all accounts more than an adventure with him. He was not a society butterfly but a man who gave and expected all. But she is the 'belle dame sans merci' of fiction. When her caprice is satisfied the matter is ended, and if the other party in the matter can't take her word for it she knows how to bring it home to him."
    "Then that was his own story–"
    "Ah! You are piecing it together now. I hear that she is about to marry the young Duke of Lomond, who might almost be her son. His Grace's ma might overlook the age, but a big scandal would be a different matter, so it is imperative that– Ah! Here we are."
    It was one of the finest corner-houses of the West End. A machine-like footman took up our cards and returned with word that the lady was not at home.
    "Then we shall wait until she is," said Holmes cheerfully.
    The machine broke down.
    "Not at home means not at home to you ," said the footman.
    "Good," Holmes answered. "That means that we shall not have to wait. Kindly give this note to your mistress."
    He scribbled three or four words upon a sheet of his notebook, folded it, and handed it to the man.
    "What did you say, Holmes?" I asked.
    "I simply wrote: 'Shall it be the police, then?' I think that should pass us in."
    It did – with amazing celerity.
    The rest of the story is easily told.
    As Holmes had suspected since his meeting with Langdale Pike last night, it was indeed Isadora Klein who had hired Barney's Stockdale's gang to break into Mrs. Maberley's house. She had had a brief affair with Douglas Maberley and, when it ended, he had written a manuscript that clearly depicted himself as the injured party and left little doubt as to the identity of the beautiful, heartless woman who had cast him off. In an unusual display of cruelty, he had sent one copy of the manuscript to her and kept one for himself, with the intention of submitting it to a publisher when he arrived back in England. As Holmes had been on the point of telling me in the cab, the publication of such a novel would have caused a dreadful scandal and rendered the lady's forthcoming, highly advantageous, marriage impossible.
    When the tale was told, and she had shown us that the manuscript was well and truly burned to a cinder in her fireplace, Holmes had shrugged before coolly requesting a cheque for five thousand pounds from her. My eyes widened at the sum he named, for all that I agreed wholeheartedly that Mrs. Maberley deserved a first-class trip around the world after all she had undergone. Isadora Klein merely regarded Holmes for a long moment before walking to her desk and