His Last Bow

His Last Bow
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
1917

Contents
The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge
The Adventure of the Cardboard Box
The Adventure of the Red Circle
The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
The Adventure of the Dying Detective
The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax
The Adventure of the Devils Foot
His Last Bow

The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge
1. The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles
I find it recorded in my notebook that it was a bleak and windy day
towards the end of March in the year 1892. Holmes had received a
telegram while we sat at our lunch, and he had scribbled a reply. He

made no remark, but the matter remained in his thoughts, for he stood
in front of the fire afterwards with a thoughtful face, smoking his pipe,
and casting an occasional glance at the message. Suddenly he turned
upon me with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
"I suppose, Watson, we must look upon you as a man of letters," said
he. "How do you define the word 'grotesque'?"
"Strange--remarkable," I suggested.
He shook his head at my definition.
"There is surely something more than that," said he; "some underlying
suggestion of the tragic and the terrible. If you cast your mind back to
some of those narratives with which you have afflicted a long-suffering
public, you will recognize how often the grotesque has deepened into
the criminal. Think of that little affair of the red-headed men. That was
grotesque enough in the outset, and yet it ended in a desperate attempt
at robbery. Or, again, there was that most grotesque affair of the five
orange pips, which let straight to a murderous conspiracy. The word
puts me on the alert."
"Have you it there?" I asked.
He read the telegram aloud.
"Have just had most incredible and grotesque experience. May I
consult you?
"Scott Eccles, "Post Office, Charing Cross."
"Man or woman?" I asked.
"Oh, man, of course. No woman would ever send a reply-paid telegram.
She would have come."
"Will you see him?"
"My dear Watson, you know how bored I have been since we locked up

Colonel Carruthers. My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to
pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was
built. Life is commonplace, the papers are sterile; audacity and
romance seem to have passed forever from the criminal world. Can you
ask me, then, whether I am ready to look into any new problem,
however trivial it may prove? But here, unless I am mistaken, is our
client."
A measured step was heard upon the stairs, and a moment later a stout,
tall, gray-whiskered and solemnly respectable person was ushered into
the room. His life history was written in his heavy features and
pompous manner. From his spats to his gold-rimmed spectacles he was
a Conservative, a churchman, a good citizen, orthodox and
conventional to the last degree. But some amazing experience had
disturbed his native composure and left its traces in his bristling hair,
his flushed, angry cheeks, and his flurried, excited manner. He plunged
instantly into his business.
"I have had a most singular and unpleasant experience, Mr. Holmes,"
said he. "Never in my life have I been placed in such a situation. It is
most improper--most outrageous. I must insist upon some explanation."
He swelled and puffed in his anger.
"Pray sit down, Mr. Scott Eccles," said Holmes in a soothing voice.
"May I ask, in the first place, why you came to me at all?"
"Well, sir, it did not appear to be a matter which concerned the police,
and yet, when you have heard the facts, you must admit that I could not
leave it where it was. Private detectives are a class with whom I have
absolutely no sympathy, but none the less, having heard your name--"
"Quite so. But, in the second place, why did you not come at once?"
Holmes glanced at his watch.
"It is a quarter-past two," he said. "Your telegram was dispatched about
one. But no one can glance at your toilet and attire without seeing that
your disturbance dates from the moment of your waking."

Our client smoothed down his unbrushed hair and felt his unshaven
chin.
"You are right, Mr. Holmes. I never gave a thought to my toilet. I was
only too glad to get out of such a house. But I have been running round
making inquiries before I came to you. I went to the house agents, you
know, and they said that Mr. Garcia's rent was paid up all right and that
everything was in order at Wisteria Lodge."
"Come, come, sir," said Holmes, laughing. "You are like my friend, Dr.
Watson, who has a bad habit of telling