The Cas of Sherlock Holmes | Page 6

stands?"
"Porky Shinwell has been telling me. He's after some other poor fool
and wants to marry her this time. You want to stop it. Well, you surely
know enough about this devil to prevent any decent girl in her senses
wanting to be in the same parish with him."
"She is not in her senses. She is madly in love. She has been told all
about him. She cares nothing."
"Told about the murder?"
"Yes."
"My Lord, she must have a nerve!"
"She puts them all down as slanders."
"Couldn't you lay proofs before her silly eyes?"
"Well, can you help us do so?"
"Ain't I a proof myself? If I stood before her and told her how he used
me--"
"Would you do this?"
"Would I? Would I not!"
"Well, it might be worth trying. But he has told her most of his sins
and had pardon from her, and I understand she will not reopen the
question."
"I'll lay he didn't tell her all," said Miss Winter. "I caught a
glimpse of one or two murders besides the one that made such a fuss. He
would speak of someone in his velvet way and then look at me with a
steady eye and say: 'He died within a month.' It wasn't hot air,
either. But I took little notice--you see, I loved him myself at that
time. Whatever he did went with me, same as with this poor fool! There
was just one thing that shook me. Yes, by cripes! if it had not been
for his poisonous, lying tongue that explains and soothes. I'd have
left him that very night. It's a book he has--a brown leather book
with a lock, and his arms in gold on the outside. I think he was a bit
drunk that night, or he would not have shown it to me."
"What was it, then?"
"I tell you. Mr. Holmes. this man collects women, and takes a pride in
his collection. as some men collect moths or butterflies. He had it all
in that book. Snapshot photographs. names, details, everything about
them. It was a beastly book--a book no man, even if he had come from
the gutter, could have put together. But it was Adelbert Gruner's book
all the same. 'Souls I have ruined.' He could have put that on the
outside if he had been so minded. However, that's neither here nor
there, for the book would not serve you, and, if it would, you can't
get it."
"Where is it?"
"How can I tell you where it is now? It's more than a year since I left
him. I know where he kept it then. He's a precise, tidy cat of a man in
many of his ways, so maybe it is still in the pigeon-hole of the old
bureau in the inner study. Do you know his house?"
"I've been in the study," said Holmes.
"Have you. though? You haven't been slow on the job if you only started
this morning. Maybe dear Adelbert has met his match this time. The
outer study is the one with the Chinese crockery in it--big glass
cupboard between the windows. Then behind his desk is the door that
leads to the inner study--a small room where he keeps papers and
things."
"Is he not afraid of burglars?"
"Adelbert is no coward. His worst enemy couldn't say that of him. He
can look after himself. There's a burglar alarm at night. Besides, what
is there for a burglar--unless they got away with all this fancy
crockery?"
"No good," said Shinwell Johnson with the decided voice of the expert.
"No fence wants stuff of that sort that you can neither melt nor sell."
"Quite so," said Holmes. "Well, now, Miss Winter. if you would call
here tomorrow evening at five. I would consider in the meanwhile
whether your suggestion of seeing this lady personally may not be
arranged. I am exceedingly obliged to you for your cooperation. I need
not say that my clients will consider liberally--"
"None of that, Mr. Holmes," cried the young woman. "I am not out for
money. Let me see this man in the mud, and I've got all I've worked for
--in the mud with my foot on his cursed face. That's my price. I'm
with you tomorrow or any other day so long as you are on his track.
Porky here can tell you always where to find me."
I did not see Holmes again until the following evening when we dined
once more at our Strand restaurant. He shrugged his shoulders when I
asked him what luck he had had in his interview. Then he told the
story, which I would repeat in this way. His hard, dry statement needs
some little editing to soften it into the terms of real life.
"There was no difficulty at all about the appointment," said Holmes,
"for the girl glories in showing abject filial obedience in all
secondary things in an attempt to atone for her flagrant breach of it
in her engagement. The General phoned that all was ready, and the fiery
Miss W. turned up according to schedule, so that at half-past five a
cab deposited us outside 104 Berkeley Square, where the old