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=====The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger=====
===Sir Arthur Conan Doyle===

When one considers that Mr. Sherlock Holmes was in active practice for
twenty-three years, and that during seventeen of these I was allowed to
cooperate with him and to keep notes of his doings, it will be clear
that I have a mass of material at my command. The problem has always
been not to find but to choose. There is the long row of year-books
which fill a shelf and there are the dispatch-cases filled with
documents, a perfect quarry for the student not only of crime but of
the social and official scandals of the late Victorian era. Concerning
these latter, I may say that the writers of agonized letters, who beg
that the honour of their families or the reputation of famous forebears
may not be touched, have nothing to fear. The discretion and high sense
of professional honour which have always distinguished my friend are
still at work in the choice of these memoirs, and no confidence will be
abused. I deprecate, however, in the strongest way the attempts which
have been made lately to get at and to destroy these papers. The source
of these outrages is known, and if they are repeated I have Mr.
Holmes's authority for saying that the whole story concerning the
politician, the lighthouse, and the trained cormorant will be given to
the public. There is at least one reader who will understand.

It is not reasonable to suppose that every one of these cases gave
Holmes the opportunity of showing those curious gifts of instinct and
observation which I have endeavoured to set forth in these memoirs.
Sometimes he had with much effort to pick the fruit, sometimes it fell
easily into his lap. But the most terrible human tragedies were often
involved in those cases which brought him the fewest personal
opportunities, and it is one of these which I now desire to record. In
telling it, I have made a slight change of name and place, but
otherwise the facts are as stated.

One forenoon---it was late in 1896---I received a hurried note from
Holmes asking for my attendance. When I arrived I found him seated in a
smoke-laden atmosphere, with an elderly, motherly woman of the buxom
landlady type in the corresponding chair in front of him.

"This is Mrs. Merrilow, of South Brixton," said my friend with a wave
of the hand. "Mrs. Merrilow does not object to tobacco, Watson, if you
wish to indulge your filthy habits. Mrs. Merrilow has an interesting
story to tell which may well lead to further developments in which your
presence may be useful."

"Anything I can do---"

"You will understand, Mrs. Merrilow, that if I come to Mrs. Ronder I
should prefer to have a witness. You will make her understand that
before we arrive."

"Lord bless you, Mr. Holmes," said our visitor, "she is that anxious to
see you that you might bring the whole parish at your heels!"

"Then we shall come early in the afternoon. Let us see that we have our
facts correct before we start. If we go over them it will help Dr.
Watson to understand the situation. You say that Mrs. Ronder has been
your lodger for seven years and that you have only once seen her face."

"And I wish to God I had not!" said Mrs. Merrilow.

"It was, I understand, terribly mutilated."

"Well, Mr. Holmes, you would hardly say it was a face at all. That's
how it looked. Our milkman got a glimpse of her once peeping out of the
upper window, and he dropped his tin and the milk all over the front
garden. That is the kind of face it is. When I saw her---I happened on
her unawares---she covered up quick, and then she said, 'Now, Mrs.
Merrilow, you know at last why it is that I never raise my veil.'"

"Do you know anything about her history?"

"Nothing at all."

"Did she give references when she came?"

"No, sir, but she gave hard cash, and plenty of it. A quarter's rent
right down on the table in advance and no arguing about terms. In these
times a poor woman like me can't afford to turn down a chance like
that."

"Did she give any reason for choosing your house?"

"Mine stands well back from the road and is more private than most.
Then, again, I only take the one, and I have no family of my own. I
reckon she had tried others and found that mine suited her best. It's
privacy she is after, and she is ready to pay for it."

"You say that she never showed her face from first to last save on the
one accidental occasion. Well, it is a very remarkable story, most
remarkable, and I don't wonder that you want it examined."

"I don't, Mr. Holmes. I am quite satisfied so long as I get my rent.
You could not have a quieter lodger, or one who gives less trouble."

"Then what has brought matters to a head?"

"Her health, Mr. Holmes. She seems to be wasting away. And there's
something terrible on her mind. 'Murder!' she cries. 'Murder!' And once
I heard her: 'You cruel beast! You monster!' she cried. It was in the
night, and it fair rang through the house and sent the shivers through
me. So I went to her in the morning. 'Mrs. Ronder,' I says, 'if you
have anything that is troubling your soul, there's the clergy,' I says,
'and there's the police. Between them you should get some help.' 'For
God's sake, not the police!' says she, 'and the clergy can't change
what is past. And yet,' she says, 'it would ease my mind if someone
knew the truth before I died.' 'Well,' says I, 'if you won't have the
regulars, there is this detective man what we read about'---beggin'
your pardon, Mr. Holmes. And she, she fair jumped at it. 'That's the
man,' says she. 'I wonder I never thought of it before. Bring him here,
Mrs. Merrilow, and if he won't come, tell him I am the wife of Ronder's
wild beast show. Say that, and give him the name Abbas Parva. Here it
is as she wrote it, Abbas Parva. 'That will bring him if he's the man I
think he is.'"

"And it will, too," remarked Holmes. "Very good, Mrs. Merrilow. I
should like to have a little chat with Dr. Watson. That will carry us
till lunch-time. About three o'clock you may expect to see us at your
house in Brixton."
----
Our visitor had no sooner waddled out of the room---no other verb can
describe Mrs. Merrilow's method of progression---than Sherlock Holmes
threw himself with fierce energy upon the pile of commonplace books in
the corner. For a few minutes there was a constant swish of the leaves,
and then with a grunt of satisfaction he came upon what he sought. So
excited was he that he did not rise, but sat upon the floor like some
strange Buddha, with crossed legs, the huge books all round him, and
one open upon his knees.

"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
//employés// 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."

"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 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?"

"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 ridingwhip 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 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 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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