Kitabı oku: «The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. B1 / Приключения Шерлока Холмса», sayfa 2

“Why did you come away to consult me in such a hurry?” asked Sherlock Holmes, with his fingertips together.

Again a look cameover the face of Miss Mary Sutherland. “Yes, I did run out of the house,” she said, “for it made me angry to see the easy way in which Mr. Windibank-that is, my father-took it all. He would not go to the police, and he would not go to you, and so at last, as he would do nothing, it made me mad, and I just came right away to you.”

“Your father,” said Holmes, “your stepfather, surely, since the name is different.”

“Yes, my stepfather. I call him father, though it sounds funny, too, for he is only five years and two months older than myself.”

“And your mother is alive?”

“Oh, yes, mother is alive and well. I wasn't pleased, Mr. Holmes, when she married again so soon after father's death. And a man who was nearly fifteen years younger than herself. Father was a plumber in the Tottenham Court Road, and he left a tidy business behind him, which mother carried on with Mr. Hardy, the foreman. But when Mr. Windibank came he made her sell the business. He sales wines, so he feels superior. They got £4,700 for the goodwill andinterest. My father would have got more if he had been alive.”

I had expected to see Sherlock Holmes impatient, but, on the contrary, he had listened with the greatest concentration of attention.

“Your own little income,” he asked, “does it come out of the business?”

“Oh, no, sir. It is quite separate and was left me by my uncle Ned in Auckland. It is in New Zealand stock, paying 4½ percent. There is two thousand five hundred pounds, but I can only touch theinterest.”

“You interest me extremely,” said Holmes. “And since you draw so large a sum as a hundred a year, with your own money, you no doubt travel a little and enjoy yourself. I believe that a single lady can get on very nicely with less money.”

“I could do with much less than that, Mr. Holmes, but you understand that as long as I live at home I give the money to the family. Of course, that is only just for the time. Mr. Windibank gets my interest every three months and gives it to mother. I find that I can do pretty well with what I earn at typewriting. It brings me twopence a sheet, and I can often do from fifteen to twenty sheets in a day.”

“You have made your position very clear to me,” said Holmes. “This is my friend, Dr. Watson, you may trust him. Kindly tell us now all about your connection with Mr. Hosmer Angel.”

A Miss Sutherland's face flushed, and she touched her jacket nervously. “I met him first at the gasfitters' ball,” she said. “They used to send father tickets when he was alive, and then afterwards they remembered us, and sent them to mother. Mr. Windibank did not wish us to go. He never did wish us to go anywhere. He would get quite mad if I wanted to join a Sunday-school picnic. But this time I was serious about going, and I would go. What right had he to prevent it? He said we should not socialize with such people, when all father's friends were to be there. And he said that I had nothing fit to wear, when I had my purple plush that I had never taken out of the box. At last, he went on a bisness trip to France. At that time we went, mother and I, with Mr. Hardy, who used to work with my father, and it was at the ball that I met Mr. Hosmer Angel.”

“I suppose,” said Holmes, “that when Mr. Windibank came back from France he was very annoyed at your having gone to the ball.”

“Oh, well, he was very good about it. He laughed, I remember, he moved his shoulders, and said that a woman would always have her way.”

“I see. Then at the gasfitters' ball you met, as I understand, a gentleman called Mr. Hosmer Angel.”

“Yes, sir. I met him that night, and he visited us next day to ask if we had got home all safe, and after that we met him-that is to say, Mr. Holmes, I met him twice for walks, but father came back again, and Mr. Hosmer Angel could not come to the house any more.”

“No?”

“Well, you know father didn't like anything of the sort. He wouldn't have any visitors and he used to say that a woman should be happy in her own family circle. But then, as I used to say to mother, a woman wants her own circle to begin with, and I had not got mine yet.”

“But how about Mr. Hosmer Angel? Did he make no attempt to see you?”

“Well, father was going to France again in a week, and Hosmer wrote and said that it would be safer and better not to see each other until he had gone. We could write in the meantime, and he used to write every day. I used to get the letters in the morning, so there was no need for father to know.”

“Were youengaged to the gentleman at this time?”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Holmes. We wereengaged after the first walk that we took. Hosmer-Mr. Angel-was a cashier in an office in Leadenhall Street – and-”

“What office?”

“That's the worst of it, Mr. Holmes, I don't know.”

“Where did he live, then?”

“He slept at the office.”

“And you don't know hisaddress?”

“No-except that it was Leadenhall Street.”

“Where did youaddress your letters, then?”

“To the Leadenhall Street Post Office, to be left till called for. He said that if they were sent to the office he would be laughed by all the other clerks about having letters from a lady. I offered to typewrite to him, like he did to me, but he wouldn't have that. He said that when I wrote them they seemed to come from me, but when they were typewritten he always felt that the machine had come between us. That will show you how fond he was of me, Mr. Holmes, and the little things that he would think of.”

“It was most suggestive,” said Holmes. “The little things are, no doubt, the most important. Can you remember any other little things about Mr. Hosmer Angel?”

“He was a very shy man, Mr. Holmes. He would rather walk with me in the evening than in the daylight, for he said that he hated to get too much attention. Very retiring and gentlemanly he was. Even his voice was gentle. He'd had thesore throat and swollen glands when he was young, he told me, and it had left him with a weak throat, and a hesitating, whispering manner of speech. He was always well dressed, very neat and plain, but his eyes were weak, just as mine are, and he wore glasses against the bright light.”