His plan of campaign was beginning to be evident. He would use the baronet in order to convince the Stapletons that we were really gone, while we should actually return at the instant when we were likely to be needed. That telegram from London, if mentioned by Sir Henry to the Stapletons, must remove the last suspicions from their minds. Already I seemed to see our nets drawing closer around that leanjawed pike.
Mrs. Laura Lyons was in her office, and Sherlock Holmes opened his interview with a frankness and directness which considerably amazed her.
`I am investigating the circumstances which attended the death of the late Sir Charles Baskerville,' said he. `My friend here, Dr. Watson, has informed me of what you have communicated, and also of what you have withheld in connection with that matter.'
`What have I withheld?' she asked defiantly.
`You have confessed that you asked Sir Charles to be at the gate at ten o'clock. We know that that was the place and hour of his death.
You have withheld what the connection is between these events.'
`There is no connection.'
`In that case the coincidence must indeed be an extraordinary one. But I think that we shall succeed in establishing a connection, after all. I wish to be perfectly frank with you, Mrs. Lyons. We regard this case as one of murder, and the evidence may implicate not only your friend Mr. Stapleton but his wife as well.'
The lady sprang from her chair.
`His wife!' she cried.
`The fact is no longer a secret. The person who has passed for his sister is really his wife.'
Mrs. Lyons had resumed her seat. Her hands were grasping the arms of her chair, and I saw that the pink nails had turned white with the pressure of her grip.
`His wife!' she said again. `His wife! He is not a married man.'
Sherlock Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
`Prove it to me! Prove it to me! And if you can do so - !' The fierce flash of her eyes said more than any words.
`I have come prepared to do so,' said Holmes, drawing several papers from his pocket. `Here is a photograph of the couple taken in York four years ago. It is indorsed ``Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur,'' but you will have no difficulty in recognizing him, and her also, if you know her by sight. Here are three written descriptions by trustworthy witnesses of Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur, who at that time kept St. Oliver's private school.
Read them and see if you can doubt the identity of these people.'
She glanced at them, and then looked up at us with the set rigid face of a desperate woman.
`Mr. Holmes,' she said, `this man had offered me marriage on condition that I could get a divorce from my husband. He has lied to me, the villain, in every conceivable way. Not one word of truth has he ever told me. And why - why? I imagined that all was for my own sake. But now I see that I was never anything but a tool in his hands. Why should I preserve faith with him who never kept any with me? Why should I try to shield him from the consequences of his own wicked acts? Ask me what you like, and there is nothing which I shall hold back. One thing I swear to you, and that is that when I wrote the letter I never dreamed of any harm to the old gentleman, who had been my kindest friend.'
`I entirely believe you, madam,' said Sherlock Holmes.
`The recital of these events must be very painful to you, and perhaps it will make it easier if I tell you what occurred, and you can check me if I make any material mistake. The sending of this letter was suggested to you by Stapleton?'
`He dictated it.'
`I presume that the reason he gave was that you would receive help from Sir Charles for the legal expenses connected with your divorce?'
`Exactly.'
`And then after you had sent the letter he dissuaded you from keeping the appointment?'
`He told me that it would hurt his self-respect that any other man should find the money for such an object, and that though he was a poor man himself he would devote his last penny to removing the obstacles which divided us.'
`He appears to be a very consistent character. And then you heard nothing until you read the reports of the death in the paper?'
`No.'
`And he made you swear to say nothing about your appointment with Sir Charles?'
`He did. He said that the death was a very mysterious one, and that I should certainly be suspected if the facts came out. He frightened me into remaining silent.'
`Quite so. But you had your suspicions?'
She hesitated and looked down.
`I knew him,' she said. `But if he had kept faith with me I should always have done so with him.'
`I think that on the whole you have had a fortunate escape,' said Sherlock Holmes. `You have had him in your power and he knew it, and yet you are alive. You have been walking for some months very near to the edge of a precipice.
We must wish you good-morning now, Mrs. Lyons, and it is probable that you will very shortly hear from us again.'
`Our case becomes rounded off, and difficulty after difficulty thins away in front of us,' said Holmes as we stood waiting for the arrival of the express from town. `I shall soon be in the position of being able to put into a single connected narrative one of the most singular and sensational crimes of modern times. Students of criminology will remember the analogous incidents in Godno, in Little Russia, in the year '66, and of course there are the Anderson murders in North Carolina, but this case possesses some features which are entirely its own. Even now we have no clear case against this very wily man. But I shall be very much surprised if it is not clear enough before we go to bed this night.'
The London express came roaring into the station, and a small, wiry bulldog of a man had sprung from a first-class carriage. We all three shook hands, and I saw at once from the reverential way in which Lestrade gazed at my companion that he had learned a good deal since the days when they had first worked together. I could well remember the scorn which the theories of the reasoner used then to excite in the practical man.
`Anything good?' he asked.
