“I have heard your reasons and regard them as unconvincingand inadequate. We will pass that. You came down here to ask mewhom I suspected. I refused to answer you. You then went to thevicarage, waited outside it for some time, and finally returned toyour cottage.”
“How do you know that?”
“I followed you.”
“I saw no one.”
“That is what you may expect to see when I follow you. Youspent a restless night at your cottage, and you formed certainplans, which in the early morning you proceeded to put intoexecution. Leaving your door just as day was breaking, you filledyour pocket with some reddish gravel that was lying heaped besideyour gate.”
Sterndale gave a violent start and looked at Holmes inamazement.
“You then walked swiftly for the mile which separated you fromthe vicarage. You were wearing, I may remark, the same pair ofribbed tennis shoes which are at the present moment upon yourfeet. At the vicarage you passed through the orchard and the sidehedge, coming out under the window of the lodger Tregennis.
It was now daylight, but the household was not yet stirring. Youdrew some of the gravel from your pocket, and you threw it up atthe window above you.”
Sterndale sprang to his feet.
“I believe that you are the devil himself!” he cried.
Holmes smiled at the compliment. “It took two, or possiblythree, handfuls before the lodger came to the window. Youbeckoned him to come down. He dressed hurriedly and descendedto his sitting-room. You entered by the window. There was aninterview—a short one—during which you walked up and downthe room. Then you passed out and closed the window, standingon the lawn outside smoking a cigar and watching what occurred.
Finally, after the death of Tregennis, you withdrew as you hadcome. Now, Dr. Sterndale, how do you justify such conduct, andwhat were the motives for your actions? If you prevaricate or triflewith me, I give you my assurance that the matter will pass out ofmy hands forever.”
Our visitor’s face had turned ashen gray as he listened to thewords of his accuser. Now he sat for some time in thought withhis face sunk in his hands. Then with a sudden impulsive gesturehe plucked a photograph from his breast-pocket and threw it onthe rustic table before us.
“That is why I have done it,” said he.
It showed the bust and face of a very beautiful woman. Holmesstooped over it.
“Brenda Tregennis,” said he.
“Yes, Brenda Tregennis,” repeated our visitor. “For years I haveloved her. For years she has loved me. There is the secret of thatCornish seclusion which people have marvelled at. It has broughtme close to the one thing on earth that was dear to me. I couldnot marry her, for I have a wife who has left me for years and yetwhom, by the deplorable laws of England, I could not divorce.
For years Brenda waited. For years I waited. And this is what wehave waited for.” A terrible sob shook his great frame, and heclutched his throat under his brindled beard. Then with an efforthe mastered himself and spoke on:
“The vicar knew. He was in our confidence. He would tell youthat she was an angel upon earth. That was why he telegraphed tome and I returned. What was my baggage or Africa to me whenI learned that such a fate had come upon my darling? There youhave the missing clue to my action, Mr. Holmes.”
“Proceed,” said my friend.
Dr. Sterndale drew from his pocket a paper packet and laid itupon the table. On the outside was written “Radix pedis diaboli”
with a red poison label beneath it. He pushed it towards me. “Iunderstand that you are a doctor, sir. Have you ever heard of thispreparation?”
“Devil’s-foot root! No, I have never heard of it.”
“It is no reflection upon your professional knowledge,” said he,“for I believe that, save for one sample in a laboratory at Buda,there is no other specimen in Europe. It has not yet found its wayeither into the pharmacopoeia or into the literature of toxicology.
The root is shaped like a foot, half human, half goatlike; hencethe fanciful name given by a botanical missionary. It is used asan ordeal poison by the medicine-men in certain districts ofWest Africa and is kept as a secret among them. This particularspecimen I obtained under very extraordinary circumstancesin the Ubangi country.” He opened the paper as he spoke anddisclosed a heap of reddish-brown, snuff-like powder.
“Well, sir?” asked Holmes sternly.
“I am about to tell you, Mr. Holmes, all that actually occurred,for you already know so much that it is clearly to my interest thatyou should know all. I have already explained the relationship inwhich I stood to the Tregennis family. For the sake of the sister Iwas friendly with the brothers. There was a family quarrel aboutmoney which estranged this man Mortimer, but it was supposed tobe made up, and I afterwards met him as I did the others. He wasa sly, subtle, scheming man, and several things arose which gaveme a suspicion of him, but I had no cause for any positive quarrel.
“One day, only a couple of weeks ago, he came down to mycottage and I showed him some of my African curiosities. Amongother things I exhibited this powder, and I told him of its strangeproperties, how it stimulates those brain centres which controlthe emotion of fear, and how either madness or death is the fate ofthe unhappy native who is subjected to the ordeal by the priest ofhis tribe. I told him also how powerless European science would beto detect it. How he took it I cannot say, for I never left the room,but there is no doubt that it was then, while I was opening cabinetsand stooping to boxes, that he managed to abstract some of thedevil’s-foot root. I well remember how he plied me with questionsas to the amount and the time that was needed for its effect, but Ilittle dreamed that he could have a personal reason for asking.
