"Can you tell me where?" asked Mycroft Holmes.
"I don't know, sir," answered the woman who had opened the door; "I onlyknow that he drove away with the gentleman in a carriage."
"Did the gentleman give a name?"
"No, sir."
"He wasn't a tall, handsome, dark young man?"
"Oh, no, sir. He was a little gentleman, with glasses, thin in the face,but very pleasant in his ways, for he was laughing all the time that hewas talking."
"Come along!" cried Sherlock Holmes, abruptly. "This grows serious,"he observed, as we drove to Scotland Yard. "These men have got hold ofMelas again. He is a man of no physical courage, as they are wellaware from their experience the other night. This villain was able toterrorize him the instant that he got into his presence. No doubtthey want his professional services, but, having used him, they may beinclined to punish him for what they will regard as his treachery."
Our hope was that, by taking train, we might get to Beckenham as soonor sooner than the carriage. On reaching Scotland Yard, however, it wasmore than an hour before we could get Inspector Gregson and comply withthe legal formalities which would enable us to enter the house. It was aquarter to ten before we reached London Bridge, and half past before thefour of us alighted on the Beckenham platform. A drive of half a milebrought us to The Myrtles--a large, dark house standing back from theroad in its own grounds. Here we dismissed our cab, and made our way upthe drive together.
"The windows are all dark," remarked the inspector. "The house seemsdeserted."
"Our birds are flown and the nest empty," said Holmes.
"Why do you say so?"
"A carriage heavily loaded with luggage has passed out during the lasthour."
The inspector laughed. "I saw the wheel-tracks in the light of thegate-lamp, but where does the luggage come in?"
"You may have observed the same wheel-tracks going the other way. Butthe outward-bound ones were very much deeper--so much so that we cansay for a certainty that there was a very considerable weight on thecarriage."
"You get a trifle beyond me there," said the inspector, shrugging hisshoulder. "It will not be an easy door to force, but we will try if wecannot make some one hear us."
He hammered loudly at the knocker and pulled at the bell, but withoutany success. Holmes had slipped away, but he came back in a few minutes.
"I have a window open," said he.
"It is a mercy that you are on the side of the force, and not againstit, Mr. Holmes," remarked the inspector, as he noted the clever way inwhich my friend had forced back the catch. "Well, I think that under thecircumstances we may enter without an invitation."
One after the other we made our way into a large apartment, which wasevidently that in which Mr. Melas had found himself. The inspectorhad lit his lantern, and by its light we could see the two doors, thecurtain, the lamp, and the suit of Japanese mail as he had describedthem. On the table lay two glasses, and empty brandy-bottle, and theremains of a meal.
"What is that?" asked Holmes, suddenly.
We all stood still and listened. A low moaning sound was coming fromsomewhere over our heads. Holmes rushed to the door and out into thehall. The dismal noise came from upstairs. He dashed up, the inspectorand I at his heels, while his brother Mycroft followed as quickly as hisgreat bulk would permit.
Three doors faced up upon the second floor, and it was from the centralof these that the sinister sounds were issuing, sinking sometimes into adull mumble and rising again into a shrill whine. It was locked, but thekey had been left on the outside. Holmes flung open the door and rushedin, but he was out again in an instant, with his hand to his throat.
"It's charcoal," he cried. "Give it time. It will clear."
Peering in, we could see that the only light in the room came from adull blue flame which
flickered from a small brass tripod in the centre.It threw a livid, unnatural circle upon the floor, while in the shadowsbeyond we saw the vague loom of two figures which crouched against thewall. From the open door there reeked a horrible poisonous exhalationwhich set us gasping and coughing. Holmes rushed to the top of thestairs to draw in the fresh air, and then, dashing into the room, hethrew up the window and hurled the brazen tripod out into the garden.
"We can enter in a minute," he gasped, darting out again. "Where is acandle? I doubt if we could strike a match in that atmosphere. Hold thelight at the door and we shall get them out, Mycroft, now!"
With a rush we got to the poisoned men and dragged them out into thewell-lit hall. Both of them were blue-lipped and insensible, withswollen, congested faces and protruding eyes. Indeed, so distorted weretheir features that, save for his black beard and stout figure, we mighthave failed to recognize in one of them the Greek interpreter who hadparted from us only a few hours before at the Diogenes Club. His handsand feet were securely strapped together, and he bore over one eyethe marks of a violent blow. The other, who was secured in a similarfashion, was a tall man in the last stage of emaciation, with severalstrips of sticking-plaster arranged in a grotesque pattern over hisface. He had ceased to moan as we laid him down, and a glance showedme that for him at least our aid had come too late. Mr. Melas, however,still lived, and in less than an hour, with the aid of ammonia andbrandy I had the satisfaction of seeing him open his eyes, and ofknowing that my hand had drawn him back from that dark valley in whichall paths meet.
It was a simple story which he had to tell, and one which did butconfirm our own deductions. His visitor, on entering his rooms, haddrawn a life-preserver from his sleeve, and had so impressed him withthe fear of instant and inevitable death that he had kidnapped him forthe second time. Indeed, it was almost mesmeric, the effect which thisgiggling ruffian had produced upon the unfortunate linguist, for hecould not speak of him save with trembling hands and a blanched cheek.He had been taken swiftly to Beckenham, and had acted as interpreter ina second interview, even more dramatic than the first, in which the twoEnglishmen had menaced their prisoner with instant death if he did notcomply with their demands. Finally, finding him proof against everythreat, they had hurled him back into his prison, and afterreproaching Melas with his treachery, which appeared from the newspaperadvertisement, they had stunned him with a blow from a stick, and heremembered nothing more until he found us bending over him.
And this was the singular case of the Grecian Interpreter, theexplanation of which is still involved in some mystery. We were ableto find out, by communicating with the gentleman who had answered theadvertisement, that the unfortunate young lady came of a wealthy Grecianfamily, and that she had been on a visit to some friends in England.While there she had met a young man named Harold Latimer, who hadacquired an ascendancy over her and had eventually persuaded her to flywith him. Her friends, shocked at the event, had contented themselveswith informing her brother at Athens, and had then washed their handsof the matter. The brother, on his arrival in England, had imprudentlyplaced himself in the power of Latimer and of his associate, whose namewas Wilson Kemp--a man of the foulest antecedents. These two, findingthat through his ignorance of the language he was helpless in theirhands, had kept him a prisoner, and had endeavored by cruelty andstarvation to make him sign away his own and his sister's property. Theyhad kept him in the house without the girl's knowledge, and the plasterover the face had been for the purpose of making recognition difficultin case she should ever catch a glimpse of him. Her feminine perception,however, had instantly seen through the disguise when, on the occasionof the interpreter's visit, she had seen him for the first time. Thepoor girl, however, was herself a prisoner, for there was no one aboutthe house except the man who acted as coachman, and his wife, both ofwhom were tools of the conspirators. Finding that their secret was out,and that their prisoner was not to be coerced, the two villains with thegirl had fled away at a few hours' notice from the furnished house whichthey had hired, having first, as they thought, taken vengeance both uponthe man who had defied and the one who had betrayed them.
Months afterwards a curious newspaper cutting reached us fromBuda-Pesth. It told how two Englishmen who had been traveling with awoman had met with a tragic end. They had each been stabbed, it seems,and the Hungarian police were of opinion that they had quarreled and hadinflicted mortal injuries upon each other. Holmes, however, is, I fancy,of a different way of thinking, and holds to this day that, if one couldfind the Grecian girl, one might learn how the wrongs of herself and herbrother came to be avenged.