"And now, Madam," he went on, turning earnestly to the lady, "I want you to tell us both your story again. Try to be as coherent and complete as you can this time."
She gave a little nod and began with what was under the circumstances unusual composure, although she still trembled slightly. Her speech was distinctly improved from earlier in the day. Indeed, it improved as her narrative went on, as if practice eased the flow of words.
"That one-he was the same man I remembered from the green room- came for me at the hospital. They said he was my brother. I said he could not be; I was sure of it. I cannot tell you how I knew-I couldn't tell them how. That little doctor said, 'But if you can't remember anything, how do you know he isn't?' Ass," was her dispassionate indictment of Dr. Stanley. "I refused to go with him, but I could not fight them all. They held me down and gave me something that made me dizzy, and put me into the cab with him. I thought then that if I went with him I could find out something about where I came from, so I stopped fighting. We drove for a long time in the rain. I did not recognize anything we passed. He did not speak to me after we left the hospital."
"Did you cross the river at any time?" interjected Holmes.
"No."
"One more thing. Can you describe the cab and the cabman?"
"The cab was just ordinary, not very old. The horse was a little chestnut, about 15 hands or a little more, with a white off hind leg. The cabman was a middle-aged fellow, a little taller than I, neither fat nor thin, with a grey mustache. He had a reddish complexion, a lot of little broken veins in his nose and cheeks. Oh! The cab had a number on it. It was #36974."
"That is all I need," smiled Holmes. "Go on."
"We stopped and got out in a sort of dull residential area. I was still dizzy He took me by the arm and led me two blocks to a little wooded park. There was almost no one about, because of the rain. We went down along a raveled path among the trees to a small ravine. He drew a knife from his coat. I saw it flash out of the corner of my eye in the grey light. I tried to break from his grasp; that's when I was cut in the arm. It caught up under my coat sleeve. I hardly felt it at the time. Actually, it hurt less than-ah-these stitches.
"Sorry," I said. "Just a few more."
"I spun round in front of him and kicked him and ran back up the path." She paused thoughtfully. "He probably should have put the umbrella down first.
"I ran until my head was swimming and I could hardly breathe, out of the park. I walked past a street of houses into a street of shops; everything was closed. Twilight was setting in. I stepped into the doorway of a shop. I found a handkerchief in the pocket of my coat and tied it tight around my arm. I looked around and saw a cab stand down the street. I scarcely knew where to go, but I wanted to get away before that little man found me again. I did not think I could be so lucky a second time. The cabman-I didn't tell him what had happened, but I must have looked strange to him-wanted to call a policeman, but I made him take me to you. I have about had it with the police. That man, Inspector Lestrade..." She shook her head, apparently unable to think of a word for the inspector.
"How did you find my address?" Holmes asked curiously.
"The cabman looked it up at the Post Office Exchange," she replied simply.
I finished applying the dressing to the lady's arm and tied it off neatly. "Very workmanlike," approved Holmes. I pushed aside the mess left by my work and rose to pour us each a well-earned brandy. The lady refused hers with every sign of loathing. Holmes took his and swirled it thoughtfully around the glass.
"Things are distinctly looking up," he said. "Thanks to our rather inept attempted murderer, there are now a vast number of new leads in this rather chaotic tangle. It now becomes a rather intriguing project to see where they will take us."
"You have a theory?" I fished. "Who are those men, and why should they want to murder this lady now, when they had her a prisoner for so long totally at their mercy?"
"Bravo, Watson," said the detective. "You have put your finger upon the primary missing link in our chain: motivation. It is not very difficult now to reconstruct what has happened. We even know why it was done. I am now concerned with finding the why behind the why, as it were."
"Why the murder was attempted?" I asked, feeling very slow.
"That puzzled me at first, I confess. It was not of a piece with the rest. Yet I think I can account for it. I am convinced it hinges upon this lady's remarkable memory. You do not see it? Let me recapitulate what we now know.
"This lady has been kept a prisoner, drugged and helpless, for several weeks by two men, antecedents unknown. The one we have now seen upon our stage, the one who calls himself Ormond Sacker, has not cut a very impressive figure. I believe, however, that among that farrago of lies he told Lestrade he inadvertently let fall one true fact; his companion is a medical man. In truth, I've been waiting for someone with such a background to turn up in the case ever since we observed those spots upon the lady's scalp. This doctor is obviously the leader of the two, the dominant personality, and the engineer of our lady's amnesia. Why?
"I theorize she was a witness, Watson, of a most unique sort. A witness whose eidetic memory would be unconfused by time, the pressure of suggestion, or the distortions of emotion. A witness whose memory of minute detail would make her a powerful threat to the most subtle plot or activity, one so camouflaged as to pass invisibly before the ordinary observer.
"Her knowledge was a threat to these men; therefore her memory was deliberately destroyed. How, we do not yet know. But they stopped short of murder, or at least the leader did.
"Then one day she manages to throw off her drugged stupor long enough to manufacture an escape. She falls almost at once into the hands of the police. Do they at once take steps to retrieve their captive? You saw how easily it could be done. But no, they wait two days.
"I think there must have been a division in their ranks. The first decision was to let her go. After all, the trouble of keeping her a prisoner must have been a great one. The decision was made by the one whose belief in the permanency of her loss of memory was secure: the doctor. But Sacker, who had feared her from the first, was not convinced. As soon as an opportunity arose to evade his dominant companion, he made a unilateral expedition to eliminate the threat of her testimony once and for all. We know what happened then.
"How criminals are so often their own worst enemies," he went on philosophically. "By Sacker's very attempt to make himself secure, he has drawn all our attention upon them and given us the leads necessary to continue our case. If he had let well enough alone, she would probably have spent some time institutionalized as an unclaimed madwoman whose testimony would be discounted by all around her. The dominant partner, the doctor, had the intelligence to foresee this and the self-control to stand back and let it happen. I predict it is going to be a pleasure doing business with that gentleman, Watson; intelligence has been a quality lamentably lacking in the criminal classes ever since the removal of the late Professor Moriarty.
"Well, I now must be off to question the second cabman, if he hasn't taken to his heels in dismay by now. I gave him a few shillings and sent him around the corner to wait at the nearest pub. Then I must catch up with Lestrade and apprise him of this new turn of events. If you've no objection, I'd like to leave my client here under your medical care. In fact, if no one else turns up with a more legitimate claim to her, I should like you to take her on as a resident patient. If it won't incommode your household too much," he added as a palpable afterthought.
"Um," I said noncommittally. My wife is a good woman, but propriety is very important to her. Sometimes I think it is by way of reaction, not to her American upbringing, which was all that could be wished, but rather to the suspicions of our less cosmopolitan acquaintances that anyone born west of Cornwall must necessarily be half wild Indian. I was not quite certain how she would react to the mysterious history of my proposed patient.