THE ADVENTURE OF THE YELLOW FACE

One day in early spring we were sitting in our room, when the door opened, and a tall young man entered the room. He was well but quietly dressed in a dark gray suit and carried a brown hat in his hand. He was about thirty, or perhaps some years older.

"I beg your pardon," said he with some embar­rassment, "I suppose I should have knocked. Yes, of course I should have knocked. The fact is that I am a little upset."

He passed his hand over his forehead, and then sat down upon a chair.

"I can see that you have not slept for a night or two," said Holmes. "May I ask how I can help you?"

"I want your advice, sir. I don't know what to do, and my whole life seems to have gone to piec­es. I want to know what I ought to do next. I hope you'll be able to tell me."

He spoke with some difficulty. "It's a very delicate thing," said he. One does not like to speak of one's domestic affairs to stran­gers. It seems dreadful to discuss the conduct of my wife with two men whom I have never seen before. It's horrible to have to do it. But I must have advice."

"My dear Mr. Grant Munro — " began Holmes.

Our visitor sprang from his chair.

"What!" he cried, "you know my name?"

"If you wish to preserve your incognito," said Holmes, smiling, "I would suggest that you stop writing your name upon the lining of your hat. I want to say that my friend and I have listened to many strange secrets in this room, and that we have been lucky to bring peace to many troubled souls. I hope that we shall be able to help you. Please tell us the facts of your case."

Our visitor again passed his hand over his fore­head, as if he found it very difficult.

"The facts are these, Mr. Holmes," said he. "I am a married man and have been so for three years. During that time my wife and I have loved each oth­er and lived happily. We have not had a difference, not one, in thought or word or deed. And now, since last Monday, there has suddenly appeared a barrier between us, and I see that there is something in her life and in her thoughts of which I know as little as if she were a woman who passes me in the street. We are estranged, and I want to know why.

"Now there is one thing that I want to say before I go on, Mr. Holmes. Effie² loves me. Don't let there be any mistake about that. She loves me with her whole heart and soul, and never more than now. I know it. I feel it. I don't want to argue about that. A man can tell easily enough when a woman loves him. But there's this secret between us."

"Kindly tell me the facts, Mr. Munro," said Holmes with some impatience.

"I'll tell you what I know about Effie's history. "She was a widow when I met her first, though quite young — only twenty-five. Her name then was Mrs. Hebron. She went out to America when she was young and lived in the town of Atlanta, where she married this Hebron, who was a lawyer with a good practice. They had one child, but the yellow fever broke out badly in the place, and both husband and child died of it.

"I have seen his death certificate. "After this she did not want to live in America, and she came back to live with a maiden aunt in Middlesex³.

"I may mention that her husband had left her comfortably off⁴, and that she had a capital of about four thousand five hundred pounds, which had been so well invested by him that it returned seven per cent.

"She had only been six months in England when I met her; we fell in love with each other, and we married a few weeks afterwards.

"I am a hop merchant myself, and as I have an income of seven or eight hundred, we found our­selves comfortably off and bought a nice villa at Norbury⁵. There is an inn and two houses not far away from us, and a single cottage at the other side of the field which faces us, and no other houses.

"There's one thing I ought to tell you before I go on. When we married, my wife made over all her property to me — rather against my will. But she insisted, and so it was done. - "Well, about six weeks ago she came to me.

'Jack,' said she, 'when you took my money you said that if ever I wanted any I was to ask you for it.'

'Certainly' said I. 'It's all your own.'

'Well,' said she, 'I want a hundred pounds.'

"I was a bit surprsed at this, for I had imagined it was simply a new dress or something of the kind that she wanted.

'What on earth for?' I asked.

'Oh,' said she in her playful way, 'you said that you were only my banker, and bankers never ask questions, you know.'

'If you really mean it, of course you shall have the money,' said I.

'Oh, yes, I really mean it.'

'And you won't tell me what you want it for?

'Some day, perhaps, but not just at present, Jack.'

"It was the first secret between us. I gave her a check, and I never thought any more of the matter.

"Well, I told you just now that there is a cot­tage not far from our house. There is just a field between us, and a nice little grove of Scotch firs, with a lane running through it. The cottage had been standing empty these eight months, but last Monday evening, when I was taking a stroll along the lane, I met an empty van, and near the cottage I saw carpets and furniture lying about on the grass. It was clear that the cottage had at last been let.

"I walked past it, and then stopped and looked at the facade. And as I looked I suddenly noticed that a face was watching me out of one of the upper windows.

"I don't know how to explain it, but there was something unnatural and inhuman about the face. I moved quickly forward to get a nearer view of the person who was watching me. But as I did so the face; suddenly disappeared into the darkness of the room.

"I stood for five minutes thinking. I could not tell if it was a man's or a woman's face. But its colour was what had impressed me most. It was white as chalk and very strange looking.

"I determined to see the new inmates of the cot­tage. I approached and knocked at the door, which was instantly opened by a tall, gaunt woman with a harsh, forbidding face.

'What do you want?' she asked.

'I am your neighbour,' said I, nodding towards my house. 'I see that you have only just moved in, so I thought that if I could be of any help to you...'

'Oh, we'll just ask you when we want you,' said she, and shut the door in my face. I turned my back and walked home.

"All evening, though I tried to think of other things, my mind would still turn to the face at the window and the rudeness of the woman.

"I determined to say nothing about the face and the rude woman to my wife, for she is a nervous woman. I remarked to her, however, before I fell asleep, that the cottage was now occupied, to which she gave no reply.

"In the middle of the night I half awoke because of some slight movement in the room. Opening my eyes, I saw that my wife had dressed herself and was putting on her mantle and her bonnet. In the candle-light I saw that she was deadly pale and breathing fast. Thinking that I was still asleep, she noiselessly left the room, and a moment later I heard the sound of the front door closing."

"I was fully awake now. I sat up in bed and took my watch from under the pillow.

"It was three in the morning. What on this earth could my wife be doing out on the country road at three in the morning?

"I had sat for about twenty minutes thinking about it and trying to find some possible explanation. I was still puzzling over it when I heard the door gen­tly close again, and her footsteps coming up the stairs.

'Where in the world have you been, Effie?' I asked as she entered.

'You awake, Jack!' she cried with a nervous laugh. 'Why, I thought that you were sleeping.'

'Where have you been?' I asked, more sternly.

'I don't wonder that you are surprised,* said she, and I could see that her fingers were trem­bling as she was unbuttoning her mantle. 'The fact is that I felt as though I were choking and wanted a breath of fresh air. I stood at the door for a few minutes, and now I am quite myself again.'

"All the time that she was telling me this story she never looked in my direction, and her voice was quite unlike her usual tones. It was evident to me that she was telling a lie. I said nothing in reply, but turned my face to the wall. My mind filled with a thousand doubts and suspicions. What was it that my wife was concealing from me? Where had she been during that strange expedition?

"We hardly exchanged a word during breakfast, and immediately afterwards I went out for a walk to be able to think over the matter in the fresh morning air. I walked rather far, and when I was back in Norbury, it was one o'clock. I was walking past the cottage, and I stopped for a moment to look at the windows and perhaps to see the strange face which had looked out at me the day before.

"As I stood there, imagine my surprise, Mr. Holmes, when the door suddenly opened and my wife walked out.

"I was struck with astonishment at the sight of her. It seemed for a moment that she wished to step back inside the house again. Then she came forward, with a very white face and frightened eyes.

'Ah, Jack,' she said, 'I have just been in to see if I can help our new neighbours. Why do you look at me like that, Jack? You are not angry with me?'

'So,' said I, 'this is where you went during the night.'

'What do you mean?' she cried. 'You came here. I am sure of it. Who are these people that you visit them at such an hour?' 'I have not been here before.'

'How can you tell me what you know is a lie?' I cried. 'Even your voice changes as you speak. I shall enter that cottage, and I shall find out every­thing myself.'

'No, no, Jack, for God's sake¹!' she cried. 'Don't do it, please. I swear that I will tell you everything some day. Trust me, Jack! It's for your sake² that I have a secret from you now. Our whole life is at stake³ in this. If you come home with me all will be well. If you force your way into that cottage all is over between us.'

"There was such earnestness, such despair in her manner that her words stopped me.

'I will trust you on one condition, and on one condition only,' said I. 'You are at liberty to keep your secret, but you must promise me that there shall be no more nightly visits.'

'I was sure that you would trust me,' she cried with a great sigh of relief. 'It shall be just as you wish. Let's go home, oh, let's go home.'

"Pulling at my sleeve, she led me away from the cottage. As we went I glanced back, and there was that yellow livid face watching us out of the upper window.

"What link could there be between that creature and my wife? Or how could the rough woman whom I had seen the day before be connected with her? It was a strange puzzle.

"For two days after this I stayed at home. On the third day I had to go to town on business. I returned by the 2:40 instead of the 3:36, which is my usual train. As I entered the house, the maid ran into the hall with a startled face.

'Where is your mistress?' I asked.

'I think that she has gone out for a walk,' she answered.

"My mind was instantly filled with suspicion. I rushed upstairs to make sure that she was not in the house. As I did so I glanced out of one of the upper windows and saw the maid with whom I had just been speaking running across the field in the direc­tion of the cottage. Then of course I saw exactly what it all meant. My wife had gone over there and had asked the servant to call her if I should return.

"Burning with anger, I rushed down and hur­ried across the field. I saw my wife and the maid hurrying back along the lane, but I did not stop to speak with them. In the cottage lay the secret, and I vowed that I should disclose it.

"I did not even knock when I reached it, but turned the handle and rushed into the passage.

"It was all still and quiet upon the ground floor. In the kitchen a kettle was singing on the fire, and a large black cat lay coiled up in the basket; but there was no sign of the woman whom I had seen before. I ran into the other room, but it was emp­ty, too. Then I rushed up the stairs only to find two other rooms empty. There was no one at all in the whole house. The room in the window of which I had seen the strange face, was comfortable and elegant, and all my suspicions flamed up anew, when I saw that on the mantelpiece stood a copy of a full-length photograph of my wife.

"I stayed long enough to make certain that the house was absolutely empty.

"Then I left it, feeling a weight at my heart such as I had never had before. My wife came out into the hall as I entered my house; but I was too hurt and angry to speak with her, and I went silently into my study. She followed me, however, before I could close the door.

"I am sorry that I broke my promise, Jack/ said she, 'but if you knew all the circumstances I am sure that you would forgive me.'

"Tell me everything, then,' said I.

"I cannot, Jack, I cannot,' she cried.

" Until you tell me who has been living in that cottage, and to whom you have given that photo­graph, there can never be any confidence between us,' said I, and putting on my coat, I left the house.

"That was yesterday, Mr. Holmes, and I have not seen her since. This morning it occurred to me that you were the man to advise me, so I have hurried to you now, and I place myself in your hands. Tell me quickly what I am to do, for this misery is more than I can bear."

Holmes sat silent for some time, with his chin upon his hand, lost in thought.

"Tell me," said he at last, "could you swear that this was a man's face which you saw at the win­dow?"

"No. Each time that I saw it I was some distance away from it so that it is impossible for me to say."

"How long is it since your wife asked you for a hundred pounds?"

"Nearly two months."

"Have you ever seen a photograph of her first husband?"

"No."

"Have you ever met anyone who knew her in America? "

"No."

"Has she ever got letters from America?"

"No."

"Thank you.

"I should like to think over the matter a little now. I think the cottage is not permanently de­serted. I suppose the inmates were warned of your coming and left before you entered yesterday. They may be back now. Let me advise you, then, to re­turn to Norbury and to examine the windows of the cottage again. If you see that it is inhabited, do not go there, but send a telegram to my friend and me. We shall be with you within an hour of receiving it, and we shall then very soon clear up the matter."

"I am afraid that this is a bad business, Watson," said my companion when Mr. Grant Munro left us. There's blackmail in it, or I am much mistaken."

"And who is the blackmailer?"

"Well, it must be the person who lives in the only comfortable room in the cottage and has her photograph above his fireplace."

"Do you have a theory?"

"Yes. This woman's first husband is in that cot­tage."

"Why do you think so?"

"How else can we explain her anxiety that the second one should not enter it? The facts are something like this: This woman was married in America. Her husband contracted some loathsome disease and became a leper or an imbecile. She fled from him at last, returned to England, changed her name, and started her life, as she thought, afresh.

"She had been married three years and believed that her position was quite secure, having shown 1 her husband the death certificate of some man whose name she had assumed, when suddenly her address was discovered by her first husband, or, we may suppose, by some unscrupulous woman who is taking care of the invalid. They wrote to the wife and threatened to come and expose her. She asked for a hundred pounds and tried to buy them off. They came in spite of it. She waited until her" husband was asleep and then she rushed to the cottage to try to persuade them to leave her in peace J Having no success, she went again next morning, and her husband met her, as he has told us, as she came out.

"She promised him then not to go there again, but two days afterwards the hope of getting rid of those dreadful neighbours was too strong for her, and she made another attempt. During this inter­view the maid rushed in to say that the master had come home. The wife, knowing that he would come straight to the cottage, hurried the inmates out at the back door, into the grove of fir-trees, probably, which Mr. Munro 4as mentioned. In this way he found the place deserted.

"But now we must wait for a telegram from Mr. Munro."

The telegram came just as we had finished our tea.

"The cottage is still tenanted [ it said ]. Have seen the face again at the window. Will meet the seven-o'clock train."

He was waiting on the platform when we stepped out.

"They are still there, Mr. Holmes," said he. "I saw lights in the cottage as I came down. We shall settle it now once and for all."

"What is your plan?" asked Holmes.

"I am going to get into the cottage and see for myself who is in the house. I wish you both to be there as witnesses."

"Well, I think that you are right," said Holmes. "Any truth is better than indefinite doubt."

It was a very dark night, and a thin rain began to fall as we turned from the highroad into a narrow lane. Mr. Grant Munro quickly walked forward.

"And here is the cottage which I am going to enter," he said.

We approached the cottage. The door was not quite closed, and one window on the upper floor was brightly illuminated. Suddenly a woman ap­peared out of the shadow and stood in the door­way. It was Mr. Grant Munro's wife.

"For God's sake, don't, Jack!" she cried. "I had suspected that you would come this evening. Please don't go in, dear! Think better of it, dear! Trust me again, and you will never regret it."

"I have trusted you too long, Effie," he cried. "I must go in. My friends and I are going to settle this matter once and forever!"

He went in, and we followed. Grant Munro rushed into the lighted room at the top, and we entered at his heels.

It was a cosy, well-furnished apartment, with two candles burning upon the table and two upon the mantelpiece. In the corner we saw a little girl sitting at a desk. Her face was turned away as we entered, but we could see that she was dressed in a red frock, and that she had long white gloves on her hands. As she turned round to us, I gave a cry of surprise and horror.

The face which she turned towards us was white as death and absolutely expressionless.

A moment later the mystery was explained.

Holmes, with a laugh, passed his hand behind the child's ear, and took a mask from her face. And we saw a little coal-black Negro girl, with all her white teeth flashing in amusement at our surprised faces.

Grant Munro stood staring.

"My God!" he cried at last. "What can be the meaning of this?"

"I will tell you the meaning of it," cried the lady, entering the room with a proud face. "You have forced me, against my own will, to tell you, so listen.

"My husband died at Atlanta. My child survived."

"Your child?"

She drew a large silver locket from her bosom.

"You have never seen this open."

"I thought that it did not open."

She touched a spring, and the locket opened. Inside there was a portrait of a man strikingly handsome and intelligent-looking, but by the col­our and features of his face it was clear that his forefathers were Africans.

"That is John Hebron, of Atlanta," said the lady, "and a nobler man never walked the earth. It was our misfortune that our only child took after his people and not after mine. Little Lucy is even darker than her father was. But dark or fair, she is my own dear little girl, and her mother's pet."

The little girl ran across at the words and pressed herself against the lady's dress.

"When I left her in America," she continued, "it was only because her health was weak, and it was not safe for her to change the climate. She was given to the care of a faithful Scotch woman who had once been our servant.

"When I met you, Jack, and fell in love with you, I was afraid to to tell you about my child. God forgive me, I feared that I should lose you, and I had not the courage to tell you. I had to choose between the two of you, and in my weak­ness I turned away from my own little girl. For three years I have kept her existence a secret from you, but I heard from the nurse, and I knew that all was well with her. At last, however, there came an overwhelming desire to see the child once more. I struggled against it, but in vain. Though I knew the danger, I determined to have the child here, if only for a few weeks.

"I sent a hundred pounds to the nurse, and I gave her instructions about this cottage, so that she might come as a neighbour. I ordered her to keep the child in the house during the daytime, and to cover up her little face and hands, so that even those who might see her at the window should not gossip that there was a black child in the neigh­bourhood.

"It was you who told me first that the cottage was occupied. I should have waited for the morn­ing, but I could not sleep for excitement, and so at last I slipped out, hoping that you wouldn't wake up.

"But you saw me go, and that was the begin­ning of my troubles. Now, tonight, you at last know all."

It was a long ten minutes before Grant Munro broke the silence, and when his answer came it was one of which I love to think.

He lifted the little child, kissed her, and then, still carrying her, he held his other hand out to his wife and turned towards the door.

"We can talk it over more comfortably at home," said he. "I am not a very good man, Effie, but I think that I am better than you thought I was."

Sherlock Holmes and I left the cottage with them and went back to London. Holmes did not say a word about the case until late at night. When he was leaving for his bedroom with a lighted candle in his hand, he stopped in the doorway.

"Watson," said he, "if it sometimes seems to you that I am getting a little overconfident in my powers, just whisper, 'The Yellow Face* in my ear, and I shall be very grateful to you."

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