"It worked just like that," she went on cheerfully. "I hid the porridge in the bedclothes and he took the bowl and went away."
"How did you know to do that?" asked my friend. He was leaning back in his chair with his fingertips pressed together, eyelids half closed, looking as if he were on the verge of falling asleep; by which familiar signs I knew that the lady's narrative had his utmost attention.
"I don't know how I knew. It was-it was self-evident." There were signs of the return of the lady's frustrated confusion.
"Never mind. Go on," encouraged Holmes. "What did you do next?"
"I looked around the room. It was growing dark. I tore the sheet down from the window and looked out. There was a little yard with a wall around it. I sat for a long time in the dark, trying to think; but my mind would not focus. The window was stuck-the woodwork was painted over many times. I could not move it. The room began to feel stuffy of a sudden. I wanted out. Once I had begun to feel afraid, the feeling grew very quickly. I wrapped the sheet from the bed round my arm and broke the window. Then I hung by the ledge and dropped down."
"You were on the first floor," interjected Holmes.
"No." Holmes's remark broke her concentration momentarily. "No, it was the second."
"I see. Go on."
"I landed on grass. I crouched for a moment, listening, for it seemed to me I had made a dreadful amount of noise. Then all my panic flooded my mind at once. I ran, out the back. I ran and ran, down little alleys, keeping to the dark and shadows. I do not think I could retrace my steps; my mind was all in pieces. Everything around me seemed dirty and strange. I came to a wide river. It seemed to me that there were things behind me in the dark.
I waded in, fell into the cold water and let it carry me away. I felt better while swimming; the water hid me, held me. I floated for a long time, just paddling gently. Then I fetched up against a stone wall. I swam along it until I came to some stone steps. I crawled up on the steps and just sat. I felt cold and dizzy and sick. I wrapped the sheet around me-I don't know how I came still to have it, for I don't remember carrying it with me. I sat for a long time. A man in a uniform came out of the darkness and began to ask me questions. I could not answer him; I did not know the answers. He brought me here."
Her narrative trailed off. She shook her head, an unhappy half-smile upon her lips, and met my companion's eyes in a gaze of most earnest entreaty. "Do you think me mad?" she asked quietly.
Holmes met her gaze unflinchingly. "No," said he.
She studied his face with penetrating concentration, then sat back with a little nod, as if satisfied by what she saw there. "You are a man of your word," she murmured. Her inward look returned, and she fell silent.
"Well, Inspector Lestrade," said Holmes, rising briskly, "that should give you something to go on."
"What?" asked the Inspector in frank bafflement. He had the air of a man who had been promised a treat for breakfast and then presented with a plate of snails; he vaguely saw that he was expected to be grateful, but could not understand why.
"The next step is not obvious to you? Yet you heard what I heard and saw what I saw. Very well, I will make you a free present of it, since you brought me here to ask my advice, and since you have saved me from a morning of boredom. You are looking for a house in Camberwell that has been rented within the last month to one or both of the two men with whose descriptions this lady has just favored us. It is brick, in a run-down condition, stands in its own grounds with a wall around it, and has a broken window upon the first floor in the back. That window, incidentally, proves this lady to be an American in spite of her ambiguous accent; she may be athletic, but she did not drop over thirty feet to the ground; calling the first floor the second is a pure Americanism."
"But Mr. Holmes," said Lestrade, pulling my friend aside and lowering his voice, "how can we trust her testimony? Her state of mind-" he tapped his forehead significantly. "Why, she can't even remember her own name!"
"Ah, yes, her memory," responded Holmes. "There is indeed something very unusual about her memory. Did you notice it, Watson?"
"She's lost it," said I, wondering what in heaven's name he was leading up to now.
"That, too," replied Holmes. "But just lend me that copy of the Times I see peeking from your raincoat pocket, Inspector, and I think I can favor you a remarkable demonstration."
He took the paper from Lestrade and glanced through it briefly, then folded it open. "This is nice and neutral, it will do. Madam," he turned back to the patient, "if I may trouble you one more time. Please read this little paragraph here, to yourself, that's fine. Then give the paper back to me. Good. Now tell me what you read, word for word."
The lady complied readily now with his instructions. She composed her hands in her lap and began to recite as Holmes handed the paper to Lestrade and me and pointed out the paragraph in question, which was a financial report on copra imports.
"Holmes!" I cried in sudden enlightenment when she was but half through. "She has a photographic memory!"
The detective smiled benignly upon me, and gave a little nod of his head, as if to take a bow for the performance.
"But what does that show?" asked Lestrade fadingly.
"I have no idea," Holmes admitted cheerfully. "But put it in your bag of facts; it may prove important later."
We prepared to take our leave. Holmes turned back for a last encouraging word to the patient.
"Madam, do not be afraid. There is every hope that with the information we have gained Inspector Lestrade can bring your case to a speedy and happy conclusion. We shall keep in touch."
He was rewarded with the first real smile I had seen on the lady's face. Its wistful quality illuminated and softened a face I had at first found too harsh, bony, and tense to qualify for feminine beauty.
"Thank you," she said. After a silence we left her, eyes turned inward once again, in a pose very like that in which we had first found her.
"A case not without features of interest, Watson," remarked Holmes in the cab as we were driven back to our respective lodgings. "I hope our friend Lestrade is able to do it justice. No doubt I shall hear from him again before it is done. There are some ambiguous points; more than one interpretation is yet admissible." He paused thoughtfully. "Now, the fair sex is your department, as I think I have observed to you before; what did you think of Lestrade's catch?"
"As a woman?" I shrugged. "She was in great mental distress, of course. It is hard to tell."
"You were not wholly taken with her? Unusual."
I searched for the words in which to put my very vague impressions. "It is unfair to judge her in her present condition; yet I confess I could not warm to her unreservedly. It seemed to me that she lacked that sweet spirituality which is the ultimate hallmark of a woman of refinement."
"You found her harsh, in short. I fancy you are right. Refinement is probably not her strong suit. And yet she has a remarkable intelligence for a woman, and a certain physical courage most unusual in her sex."
"You find her attractive?" I asked, surprised at even this guarded encomium from my traditionally misogynistic friend.