Sherlock Homes: The Man with the Twisted Lip - Part 4 - Music Free

Part 4 of Shunoukou's and the twisted lip.

Who is on duty, Arstheim's, Inspector Bradsheet's sir, are Bradsheet, how are you?

A tall stout official had come down the stug-fiked passage in a peaked cap and fronked jacket.

I wish to have a quiet word with you, Bradsheet.

Certainly, Mr. Holmes, step into my room here.

It was a small, office-like room with a huge ledger upon the table and a telephone projecting

from the wall.

The Inspector sat down at his desk.

What can I do for you, Mr. Holmes?

I called about the Begeman Boone, the one who was charged with being concerned in the

disappearance of Mr. Neville St. Clair of Lee.

Yes, he was brought up and remanded for further inquiries, so I heard you have him here.

Can the cells?

Is he quiet?

Oh, he gives no trouble, but he is a dirty scoundrel.

Dirty?

Yes, it is all we can do to make him wash his hands.

At his face is as black as a tinkers.

Well, when once his case has been settled, he will have a regular prison bath.

And I think if you saw him, you would agree with me that he needed it.

I should like to see him very much.

Would you?

That is easily done.

Come this way.

You can leave your bag.

No, I think I'll take it.

Very good.

Come this way if you please.

He let us down a passage, opened a barred door, passed down a winding stair, and brought

us to a white washed coronal with a line of doors on each side.

The third on the right is his, so the inspector.

Here it is.

He quietly short back a panel in the upper parts of the door, unglanced through.

He is asleep, said he.

You can see him very well.

We both put our eyes to the grating, and the prisoner lay, with his face towards us in

a very deep sleep, breathing slowly and heavily.

He was a middle-sized man, costly clan, as became his calling, with a cut of shirt protruding

through the rent in his tattered coat.

He was, as the inspector had said, extremely dirty, but the grime which covered his face

could not conceal its repulsive ugliness.

A broad wheel from an old skull ran right across it from eye to chin, and by his contraction

had turned up one side of the upper lip, so that three teeth were exposed in a perpetual

snarl.

A shock of very bright red hair grew low over his eyes and forehead.

He's a beauty, isn't he, said the inspector.

He certainly needs a wash, remarked Holmes, I have an idea that he might.

I took the liberty of bringing the tools with me.

He opened the glass-stained bag as he spoke, and took out, to my astonishment, a very large

bath sponge.

He he, you are a funny one, chuckled at the inspector.

Now, if you have the great goodness to open that door very quietly, we will soon make him

cut a much more respectable figure.

Well, I don't know why not, said the inspector.

He doesn't look a credit to the bow-street sales, does he?

He slipped his key into the lock, and all very quietly entered the cell.

The sleeper half-turned, and then settled down once more into a deep slumber.

Holmes stooped to the water-joke, moistened his sponge, and then rubbed it twice vigorously

across and down the prisoner's face.

Let me introduce you, he shouted, to Mr. Neville St. Clair of Leigh in the county of Kent.

Never in my life have I seen such a sight.

The man's face peeled off under the sponge, Mike the bark from a tree.

Colonel was the coarse brown tint.

Gone too was the horrid scar, which had seemed it across, and the twisted lip which had

given the repulsive sneer to his face.

A twitch brought away the tangled red hair, and there sitting in the bed was a pale, sad

face refined-looking man, black-haired and smooth-skinned, rubbing his eyes and staring

about him with sleepy bewilderment.

Then suddenly realizing the exposure he broke into a scream and threw himself down with

this face to the pillow.

Great heavens cried the inspector.

It is indeed the missing man I know him from the photograph.

The prisoner turned with the reckless air of a man who abandons himself to his destiny.

Be it so, said he, and pray what am I charged with?

With making a way, with Mr. Nell's saint, oh come, you can't be charged with that unless

they make a case of attempted suicide of it, so the inspector with a grin.

Well, I have been twenty-seven years in the force, but this really takes the cake.

If I am Mr. Nell's and clear, then it is obvious that no crime has been committed, and

therefore I am illegally detained.

No crime, but a very great error has been committed, sometimes, you would have done better

to have trusted your wife.

It was not the wife, it was the children who grinned the prisoner.

God help me, I would not have the machine of their father.

My God, what an exposure, what can I do?

The killer comes, sat down beside him on the couch, and pated him kindly on the shoulder.

If you leave it, to the court of law, to clear the matter up, said he.

Of course you can hardly avoid publicity.

On the other hand, if you convince the police authorities that there is no possible case

against you, I do not know that there is any reason that the

details should find their way into the papers.

Inspector Bradsheet would, I am sure, make notes upon anything which you might tell us

and submit it to the proper authorities.

The case would then never go into court at all.

And bless you, cried the prisoner passionately.

My would have endured imprisonment, a, even execution, rather than have left my miserable

secret as a family blot to my children.

You are the first who has ever heard my story.

My father was a schoolmaster in Chesterfield, where I received an excellent education.

I travelled in my youth, took to the stage, and finally became a reporter on an evening

paper in London.

One day my editor wished to have a series of articles upon begging in the metropolis,

and I volunteered to supply them.

There was the point from which all my adventures started.

It was only by train begging, as an amateur, that I could get the facts upon which to base

my articles.

When an actor I had, of course, learned all the secrets of making up, and had been famous

in the green room for my skill, I took advantage now of my attainments.

I painted my face, and to make myself as pitiable as possible, I made a good scar, and fixed

one side of my lip, in a twist by the aid of a small slip of flesh-cuttered plaster.

Then with a red head of hair, and an appropriate dress, I took my station in the business part

of the city, ostensibly as a match-seller, but really as a beggar.

For seven hours I applied my train, and when I returned home in the evening, I found

to my surprise that I had received no less than 26 shillings, and four pants.

I wrote my articles, and thought little more of a matter, until sometime later I backed

a bill for a friend, and had a writ served upon me for 25 pounds.

I was at my wit's end, where to get the money, but a certain idea came to me.

I begged a fortnight's grace from the creditor, asked for a holiday from my employers, and spent

the time in begging in the city under my disguise.

In ten days I had the money, and had paid the debt.

We can imagine how hard it was to settle down to audios work at two pounds a week, when

I knew I could earn as much in a day by smearing my face with a little paint, laying my cap

on the ground, and sitting still.

It was a long fight between my pride and the money, but the dollars won at last, and

I threw up reporting, and sat day after day in the corner, which I had first chosen,

inspiring pity by my ghastly face, and filling my pockets with coffers.

Only one man knew my secret, he was the keeper of a low den, in which I used to launch

in Swondon Lane, where I could every morning emerge as a squatted beggar, and in the evenings

transform myself into a well-dressed man of outtown.

This fan-o as a skull was well paid for me for his rooms, so that I knew that my secret

was safe in his possession.

Well, very soon I found that I was saving considerable sums of money, I do not mean that

any beggar in the streets of London could earn 700 pounds a year, which is less than my

average takings, but I had exceptional advantages in my power of making up, and also in a facility

of rapportee, which improved by practice, and made me quite a recognized character in

the city.

All day, a stream of pennies varied by silver poured in upon me, and it was a very

bad day, in which I failed to tank two pounds.

As I grew richer, I grew more ambitious, took a house in the country, and eventually

married, without anyone having a suspicion as to my real occupation.

My dear wife knew that I had business in the city.

She a little knew what.

When I asked Monday, I'd finished for the day, and it was dressing my room above the

opium den, when I looked out of my window, and saw to my horror an astonishment that my

wife was standing in the street, with her eyes fixed full upon me.

I gave a cry of surprise, threw up my arms to cover my face, and rushing to my confidence

that a scar entreated him to prevent anyone from coming up to me.

I heard her voice downstairs, and I knew that she could not ascend.

Swiffly, I threw off my clothes, pulled on those or a bagger, and put on my pigments

and wing.

Even a wife's eyes could not pierce so complete a disguise, but then it occurred to me

that there might be a search in the room, and other clothes might betray me.

I threw open the window, reopening by my violence, a small cut which I had inflicted upon

myself in the bedroom that morning.

Then I seized my coat, which was waited by the coppers, which I had just transferred to

it, from the other bank, in which I carried my takings.

I hurled it out of the window, and it disappeared into the Thames.

Other clothes would have fallen, but at that moment there was a rush of constables

at the stair, and a few minutes after I found rather a confess to my relief, that instead

of being identified as Mr. Neville Sinclair, I was arrested as his murderer.

I do not know that there is anything else for me to explain.

I was determined to preserve my disguise, as long as possible, and hence my preference

for a dirty face, knowing that my wife would be terribly anxious.

I slipped off my ring, and could find it to the the scar, at a moment when no constable

was watching me, together with a hurry to scroll, telling her that she had no cause to

fear.

That note, only reached her yesterday, said Holmes.

Good God!

What a week she must have spent!

The police have watched this the scar, as an inspector bred street, and I can quite

understand that he might find it difficult to post a letter unobserved.

Probably he handed it to some senior customer of his, who forgot all about it for some

days.

That was it, said Holmes, nodding approvingly, I have no doubt about it, but have you never

been prosecuted for begging?

Many times, but what was affine to me?

It must stop here, however, said Bradstreet, if the police are to hush this thing up, there

must be no more of you, Boone.

I swore it, by the most solemn oaths, which a man can take, said Boone.

In that case, I think it is probable that no further steps may be taken, but if you are

found again, then almost come out.

I am sure, Mr Holmes, that we are very much indebted to you for having cleared the matter

up.

I wish I knew how you reach your results.

I reached to this one, said my friend, by sitting upon five pillows, and consuming an ounce

of shag.

I think Watson, that if we drive to Bakerstreet, we shall just be in time for breakfast.