records. These included an entry in that same year for the training of a nursing sister who went out to India. They knew her then as Emmeline Bancroft. You and I, and anyone else who cared to check the records of marriages at Somerset House, would perhaps know her better by her married name. She was the late Emmeline Putney-Wilson.”
The stricken figure gave a gasp of shock, as if simply to empty his lungs and fill them with new breath. I could see that Holmes longed to be sympathetic but dared not.
“It grieves me, sir, that we should have to come to the truth by means that must be so painful to you. I still believe you to be an honourable man and a just man. Deceit does not become you, however necessary it may seem to you.”
He paused and then addressed the frightened figure before him.
“For whatever distress I have caused you, Major Henry Putney-Wilson, I owe you an apology. You are in danger and you hoped a dead friend’s identity might protect you. I think it will not. I beg you to leave this place and leave this city. Return to India or anywhere else away from England. You need not fear me, although you hoped to make use of me in destroying the man who killed your wife by the cruellest means. Leave that to the law, sir. It will come, I assure you. As for the secret of your identity, I need hardly say that it is safe with me. Until all danger to you is past, Henry Putney-Wilson does not exist for me. Except in the presence of my associate, Dr. Watson, and of Inspector Lestrade, I shall speak of you and think of you as the Reverend Samuel Dordona of Lahore. But I beg you will listen earnestly to what I have said. If I could trace the truth about you so easily, what might your enemies do?”
The poor man still stared at us. “You could not have known!”
Holmes shook his head sympathetically.
“I could not have helped knowing, sir! From the moment I met you—indeed from the moment I saw you walking down Baker Street—I did not believe that you were the man who had written that letter to Dr. Watson making your appointment. You do not have sufficient power to deceive, if I may say so. The letter is deferential, even obsequious. You are upright, forthright, firm, an air like Mars to summon and command. It is as much in your military stride as in your character. Did Captain Sellon write that letter for you? or, as I think more probable, did he compose it and did you persuade some other person to act as your scribe? I deduce that Joshua Sellon may have warned you not to let your own handwriting be publicly examined.”
“But you could not know that!”
“I could and do, Mr. Dordona. Once again, if I do, how many others might do so?”
Our client’s reply was little more than a mumble. “There are places in the commercial district of the city of London where men of means without the art of writing may pay to have letters written for them by clerks or scriveners. It is common enough. I made use of that to avoid discovery. Now, Mr. Holmes, I believe you know everything that I can tell you.”
“I know something, Major Putney-Wilson. Not everything. I shall continue to wonder, as I did yesterday, whether you have left India to follow and kill a man. I was not joking when I asked you that. I am not joking now. Indeed, I might honour you for your intention. But there is a price attached, is there not?, and you may not be the one who pays it. So I must also wonder whether your crusade has already caused a brave man to give up his life in this room in order to save yours. Only you can tell me whether I am right.”
While Holmes was speaking, I watched our client. Indeed he was our client. But yesterday he had been the absurdly disguised Samuel Dordona. Today he was the crusader who had employed two guards and a farrier to mark obscenely with a hot iron the man who seduced his wife and then drove her to hang herself. I was convinced he now sought that man’s life. He had been terribly wronged, but we should not make the mistake of believing in him as a victim without the resolve to inflict