“Now that Gorgiano is dead we fear nothing,” said the lady. “He was a devil and a monster, and there can be no judge in the world who would punish my husband for having killed him.”

“One moment, Gregson,” said Holmes. “I rather fancy that this lady may be as anxious to give us information as we can be to get it. You understand, madam, that your husband will be arrested and tried for the death of the man who lies before us?

“Well, Mrs. Lucca,” said the prosaic Gregson, laying his hand upon the lady’s sleeve with as little sentiment as if she were a Notting Hill hooligan, “I am not very clear yet who you are or what you are;

“I do not understand how you know these things,” she said. “Giuseppe Gorgiano—how did he—” She paused, and then suddenly her face lit up with pride and delight. “Now I see it! My Gennaro!

“It was I who called,” said Holmes. “You! How could you call?” “Your cipher was not difficult, madam. Your presence here was desirable. I knew that I had only to flash ‘Vieni’ and you would surely come.”

“But you! You are police, are you not? You have killed Giuseppe Gorgiano. Is it not so?” “We are police, madam.” She looked round into the shadows of the room. “But where, then, is Gennaro?” she asked.

“You have killed him!” she muttered. “Oh, Dio mio, you have killed him!” Then I heard a sudden sharp intake of her breath, and she sprang into the air with a cry of joy.

We all turned round at the words. There, framed in the doorway, was a tall and beautiful woman—the mysterious lodger of Bloomsbury.

Holmes had stepped across, had lit the candle, and was passing it backward and forward across the window-panes. Then he peered into the darkness, blew the candle out, and threw it on the floor.

“By George! it’s Black Gorgiano himself!” cried the American detective. “Someone has got ahead of us this time.” “Here is the candle in the window, Mr. Holmes,” said Gregson. “Why, whatever are you doing?” #SherlockHolmes #ArthurConanDoyle #TheAdventureOfTheRedCircle

In the middle of the floor of the empty room was huddled the figure of an enormous man, his clean-shaven, swarthy face grotesquely horrible in its contortion and his head encircled by a ghastly crimson halo of blood, lying in a broad wet circle upon the white woodwork.

The door of the left-hand flat upon the third landing was standing ajar. Gregson pushed it open. Within all was absolute silence and darkness. I struck a match and lit the detective’s lantern. As I did so, and as the flicker steadied into a flame, we all gave a gasp of surprise.

Our official detectives may blunder in the matter of intelligence, but never in that of courage. Gregson climbed the stair to arrest this desperate murderer with the same absolutely quiet and businesslike bearing with which he would have ascended the official staircase of Scotland Yard.

“But we have no warrant for his arrest.” “He is in unoccupied premises under suspicious circumstances,” said Gregson. “That is good enough for the moment.

“Well, it figures out that way, does it not? Here he is, sending out messages to an accomplice—there are several of his gang in London. Then suddenly, just as by your own account he was telling them that there was danger, he broke short off.

“Mr. Holmes talks of signals,” said Gregson. “I expect, as usual, he knows a good deal that we don’t.” In a few clear words Holmes explained the situation as it had appeared to us. The American struck his hands together with vexation.

“Oh, he has a European fame, has he? Well, we’ve learned all about him in America. We know he is at the bottom of fifty murders, and yet we have nothing positive we can take him on.

“The hero of the Long Island cave mystery?” said Holmes. “Sir, I am pleased to meet you.” The American, a quiet, businesslike young man, with a clean-shaven, hatchet face, flushed up at the words of commendation.

“Wait a bit!” cried Gregson eagerly. “I’ll do you this justice, Mr. Holmes, that I was never in a case yet that I didn’t feel stronger for having you on my side. There’s only the one exit to these flats, so we have him safe.” “Who is he?”

“Holmes!” he cried. “Why, Gregson!” said my companion as he shook hands with the Scotland Yard detective. “Journeys end with lovers’ meetings. What brings you here?” “The same reasons that bring you, I expect,” said Gregson. “How you got on to it I can’t imagine.”

PART II As we walked rapidly down Howe Street I glanced back at the building which we had left. There, dimly outlined at the top window, I could see the shadow of a head, a woman’s head, gazing tensely, rigidly, out into the night,

“This is serious, Watson,” he cried. “There is some devilry going forward! Why should such a message stop in such a way? I should put Scotland Yard in touch with this business—and yet, it is too pressing for us to leave.”

The light had suddenly gone out, the glimmering square of window had disappeared, and the third floor formed a dark band round the lofty building, with its tiers of shining casements.

Again we saw the dim silhouette of a crouching man and the whisk of the small flame across the window as the signals were renewed. They came more rapidly than before—so rapid that it was hard to follow them.

My companion gave a sudden chuckle of comprehension. “And not a very obscure cipher, Watson,” said he. “Why, of course, it is Italian! The A means that it is addressed to a woman. ‘Beware! Beware! Beware!’ How’s that, Watson?

Now, then. How many did you make it? Twenty. So did I. That should mean T. AT—that’s intelligible enough. Another T. Surely this is the beginning of a second word. Now, then—TENTA. Dead stop. That can’t be all, Watson?

“Someone is moving in that room,” said Holmes in a whisper, his gaunt and eager face thrust forward to the window-pane. “Yes, I can see his shadow. There he is again! He has a candle in his hand. Now he is peering across.

When we returned to Mrs. Warren’s rooms, the gloom of a London winter evening had thickened into one grey curtain, a dead monotone of colour, broken only by the sharp yellow squares of the windows and the blurred haloes of the gas-lamps.

“Why should you go further in it? What have you to gain from it?” “What, indeed? It is art for art’s sake, Watson. I suppose when you doctored you found yourself studying cases without thought of a fee?” “For my education, Holmes.”

“But what is at the root of it?” “Ah, yes, Watson—severely practical, as usual! What is at the root of it all? Mrs. Warren’s whimsical problem enlarges somewhat and assumes a more sinister aspect as we proceed. This much we can say: that it is no ordinary love escapade.

“The general sequence of events is pretty clear, is it not? A couple seek refuge in London from a very terrible and instant danger. The measure of that danger is the rigour of their precautions.

“I will call again in the evening,” said he to the expectant landlady. “I think, Watson, we can discuss this business better in our own quarters.” “My surmise, as you saw, proved to be correct,” said he, speaking from the depths of his easy-chair.

Suddenly, as the landlady’s footsteps died away, there was the creak of a turning key, the handle revolved, and two thin hands darted out and lifted the tray from the chair.

It was an excellent hiding-place which she had arranged. The mirror was so placed that, seated in the dark, we could very plainly see the door opposite. We had hardly settled down in it, and Mrs. Warren left us, when a distant tinkle announced that our mysterious neighbour had rung.

“See, Watson!” said he. “‘High red house with stone facings.’ There is the signal station all right. We know the place, and we know the code; so surely our task should be simple. There’s a ‘to let’ card in that window.

At half-past twelve we found ourselves upon the steps of Mrs. Warren’s house—a high, thin, yellow-brick edifice in Great Orme Street, a narrow thoroughfare at the northeast side of the British Museum.

“Well, what am I to do, Mr. Holmes?” “I have a great fancy to see this lodger of yours, Mrs. Warren.” “I don’t see how that is to be managed, unless you break in the door. I always hear him unlock it as I go down the stair after I leave the tray.”

“Wait a bit, Mrs. Warren. Do nothing rash. I begin to think that this affair may be very much more important than appeared at first sight. It is clear now that some danger is threatening your lodger.

“Most interesting,” said Holmes. “Did he observe the appearance of these men—did he hear them talk?” “No; he is clean dazed. He just knows that he was lifted up as if by magic and dropped as if by magic. Two at least were in it, and maybe three.”

“Knocking Mr. Warren about?” “Using him roughly, anyway.” “But who used him roughly?” “Ah! that’s what we want to know! It was this morning, sir. Mr. Warren is a timekeeper at Morton and Waylight’s, in Tottenham Court Road.

Our client had suddenly burst into the room with an explosive energy which told of some new and momentous development. “It’s a police matter, Mr. Holmes!” she cried. “I’ll have no more of it! He shall pack out of there with his baggage.

So it proved; for in the morning I found my friend standing on the hearthrug with his back to the fire and a smile of complete satisfaction upon his face.

The clouds will pass. G.’ Nothing for a week after that. Then comes something much more definite: ‘The path is clearing. If I find chance signal message remember code agreed—One A, two B, and so on. You will hear soon. G.’

‘Be patient. Will find some sure means of communications. Meanwhile, this column. G.’ That is two days after Mrs. Warren’s lodger arrived. It sounds plausible, does it not? The mysterious one could understand English, even if he could not print it.

Here are the Daily Gazette extracts of the last fortnight. ‘Lady with a black boa at Prince’s Skating Club’—that we may pass. ‘Surely Jimmy will not break his mother’s heart’—that appears to be irrelevant.

This person is alone and cannot be approached by letter without a breach of that absolute secrecy which is desired. How is any news or any message to reach him from without? Obviously by advertisement through a newspaper.

He took down the great book in which, day by day, he filed the agony columns of the various London journals. “Dear me!” said he, turning over the pages, “what a chorus of groans, cries, and bleatings!

This other, however, prints ‘match’ when it should have been ‘matches.’ I can imagine that the word was taken out of a dictionary, which would give the noun but not the plural.

“Well, apart from this cigarette-end, was it not suggestive that the only time the lodger went out was immediately after his taking the rooms? He came back—or someone came back—when all witnesses were out of the way.

“There are certainly some points of interest in this case, Watson,” he remarked when the landlady had left us. “It may, of course, be trivial—individual eccentricity; or it may be very much deeper than appears on the surface.