Red Széll

She feared him or she would not have fled from Lausanne.

He had still followed.

Sooner or later he would overtake her.

Had he already overtaken her?

Was that the secret of her continued silence?

Could the good people who were her companions not screen her from his violence or his blackmail?

What horrible purpose, what deep design lay behind this long pursuit?

there was the problem which I had to solve.

To Holmes I wrote showing how rapidly and surely I had got down to the roots of the matter.

In reply, I had a telegram asking for a description of Dr Schlesinger's left ear.

Holmes's ideas of humour are strange and occasionally offensive, so I took no notice of his ill-timed jest.

Indeed, I had already reached Montpellier in my pursuit of the maid Marie before his message came.

I had no difficulty in finding the ex-servant and in learning all that she could tell me.

She was a devoted creature who had only left her mistress because she was sure that she was in good hands and because her own approaching marriage made a separation inevitable in any case.

Her mistress had, as she confessed with distress, shown some irritability of temper towards her during their stay in Baden and had even questioned her once as if she had suspicions of her honesty.

and this had made the parting easier than it would otherwise have been.

Lady Frances had given her fifty pounds as a wedding present.

Like me, Marie viewed with deep distrust the stranger who had driven her mistress from Lausanne.

With her own eyes she had seen him seize the lady's wrist with great violence on the public promenade by the lake.

He was a fierce and terrible man.