A Study in Terror by Ellery Queen Read Free Book Online Page B

said Holmes with equal courtesy. The two detectives had evidently decided to call a truce until the morbid affair could be resolved—the first such truce between them, I might add, that ever I was aware of.
    As we quitted the charnel-house, I glanced back and saw Pierre smoothing the sheet carefully over the body of Annie Chapman. Holmes, I noted, also glanced in the simpleton’s direction, and something kindled in his grey eyes.

CHAPTER IV
    DR . MURRAY ’ S HOSTEL
    â€œOne does what one can,” said Dr. Murray, a few moments later, “but, in a city of the size of London, it is a little like trying to sweep back the sea with a broom. A sea of destitution and despair.”
    We had left the morgue, and crossed a flag-stoned inner courtyard. He ushered us through another door, and into a shabby but more cheerful atmosphere. The hostel was very old. It had been built originally as a stable, a long, low, stone building with the places for the stalls still clearly marked. Again, buckets of whitewash had been used, but the eternal odour of the carbolic was here mingled with a slightly less disagreeable effluvium of medicines, steaming vegetable stew, and unbathed bodies. As the building extended onward in railway fashion, the stalls had been fashioned into larger units, double and sometimes triple their original size, and put to appropriate uses. Black-lettered cards identified them variously as dormitories for women and men. There was a dispensary, and a clinical waiting-room with stone benches. Ahead of us, a sign read: This Way to Chapel and Dining-Hall .
    Curtains had been drawn across the entrance to the women’s dormitory, but that of the men stood open, and several sorry-looking derelicts slept upon their iron cots.
    In the clinical area, three patients awaited attention, while the dispensary was occupied by a huge, brutish man who looked freshly come from sweeping a chimney. He was seated, a sullen scowl upon his face. His eyes were fastened upon a pretty young lady ministering to him. One of his vast feet rested upon a low stool; the young lady had just finished bandaging it. She came up from her knees and brushed a lock of dark hair back from her forehead.
    â€œHe cut it badly upon a shard of broken glass,” she told Dr. Murray. The doctor stooped to inspect the bandage, giving the brute’s foot no less attention than it would have received in any Harley Street surgery. He straightened and spoke kindly.
    â€œYou must come back to-morrow and have the dressing changed, my friend. Be sure, now.”
    The oaf was entirely without gratitude. “I can’t put my boot on. ’Ow am I goin’ to get about?”
    He spoke as though the doctor were responsible, with such surliness that I could not restrain myself. “If you had stayed sober, my good man, perhaps you could have avoided the broken glass.”
    â€œâ€™Ere now, guv’ner!” says he, bold as brass. “A man’s got to ’ave a pint once in a while!”
    â€œI doubt if you’ve ever held yourself to a pint.”
    â€œPlease wait here a few moments,” interposed Dr. Murray, “I’ll have Pierre bring you a stick. We keep a small stock for emergencies.”
    Turning to the young lady, he went on, “Sally, these gentlemen are Mr. Sherlock Holmes and his colleague, Dr. Watson. Gentlemen, this is Miss Sally Young, my niece and good right arm. I don’t know what the hostel would be without her.”
    Sally Young extended a slim hand to each of us in turn. “I am honoured,” said she, cool and self-possessed. “I have heard both names before. But I never expected to meet such famous personages.”
    â€œYou are too kind,” murmured Holmes.
    Her tact in including me, a mere shadow to Sherlock Holmes, was gracious, and I bowed.
    Said Dr. Murray, “I’ll get the stick myself, Sally. Will you conduct Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson the rest of the way?