The Secret Files of Sherlock Holmes Read Online Free PDF Page B

to any boarding-house in the resort with the name of ‘
Mon Repos
’.
    There were nine, the man informed us.
    At the first two, Holmes got out and rang the bell, returning after a few minutes with a shake of the head, indicating that they were not the one he was seeking.
    At the third, a dingy house with dirty lace curtains and a ‘Vacancy’ sign hanging in the window, he did not even trouble to alight. After giving it a cursory glance, he ordered the cabby to drive on.
    The fourth ‘
Mon Repos
’ was a red-brick villa, not unlike Phillimore’s house in Clapham only larger and standing detached in a decent-sized front garden in which brightly-coloured flowers were growing in neat beds.
    ‘I believe we have found it, Watson!’ Holmes exclaimed and, telling the cabby to wait, he leapt out and strode up the path to the front door.
    His knock was answered by a short, pleasant-looking woman in her thirties with soft fair hair and a ready smile.
    ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she began, ‘but I have no vacancies. Every room has been taken.’
    ‘It is not rooms my friend and I are inquiring about,’ Holmes told her. ‘My query concerns one of your lodgers, a Mr James Phillimore.’
    As she put one hand to her mouth in sudden consternation, a door leading off the hall opened and a tall man with greying hair emerged. His long chin must have been inherited from his mother but not his general demeanour, which was agreeable and good-natured. He was comfortably dressed in shirt-sleeves and slippers but, despite the casual nature of his attire, he still retained the attentive and respectful manner of an upper servant or the more superior type of waiter.
    ‘Mr Holmes, isn’t it?’ he inquired, advancing towards us. ‘Mr Sherlock Holmes? I saw you through the window as you came up the path and I recognised your face from the pictures in the Illustrated London News. And your companion is Doctor Watson, I presume? I imagine my old friend Charlie Nelson put you onto finding me. It’s the kind of action I might have expected of him. A good pal is Charlie Nelson, not the sort to leave any stone unturned, if you’ll forgive the expression.’ Turning to address the landlady who in a state of some distress had retreated into the hall, he added reassuringly, ‘It’s all right, Ellen. There’s nothing to worry about. I propose that these gentlemen and me adjourn to the sitting-room to talk matters over. A pot of tea wouldn’t go amiss, would it, sir?’
    This time he addressed Holmes directly.
    ‘Indeed it would not, Mr Phillimore,’ Holmes assured him.
    Together the three of us retired to the sitting-room, through the door of which Phillimore had just emerged. There, in comfortable and well-furnished surroundings, Phillimore installed Holmes and myself in a pair of armchairs, he himself choosing a seat facing us on the other side of the fireplace.
    ‘Well, sir,’ he said, looking across at us with a grave yet frank expression. ‘So you have found me out.’
    ‘Not entirely,’ Holmes admitted, ‘for, although I know the method by which you contrived your disappearance, I am still a little puzzled about your reasons. I spoke this morning to Sammy Webb, the young man who delivers the bread. This was after you left me, Watson, to attend your patient,’ he broke off to explain for my benefit before turning back to Phillimore. ‘He was reluctant to give you away but, on receiving my assurance that I was acting entirely for your benefit, Mr Phillimore, he explained how, on Tuesday morning, he walked round to your back door – part of his normal routine, incidentally – where he left on the doorstep a penny bag of bread-rolls, the usual order. You meanwhile, having returned to the house ostensibly to collect your umbrella, had gone quickly and quietly upstairs to your bedroom to retrieve a cap, a long white apron and a large basket of the type in which bread is carried, part of a simple but effective disguise, the props for