My friend the murderer, and other mysteries and adventuresDoyle, Arthur Conan
General
My friend the murderer, and other mysteries and adventures
Doyle, Arthur Conan
Detective and mystery stories, English
I shut myself up in the laboratory all the morning, continuing a
research which I was making upon the nature of the allotropic forms of
carbon and of sulphur. When I came out at mid-day for some food, she
was sitting by the table with a needle and thread mending some rents in
her clothes, which were now dry. I resented her continued presence, but
I could not turn her out on the beach to shift for herself. Presently
she presented a new phase of her character. Pointing to herself and
then to the scene of the shipwreck, she held up one finger, by which
I understood her to be asking whether she was the only one saved. I
nodded my head to indicate that she was. On this she sprang out of the
chair, with a cry of great joy, and holding the garment which she was
mending over her head, and swaying it from side to side with the motion
of her body, she danced as lightly as a feather all round the room,
and then out through the open door into the sunshine. As she whirled
round she sang in a plaintive, shrill voice some uncouth, barbarous
chant, expressive of exultation. I called out to her, “Come in, you
young fiend; come in, and be silent!” but she went on with her dance.
Then she suddenly ran toward me, and catching my hand before I could
pluck it away, she kissed it. While we were at dinner she spied one of
my pencils, and taking it up she wrote the two words “Sophie Ramusine”
upon a piece of paper, and then pointed to herself as a sign that that
was her name. She handed the pencil to me, evidently expecting that I
would be equally communicative, but I put it in my pocket as a sign
that I wished to hold no intercourse with her.
Every moment of my life now I regretted the unguarded precipitancy with
which I had saved this woman. What was it to me whether she had lived
or died? I was no young hot-headed youth to do such things. It was bad
enough to be compelled to have Madge in the house, but she was old
and ugly, and could be ignored. This one was young and lively, and so
fashioned as to divert attention from graver things. Where could I send
her, and what could I do with her? If I sent information to Wick it
would mean that officials and others would come to me, and pry and peep
and chatter--a hateful thought. It was better to endure her presence
than that.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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