Page:The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927).djvu/30

 Holmes smiled. “I gather we have your good wishes, Miss Winter.”

“If I can help to put him where he belongs, I’m yours to the rattle,” said our visitor, with fierce energy. There was an intensity of hatred in her white, set face and her blazing eyes such as woman seldom and man never can attain. ‘‘You needn’t go into my past, Mr. Holmes. That’s neither here nor there. But what I am Adelbert Gruner made me. If I could pull him down!” She clutched frantically with her hands into the air. “Oh, if I could only pull him into the pit where he has pushed so many!”

“You know how the matter stands?”

“Porky Shinwell has been telling me. He’s after some other poor fool and wants to marry her this time. You want to stop it. Well, you surely know enough about this devil to prevent any decent girl in her senses wanting to be in the same parish with him.”

“She is not in her senses. She is madly in love. She has been told all about him. She cares nothing.”

“Told about the murder?”

“Yes.”

“My Lord, she must have a nerve!”

“She puts them all down as slanders.”

“Couldn’t you lay proofs before her silly eyes?”

“Well, can you help us do so?”

“Ain’t I a proof myself? If I stood before her and told her how he used me”

“Would you do this?”

“Would I? Would I not!”

“Well, it might be worth trying. But he has told