Read Sherlock Holmes In Montague Street Volume 2 for Free Online Page A

go and ask her,” Mr. Crellan answered, and having rung the bell, proceeded to find Miss Garth.
    Presently he returned with the lady. She was a slight, very pale young woman; no doubt rather pretty in ordinary, but now not looking her best. She was evidently worn and nervous from anxiety and want of sleep, and her eyes were sadly inflamed. As the wind slammed a loose casement behind her she started nervously, and placed her hand to her head.
    â€œSit down at once, my dear,” Mr. Crellan said; “sit down. This is Mr. Sherlock Holmes, whom I have taken the liberty of inviting down here to help me in a very important matter. The fact is, my dear,” Mr. Crellan added gravely, “I can’t find your poor father’s will.”
    Miss Garth was not surprised. “I thought so,” she said mildly, “when you asked me about the bureau yesterday.”
    â€œOf course I need not say, my dear, what a serious thing it may be for you if that will cannot be found. So I hope you’ll try and tell Mr. Holmes here anything he wants to know as well as you can, without forgetting a single thing. I’m pretty sure that he will find it for us if it is to be found.”
    â€œI understand, Miss Garth,” Holmes asked, “that the keys of that bureau never left your possession during the whole time of Mr. Holford’s last illness, and that the bureau was kept locked?”
    â€œYes, that is so.”
    â€œDid you ever have occasion to go to the bureau yourself?”
    â€œNo, I have not touched it.”
    â€œThen you can answer for it, I presume, that the bureau was never unlocked by any one from the time Mr. Holford placed the keys in your hands till you gave them to Mr. Crellan?”
    â€œYes, I am sure of that.”
    â€œVery good. Now is there any place on the whole premises that you can suggest where this will may possibly be hidden?”
    â€œThere is no place that Mr. Crellan doesn’t know of, I’m sure.”
    â€œIt is an old house, I observe,” Holmes pursued. “Do you know of any place of concealment in the structure - any secret doors, I mean, you know, or sliding panels, or hollow door frames, and so forth?”
    Miss Garth shook her head. “There is not a single place of the sort you speak of in the whole building, so far as I know,” she said, “and I have lived here almost all my life.”
    â€œYou knew the purport of Mr. Holford’s will, I take it, and understand what its loss may mean to yourself?”
    â€œPerfectly.”
    â€œNow I must ask you to consider carefully. Take your mind back to two or three days before Mr. Holford’s illness began, and tell me if you can remember any single fact, occurrence, word, or hint from that day to this in any way bearing on the will or anything connected with it?”
    Miss Garth shook her head thoughtfully. “I can’t remember the thing being mentioned by anybody, except perhaps by the nurse, who is rather a touchy sort of woman, and once or twice took it upon herself to hint that my recent anxiety was chiefly about my poor father’s money. And that once, when I had done some small thing for him, my father - I have always called him father, you know - said that he wouldn’t forget it, or that I should be rewarded, or something of that sort. Nothing else that I can remember in the remotest degree concerned the will.”
    â€œMr. Mellis said nothing about it, then?”
    Miss Garth changed color slightly, but answered, “No, I only saw him to the door.”
    â€œThank you, Miss Garth, I won’t trouble you any further just now. But if you can remember anything more in the course of the next few hours it may turn out to be of great service.”
    Miss Garth bowed and withdrew. Mr. Crellan shut the door behind her and returned to Holmes. “ That doesn’t carry us much further,” he said. “The more certain it seems that the will