Mr. Holmes Page #2

Did you write such a story?

But I'm trying to do so now.

Hm.

I must finish with you before I die.

"So you've come about your wife."

"You've come about your wife."

"You've come..."

Roger.

Here.

I'll see you after lunch.

I'm going to need some help

with the bees.

So you found the right address.

A friendly porter at 221 B...

It's just a minor fiction

to mislead the curious.

Most of them seem to be American.

Have a seat, Mr Kelmot.

So...

You've come about your wife.

- How did you know?

- It doesn't matter.

Tell me what you have to say.

My wife is named Ann.

Her mother died in childbirth.

Her father was a colonel,

killed in that business at Waziristan.

We wanted very much to have children.

She lost our first child

in her third month...

Our second in her fourth.

We were told

it was too dangerous to try again.

Ann was... Distraught.

It was as though each of them lost

had been a real child, as opposed to...

Thank you.

For a time, she even insisted

I have a pair of headstones carved

and placed in our cemetery plot,

as if their bodies were buried beneath.

She was in desperate need of something

to soothe this dangerous melancholy.

She liked music

so I suggested the glass armonica.

- The armonica?

- My father's most prized possession.

He played it constantly

till the day he died.

I had it brought to the house

and arranged a month's worth of lessons.

One hour per week.

Soon Ann asked me if she could

increase the lessons to twice a week.

Then three times. Then every day.

So, she took up the avocation

you hoped she would.

Why are you here, Mr Kelmot?

Mr Holmes, my Ann has changed.

And it isn't just the lessons

or her obsession with the instrument.

One day I was outside the room

and suddenly her playing stopped.

And I heard her saying, quite clearly...

Grace? James?

Those were to be

the names of your children?

When I confronted Ann, she denied it.

So I forbad her playing the armonica

and I forbad her taking the lessons.

The woman who teaches them,

Madame Schirmer,

is a person of dangerous beliefs.

The dangerous beliefs

of a music teacher?

She's put a spell on Ann,

preying upon her weak frame of mind,

for what reason I cannot say.

Have you proof of this?

Following my instructions, she stopped

seeing Madame Schirmer.

I received in the post...

Three receipts from the woman.

Each for the payment

of one armonica lesson.

Again Ann denied it.

Consequently, my wife is no longer

permitted to withdraw money from the bank.

Then yesterday, I followed Ann to the

place where the woman gives her lessons.

Even on the pavement below

I could hear her playing.

Naturally, I went inside,

but the Schirmer woman said,

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