3. An Affair in Montparnasse
A LIGHT tread on the stair told us our visitor had arrived.
"Pray be seated," said my friend as soon as she entered. "My colleague and I have only a small amount of time at our disposal. Please oblige us by being brief."
"I will," said our visitor. "I am lately come from Paris. In one of the more respectable cafés I happened to overhear a young woman tell her friends she had become enamoured of a visitor to Paris from the United States. He had returned to his own country two weeks previously and she had heard no more of him. One of her friends suggested sending him a message by telegraph. A second thought a better means of communication might be by some new device of which I had not heard. The third friend counselled putting the whole incident behind her. To tell the truth, sir, I believe she may have been--I blush to say it--with child."
"Forgive me," interrupted my friend, "but such scenes are commonplace in Paris, and indeed in our own capital. I do not see how I can help you."
"I agree the incident would not have been so very unusual but for what followed. At that moment a lady and a gentleman entered the café and they too were from the United States. They were both generously sized. Moreover, they had a peculiarity of speech – apart, I mean, from the accent that identified their place of origin. The gentleman pronounced the letter "v" as if it were a "w", while the lady did the exact opposite."
"Did you notice the colour of the American gentleman's hair?" asked my friend.
"No, I'm afraid I didn't," our visitor replied. "Why do you ask?"
"Oh, no reason. I'm sorry to have interrupted you."
"The lady and gentleman ordered a cold collation. The American gentleman had taken no more than a morsel when he was seized by a convulsion horrid to behold. The young woman, whom, I am now ashamed to say, I had thought a little flighty, showed great resourcefulness. She took hold of the gentleman from behind – which in other circumstances would, I confess, have been unseemly – and by skilled movements brought the convulsions to a halt, thereby saving the gentleman's life."
"Ah, the Heimlich manoeuvre," I said.
"My colleague is a medical man," said my friend. "He is also blessed with the gift of foresight. Well, thank you for your visit, Miss-------?"
"Miss Pemberton. But will you take no action on what I have told you?"
"I am engaged in a number of urgent cases at present. I will turn to yours as time allows. Good Day, Miss Pemberton."
"Well, what did you make of that?" I said, as soon as our visitor had left.
"The case is not without interest, Watson," said Holmes, refilling his pipe from the slipper. Please be so good as to book us two passages on the morning crossing to Calais."
