



Produced by David Brannan.  HTML version by Al Haines.








His Last Bow

An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes


By

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle


(Part of a collection of stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published as
a book entitled His Last Bow)




It was nine o'clock at night upon the second of August--the most
terrible August in the history of the world.  One might have thought
already that God's curse hung heavy over a degenerate world, for there
was an awesome hush and a feeling of vague expectancy in the sultry and
stagnant air.  The sun had long set, but one blood-red gash like an
open wound lay low in the distant west.  Above, the stars were shining
brightly, and below, the lights of the shipping glimmered in the bay.
The two famous Germans stood beside the stone parapet of the garden
walk, with the long, low, heavily gabled house behind them, and they
looked down upon the broad sweep of the beach at the foot of the great
chalk cliff in which Von Bork, like some wandering eagle, had perched
himself four years before.  They stood with their heads close together,
talking in low, confidential tones.  From below the two glowing ends of
their cigars might have been the smouldering eyes of some malignant
fiend looking down in the darkness.

A remarkable man this Von Bork--a man who could hardly be matched among
all the devoted agents of the Kaiser.  It was his talents which had
first recommended him for the English mission, the most important
mission of all, but since he had taken it over those talents had become
more and more manifest to the half-dozen people in the world who were
really in touch with the truth.  One of these was his present
companion, Baron Von Herling, the chief secretary of the legation,
whose huge 100-horse-power Benz car was blocking the