The circus strongman, Leonardo, was Mrs Ronder's lover. He was always very supportive and encouraging to her, who, in turn, felt that Leonardo was the only man her husband feared. Eventually, Mrs Ronder and Leonardo realized that Mr Ronder was not fit to live, and formed a plan to kill him. As part of the plan, Leonardo made a club with five nails in it, which could deliver wounds that might be mistaken for those of a lion's paw. Then, one night at Abbas Parva, a small village in Berkshire where the circus was camped for the night, Mrs Ronder and Leonardo carried out their plan. When Mrs Ronder and her husband went to the lion's cage to feed it, Leonardo crept up behind them and smashed Mr Ronder's head with the club, and Mrs Ronder released the lion to make it appear that it had broken free and done the deed. But the lion, having been driven into a feeding frenzy by the scent of Mr Ronder's blood, turned and pounced on Mrs Ronder instead, badly chewing her face up in the process. At the sight of this, Leonardo started screaming and ran to get help from the other circus members. He could have saved his lover himself by using the club on the lion, but he was too cowardly. Mrs Ronder could not bring herself to implicate Leonardo in her husband's murder at the inquest, and is only now telling Holmes and Watson this story because she believes that she will soon die. She never saw or heard of Leonardo again, and later learned that he had drowned. Ever since the night of the incident, she has lived alone and veiled. Holmes can only offer advice in this situation; realising that Mrs Ronder is contemplating suicide, he reminds her that her life is worth something as an example of patient suffering in an impatient world. She responds to this by lifting her veil, and the sight is ghastly. Nevertheless, Holmes receives a bottle of prussic acid from Mrs Ronder two days later. She was going to use it to kill herself, but upon considering what Holmes told her, she apparently thought better of it. Publication history "The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger" was first published in the US in Liberty in January 1927, and was first published in the UK in The Strand Magazine in February 1927. The