# sentences

sentence:
All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise, but admirably balanced mind.


sentence:
He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen; but, as a lover, he would have placed himself in a false position.


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They were admirable things for the observer—excellent for drawing the veil from men’s motives and actions.


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But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results.


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Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his.


sentence:
And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.


sentence:
My own complete happiness, and the home-centred interests which rise up around the man who first finds himself master of his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention; while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature.


sentence:
He was still, as ever, deeply attracted by the study of crime, and occupied his immense faculties and extraordinary powers of observation in following out those clues, and clearing up those mysteries, which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official police.


sentence:
From time to time I heard some vague account of his doings: of his summons to Odessa in the case of the Trepoff murder, of his clearing up of the singular tragedy of the Atkinson brothers at Trincomalee, and finally of the mission which he had accomplished so delicately and successfully for the reigning family of Holland.


sentence:
Beyond these signs of his activity, however, which I merely shared with all the readers of the daily press, I knew little of my former friend and companion.


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One night—it was on the 20th of March, 1888—I was returning from a journey to a patient (for I had now returned to civil practice), when my way led me through Baker Street.


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As I passed the well-remembered door, which must always be associated in my mind with my wooing, and with the dark incidents of the Study in Scarlet, I was seized with a keen desire to see Holmes again, and to know how he was employing his extraordinary powers.


sentence:
His rooms were brilliantly lit, and, even as I looked up, I saw his tall, spare figure pass twice in a dark silhouette against the blind.


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He was pacing the room swiftly, eagerly, with his head sunk upon his chest and his hands clasped behind him.


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With hardly a word spoken, but with a kindly eye, he waved me to an arm-chair, threw across his case of cigars, and indicated a spirit case and a gasogene in the corner.


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How do I know that you have been getting yourself very wet lately, and that you have a most clumsy and careless servant girl?  My dear Holmes, said I, this is too much.


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It is true that I had a country walk on Thursday and came home in a dreadful mess; but, as I have changed my clothes, I can’t imagine how you deduce it.


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As to Mary Jane, she is incorrigible, and my wife has given her notice; but there, again, I fail to see how you work it out.


sentence:
It is simplicity itself, said he; my eyes tell me that on the inside of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes it, the leather is scored by six almost parallel cuts.


sentence:
Obviously they have been caused by some one who has very carelessly scraped round the edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud from it.


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Hence, you see, my double deduction that you had been out in vile weather, and that you had a particularly malignant boot-slitting specimen of the London slavey.


sentence:
As to your practice, if a gentleman walks into my rooms smelling of iodoform, with a black mark of nitrate of silver upon his right forefinger, and a bulge on the side of his top-hat to show where he has secreted his stethoscope, I must be dull, indeed, if I do not pronounce him to be an active member of the medical profession.


sentence:
When I hear you give your reasons, I remarked, the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your reasoning I am baffled, until you explain your process.


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For example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this room.  Frequently.


sentence:
By-the-way, since you are interested in these little problems, and since you are good enough to chronicle one or two of my trifling experiences, you may be interested in this.


sentence:
There will call upon you to-night, at a quarter to eight o’clock, it said, a gentleman who desires to consult you upon a matter of the very deepest moment.


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Your recent services to one of the royal houses of Europe have shown that you are one who may safely be trusted with matters which are of an importance which can hardly be exaggerated.


sentence:
Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. But the note itself.


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What do you deduce from it?  I carefully examined the writing, and the paper upon which it was written.


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The man who wrote it was presumably well to do, I remarked, endeavoring to imitate my companion’s processes.


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I did so, and saw a large _E_ with a small _g_, a _P_, and a large _G_ with a small _t_ woven into the texture of the paper.


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‘Remarkable as being the scene of the death of Wallenstein, and for its numerous glass-factories and paper-mills.


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’ Ha, ha, my boy, what do you make of that? His eyes sparkled, and he sent up a great blue triumphant cloud from his cigarette.


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Do you note the peculiar construction of the sentence—‘This account of you we have from all quarters received.


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It only remains, therefore, to discover what is wanted by this German who writes upon Bohemian paper, and prefers wearing a mask to showing his face.


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As he spoke there was the sharp sound of horses’ hoofs and grating wheels against the curb, followed by a sharp pull at the bell. Holmes whistled.


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A slow and heavy step, which had been heard upon the stairs and in the passage, paused immediately outside the door.


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[Illustration: A MAN ENTERED]  A man entered who could hardly have been less than six feet six inches in height, with the chest and limbs of a Hercules.


sentence:
Heavy bands of Astrakhan were slashed across the sleeves and fronts of his double-breasted coat, while the deep blue cloak which was thrown over his shoulders was lined with flame-colored silk, and secured at the neck with a brooch which consisted of a single flaming beryl.


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Boots which extended half-way up his calves, and which were trimmed at the tops with rich brown fur, completed the impression of barbaric opulence which was suggested by his whole appearance.


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He carried a broad-brimmed hat in his hand, while he wore across the upper part of his face, extending down past the cheekbones, a black vizard mask, which he had apparently adjusted that very moment, for his hand was still raised to it as he entered.


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From the lower part of the face he appeared to be a man of strong character, with a thick, hanging lip, and a long, straight chin, suggestive of resolution pushed to the length of obstinacy.


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I understand that this gentleman, your friend, is a man of honor and discretion, whom I may trust with a matter of the most extreme importance.


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Then I must begin, said he, by binding you both to absolute secrecy for two years, at the end of that time the matter will be of no importance.


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At present it is not too much to say that it is of such weight it may have an influence upon European history.


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The august person who employs me wishes his agent to be unknown to you, and I may confess at once that the title by which I have just called myself is not exactly my own.


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The circumstances are of great delicacy, and every precaution has to be taken to quench what might grow to be an immense scandal and seriously compromise one of the reigning families of Europe.


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I was also aware of that, murmured Holmes, settling himself down in his arm-chair and closing his eyes.


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Our visitor glanced with some apparent surprise at the languid, lounging figure of the man who had been no doubt depicted to him as the most incisive reasoner and most energetic agent in Europe.


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If your Majesty would condescend to state your case, he remarked, I should be better able to advise you.


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Your Majesty had not spoken before I was aware that I was addressing Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein, and hereditary King of Bohemia.


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But you can understand, said our strange visitor, sitting down once more and passing his hand over his high, white forehead, you can understand that I am not accustomed to doing such business in my own person.


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Yet the matter was so delicate that I could not confide it to an agent without putting myself in his power.


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The facts are briefly these: Some five years ago, during a lengthy visit to Warsaw, I made the acquaintance of the well-known adventuress, Irene Adler.


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For many years he had adopted a system of docketing all paragraphs concerning men and things, so that it was difficult to name a subject or a person on which he could not at once furnish information.


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In this case I found her biography sandwiched in between that of a Hebrew Rabbi and that of a staff-commander who had written a monograph upon the deep-sea fishes.


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Contralto—hum! La Scala, hum! Prima donna Imperial Opera of Warsaw—Yes! Retired from operatic stage—ha! Living in London—quite so! Your Majesty, as I understand, became entangled with this young person, wrote her some compromising letters, and is now desirous of getting those letters back.  Precisely so.


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If this young person should produce her letters for blackmailing or other purposes, how is she to prove their authenticity?  There is the writing.


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And why?  Because she has said that she would send it on the day when the betrothal was publicly proclaimed.


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Absolutely?  I tell you that I would give one of the provinces of my kingdom to have that photograph.


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And for present expenses?  The king took a heavy chamois leather bag from under his cloak and laid it on the table.


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If you will be good enough to call to-morrow afternoon, at three o’clock, I should like to chat this little matter over with you.


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I was already deeply interested in his inquiry, for, though it was surrounded by none of the grim and strange features which were associated with the two crimes which I have already recorded, still, the nature of the case and the exalted station of his client gave it a character of its own.


sentence:
Indeed, apart from the nature of the investigation which my friend had on hand, there was something in his masterly grasp of a situation, and his keen, incisive reasoning, which made it a pleasure to me to study his system of work, and to follow the quick, subtle methods by which he disentangled the most inextricable mysteries.


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So accustomed was I to his invariable success that the very possibility of his failing had ceased to enter into my head.


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It was close upon four before the door opened, and a drunken-looking groom, ill-kempt and side-whiskered, with an inflamed face and disreputable clothes, walked into the room.


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Accustomed as I was to my friend’s amazing powers in the use of disguises, I had to look three times before I was certain that it was indeed he.


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With a nod he vanished into the bedroom, whence he emerged in five minutes tweed-suited and respectable, as of old.


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Putting his hands into his pockets, he stretched out his legs in front of the fire, and laughed heartily for some minutes.


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Well, really! he cried, and then he choked; and laughed again until he was obliged to lie back, limp and helpless, in the chair.


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I am sure you could never guess how I employed my morning, or what I ended by doing.  I can’t imagine.


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I left the house a little after eight o’clock this morning, in the character of a groom out of work.


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It is a _bijou_ villa, with a garden at the back, but built out in front right up to the road, two stories.


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Large sitting-room on the right side, well furnished, with long windows almost to the floor, and those preposterous English window fasteners which a child could open.


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Behind there was nothing remarkable, save that the passage window could be reached from the top of the coach-house.


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I walked round it and examined it closely from every point of view, but without noting anything else of interest.


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I then lounged down the street, and found, as I expected, that there was a mews in a lane which runs down by one wall of the garden.


sentence:
I lent the ostlers a hand in rubbing down their horses, and I received in exchange twopence, a glass of half-and-half, two fills of shag tobacco, and as much information as I could desire about Miss Adler, to say nothing of half a dozen other people in the neighborhood in whom I was not in the least interested, but whose biographies I was compelled to listen to.


sentence:
She lives quietly, sings at concerts, drives out at five every day, and returns at seven sharp for dinner.


sentence:
When I had listened to all that they had to tell, I began to walk up and down near Briony Lodge once more, and to think over my plan of campaign.


sentence:
What was the relation between them, and what the object of his repeated visits? Was she his client, his friend, or his mistress? If the former, she had probably transferred the photograph to his keeping.


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On the issue of this question depended whether I should continue my work at Briony Lodge, or turn my attention to the gentleman’s chambers in the Temple.


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I fear that I bore you with these details, but I have to let you see my little difficulties, if you are to understand the situation.


sentence:
I was still balancing the matter in my mind, when a hansom cab drove up to Briony Lodge, and a gentleman sprang out.


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He was a remarkably handsome man, dark, aquiline, and mustached—evidently the man of whom I had heard.


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He appeared to be in a great hurry, shouted to the cabman to wait, and brushed past the maid who opened the door with the air of a man who was thoroughly at home.


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He was in the house about half an hour, and I could catch glimpses of him in the windows of the sitting-room, pacing up and down, talking excitedly, and waving his arms.


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‘Drive like the devil,’ he shouted, ‘first to Gross & Hankey’s in Regent Street, and then to the church of St.


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Half a guinea if you do it in twenty minutes!’  Away they went, and I was just wondering whether I should not do well to follow them, when up the lane came a neat little landau, the coachman with his coat only half-buttoned, and his tie under his ear, while all the tags of his harness were sticking out of the buckles.


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I only caught a glimpse of her at the moment, but she was a lovely woman, with a face that a man might die for.  ‘The Church of St.


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I was just balancing whether I should run for it, or whether I should perch behind her landau, when a cab came through the street.


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The driver looked twice at such a shabby fare; but I jumped in before he could object. ‘The Church of St.


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There was not a soul there save the two whom I had followed and a surpliced clergyman, who seemed to be expostulating with them.


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Suddenly, to my surprise, the three at the altar faced round to me, and Godfrey Norton came running as hard as he could towards me.


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I was half-dragged up to the altar, and, before I knew where I was, I found myself mumbling responses which were whispered in my ear, and vouching for things of which I knew nothing, and generally assisting in the secure tying up of Irene Adler, spinster, to Godfrey Norton, bachelor.


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It was all done in an instant, and there was the gentleman thanking me on the one side and the lady on the other, while the clergyman beamed on me in front.


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It was the most preposterous position in which I ever found myself in my life, and it was the thought of it that started me laughing just now.


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It seems that there had been some informality about their license, that the clergyman absolutely refused to marry them without a witness of some sort, and that my lucky appearance saved the bridegroom from having to sally out into the streets in search of a best man.


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This is a very unexpected turn of affairs, said I; and what then?  Well, I found my plans very seriously menaced.


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It looked as if the pair might take an immediate departure, and so necessitate very prompt and energetic measures on my part.


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At the church door, however, they separated, he driving back to the Temple, and she to her own house.


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Now, he said, as he turned hungrily on the simple fare that our landlady had provided, I must discuss it while I eat, for I have not much time.


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And when I raise my hand—so—you will throw into the room what I give you to throw, and will, at the same time, raise the cry of fire.


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I hope that I have made myself clear?  I am to remain neutral, to get near the window, to watch you, and, at the signal, to throw in this object, then to raise the cry of fire, and to wait you at the corner of the street.  Precisely.


sentence:
He disappeared into his bedroom, and returned in a few minutes in the character of an amiable and simple-minded Nonconformist clergyman.


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His broad black hat, his baggy trousers, his white tie, his sympathetic smile, and general look of peering and benevolent curiosity were such as Mr.


sentence:
The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when he became a specialist in crime.


sentence:
It was a quarter past six when we left Baker Street, and it still wanted ten minutes to the hour when we found ourselves in Serpentine Avenue.


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It was already dusk, and the lamps were just being lighted as we paced up and down in front of Briony Lodge, waiting for the coming of its occupant.


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The house was just such as I had pictured it from Sherlock Holmes’s succinct description, but the locality appeared to be less private that I expected.


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There was a group of shabbily-dressed men smoking and laughing in a corner, a scissors-grinder with his wheel, two guardsmen who were flirting with a nurse-girl, and several well-dressed young men who were lounging up and down with cigars in their mouths.


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You see, remarked Holmes, as we paced to and fro in front of the house, this marriage rather simplifies matters.


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Now the question is, Where are we to find the photograph?  Where, indeed?  It is most unlikely that she carries it about with her. It is cabinet size.


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Why should she hand it over to any one else? She could trust her own guardianship, but she could not tell what indirect or political influence might be brought to bear upon a business man.


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As it pulled up, one of the loafing men at the corner dashed forward to open the door in the hope of earning a copper, but was elbowed away by another loafer, who had rushed up with the same intention.


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A fierce quarrel broke out, which was increased by the two guardsmen, who took sides with one of the loungers, and by the scissors-grinder, who was equally hot upon the other side.


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A blow was struck, and in an instant the lady, who had stepped from her carriage, was the centre of a little knot of flushed and struggling men, who struck savagely at each other with their fists and sticks.


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Holmes dashed into the crowd to protect the lady; but just as he reached her he gave a cry and dropped to the ground, with the blood running freely down his face.


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At his fall the guardsmen took to their heels in one direction and the loungers in the other, while a number of better dressed people, who had watched the scuffle without taking part in it, crowded in to help the lady and to attend to the injured man.


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Irene Adler, as I will still call her, had hurried up the steps; but she stood at the top with her superb figure outlined against the lights of the hall, looking back into the street.


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This way, please!  Slowly and solemnly he was borne into Briony Lodge and laid out in the principal room, while I still observed the proceedings from my post by the window.


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The lamps had been lit, but the blinds had not been drawn, so that I could see Holmes as he lay upon the couch.


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I do not know whether he was seized with compunction at that moment for the part he was playing, but I know that I never felt more heartily ashamed of myself in my life than when I saw the beautiful creature against whom I was conspiring, or the grace and kindliness with which she waited upon the injured man.


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And yet it would be the blackest treachery to Holmes to draw back now from the part which he had intrusted to me.


sentence:
At the same instant I saw him raise his hand, and at the signal I tossed my rocket into the room with a cry of Fire! The word was no sooner out of my mouth than the whole crowd of spectators, well dressed and ill—gentlemen, ostlers, and servant-maids—joined in a general shriek of Fire! Thick clouds of smoke curled through the room and out at the open window.


sentence:
I caught a glimpse of rushing figures, and a moment later the voice of Holmes from within assuring them that it was a false alarm.


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Slipping through the shouting crowd I made my way to the corner of the street, and in ten minutes was rejoiced to find my friend’s arm in mine, and to get away from the scene of uproar.


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He walked swiftly and in silence for some few minutes, until we had turned down one of the quiet streets which lead towards the Edgware Road.


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I rushed forward, fell down, clapped my hand to my face, and became a piteous spectacle. It is an old trick.


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They laid me on a couch, I motioned for air, they were compelled to open the window, and you had your chance.


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When a woman thinks that her house is on fire, her instinct is at once to rush to the thing which she values most.


sentence:
In the case of the Darlington Substitution Scandal it was of use to me, and also in the Arnsworth Castle business.


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Now it was clear to me that our lady of to-day had nothing in the house more precious to her than what we are in quest of.


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When I cried out that it was a false alarm, she replaced it, glanced at the rocket, rushed from the room, and I have not seen her since.


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I hesitated whether to attempt to secure the photograph at once; but the coachman had come in, and as he was watching me narrowly, it seemed safer to wait.


sentence:
We will be shown into the sitting-room to wait for the lady, but it is probable that when she comes she may find neither us nor the photograph.


sentence:
He was searching his pockets for the key, when some one passing said:  Good-night, Mister Sherlock Holmes.


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There were several people on the pavement at the time, but the greeting appeared to come from a slim youth in an ulster who had hurried by.


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III  I slept at Baker Street that night, and we were engaged upon our toast and coffee in the morning when the King of Bohemia rushed into the room.


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You have really got it! he cried, grasping Sherlock Holmes by either shoulder, and looking eagerly into his face.  Not yet.


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If she does not love your Majesty, there is no reason why she should interfere with your Majesty’s plan.  It is true.


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And yet—Well! I wish she had been of my own station! What a queen she would have made! He relapsed into a moody silence, which was not broken until we drew up in Serpentine Avenue.


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The furniture was scattered about in every direction, with dismantled shelves and open drawers, as if the lady had hurriedly ransacked them before her flight.


sentence:
Holmes rushed at the bell-pull, tore back a small sliding shutter, and, plunging in his hand, pulled out a photograph and a letter.


sentence:
The photograph was of Irene Adler herself in evening dress, the letter was superscribed to Sherlock Holmes, Esq.


sentence:
I sent John, the coachman, to watch you, ran   up-stairs, got into my walking-clothes, as I call them, and   came down just as you departed.


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Well, I followed you to your door, and so made sure that I was   really an object of interest to the celebrated Mr. Sherlock   Holmes.


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We both thought the best resource was flight, when pursued by   so formidable an antagonist; so you will find the nest empty   when you call to-morrow.


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I keep it only to safeguard myself,   and to preserve a weapon which will always secure me from any   steps which he might take in the future.


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Did I not tell you how quick and resolute she was? Would she not have made an admirable queen? Is it not a pity that she was not on my level?  From what I have seen of the lady she seems indeed to be on a very different level to your Majesty, said Holmes, coldly.


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I am sorry that I have not been able to bring your Majesty’s business to a more successful conclusion.


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This ring— He slipped an emerald snake ring from his finger and held it out upon the palm of his hand.


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He bowed, and, turning away without observing the hand which the King had stretched out to him, he set off in my company for his chambers.


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*       *       *       *       *  And that was how a great scandal threatened to affect the kingdom of Bohemia, and how the best plans of Mr.


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And when he speaks of Irene Adler, or when he refers to her photograph, it is always under the honorable title of _the_ woman.


sentence:
Sherlock Holmes, one day in the autumn of last year, and found him in deep conversation with a very stout, florid-faced, elderly gentleman, with fiery red hair.


sentence:
With an apology for my intrusion, I was about to withdraw, when Holmes pulled me abruptly into the room and closed the door behind me.


sentence:
Wilson, has been my partner and helper in many of my most successful cases, and I have no doubt that he will be of the utmost use to me in yours also.


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The stout gentleman half-rose from his chair and gave a bob of greeting, with a quick, little, questioning glance from his small, fat-encircled eyes.


sentence:
Try the settee, said Holmes, relapsing into his arm-chair and putting his finger-tips together, as was his custom when in judicial moods.


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I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of every-day life.


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You have shown your relish for it by the enthusiasm which has prompted you to chronicle, and, if you will excuse my saying so, somewhat to embellish so many of my own little adventures.


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You will remember that I remarked the other day, just before we went into the very simple problem presented by Miss Mary Sutherland, that for strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.


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You did, doctor, but none the less you must come round to my view, for otherwise I shall keep on piling fact upon fact on you, until your reason breaks down under them and acknowledges me to be right. Now, Mr.


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Jabez Wilson here has been good enough to call upon me this morning, and to begin a narrative which promises to be one of the most singular which I have listened to for some time.


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You have heard me remark that the strangest and most unique things are very often connected not with the larger but with the smaller crimes, and occasionally, indeed, where there is room for doubt whether any positive crime has been committed.


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As far as I have heard it is impossible for me to say whether the present case is an instance of crime or not, but the course of events is certainly among the most singular that I have ever listened to. Perhaps, Mr.


sentence:
Watson has not heard the opening part, but also because the peculiar nature of the story makes me anxious to have every possible detail from your lips.


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As a rule, when I have heard some slight indication of the course of events, I am able to guide myself by the thousands of other similar cases which occur to my memory.


sentence:
The portly client puffed out his chest with an appearance of some little pride, and pulled a dirty and wrinkled newspaper from the inside pocket of his great-coat.


sentence:
As he glanced down the advertisement column, with his head thrust forward, and the paper flattened out upon his knee, I took a good look at the man, and endeavored, after the fashion of my companion, to read the indications which might be presented by his dress or appearance.


sentence:
Our visitor bore every mark of being an average commonplace British tradesman, obese, pompous, and slow.


sentence:
He wore rather baggy gray shepherd’s check trousers, a not over-clean black frock-coat, unbuttoned in the front, and a drab waistcoat with a heavy brassy Albert chain, and a square pierced bit of metal dangling down as an ornament.


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A frayed top-hat and a faded brown overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a chair beside him.


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Altogether, look as I would, there was nothing remarkable about the man save his blazing red head, and the expression of extreme chagrin and discontent upon his features.


sentence:
Sherlock Holmes’s quick eye took in my occupation, and he shook his head with a smile as he noticed my questioning glances.


sentence:
Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labor, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else.  Mr.


sentence:
Jabez Wilson started up in his chair, with his forefinger upon the paper, but his eyes upon my companion.


sentence:
Well, the snuff, then, and the Freemasonry?  I won’t insult your intelligence by telling you how I read that, especially as, rather against the strict rules of your order, you use an arc-and-compass breastpin.


sentence:
But the writing?  What else can be indicated by that right cuff so very shiny for five inches, and the left one with the smooth patch near the elbow where you rest it upon the desk.


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Well, but China?  The fish that you have tattooed immediately above your right wrist could only have been done in China.


sentence:
I have made a small study of tattoo marks, and have even contributed to the literature of the subject.


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When, in addition, I see a Chinese coin hanging from your watch-chain, the matter becomes even more simple.  Mr.


sentence:
I thought at first that you had done something clever, but I see that there was nothing in it, after all.


sentence:
‘Omne ignotum pro magnifico,’ you know, and my poor little reputation, such as it is, will suffer shipwreck if I am so candid.


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Wilson?  Yes, I have got it now, he answered, with his thick, red finger planted half-way down the column. Here it is.


sentence:
I took the paper from him, and read as follows:    TO THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE: On account of the bequest of the   late Ezekiah Hopkins, of Lebanon, Pa., U.S.A.


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, there is now   another vacancy open which entitles a member of the League   to a salary of £4 a week for purely nominal services.


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All   red-headed men who are sound in body and mind, and above   the age of twenty-one years, are eligible.


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Apply in person on   Monday, at eleven o’clock, to Duncan Ross, at the offices of   the League, 7 Pope’s Court, Fleet Street.


sentence:
What on earth does this mean? I ejaculated, after I had twice read over the extraordinary announcement.


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Wilson, off you go at scratch, and tell us all about yourself, your household, and the effect which this advertisement had upon your fortunes.


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Sherlock Holmes, said Jabez Wilson, mopping his forehead; I have a small pawnbroker’s business at Coburg Square, near the city.


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I used to be able to keep two assistants, but now I only keep one; and I would have a job to pay him, but that he is willing to come for half wages, so as to learn the business.


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Holmes; and I know very well that he could better himself, and earn twice what I am able to give him.


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But, after all, if he is satisfied, why should I put ideas in his head?  Why, indeed? You seem most fortunate in having an _employé_ who comes under the full market price.


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Snapping away with a camera when he ought to be improving his mind, and then diving down into the cellar like a rabbit into its hole to develope his pictures.


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He and a girl of fourteen, who does a bit of simple cooking, and keeps the place clean—that’s all I have in the house, for I am a widower, and never had any family.


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We live very quietly, sir, the three of us; and we keep a roof over our heads, and pay our debts, if we do nothing more.


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Spaulding, he came down into the office just this day eight weeks, with this very paper in his hand, and he says:  ‘I wish to the Lord, Mr.


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It’s worth quite a little fortune to any man who gets it, and I understand that there are more vacancies than there are men, so that the trustees are at their wits’ end what to do with the money.


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Holmes, I am a very stay-at-home man, and as my business came to me instead of my having to go to it, I was often weeks on end without putting my foot over the door-mat.


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In that way I didn’t know much of what was going on outside, and I was always glad of a bit of news.


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‘Oh, merely a couple of hundred a year, but the work is slight, and it need not interfere very much with one’s other occupations.


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’  Well, you can easily think that that made me prick up my ears, for the business has not been over-good for some years, and an extra couple of hundred would have been very handy.


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‘Well,’ said he, showing me the advertisement, ‘you can see for yourself that the League has a vacancy, and there is the address where you should apply for particulars.


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As far as I can make out, the League was founded by an American millionaire, Ezekiah Hopkins, who was very peculiar in his ways.


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He was himself red-headed, and he had a great sympathy for all red-headed men; so, when he died, it was found that he had left his enormous fortune in the hands of trustees, with instructions to apply the interest to the providing of easy berths to men whose hair is of that color.


sentence:
This American had started from London when he was young, and he wanted to do the old town a good turn.


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Then, again, I have heard it is no use your applying if your hair is light red, or dark red, or anything but real bright, blazing, fiery red.


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Wilson, you would just walk in; but perhaps it would hardly be worth your while to put yourself out of the way for the sake of a few hundred pounds.


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’  Now, it is a fact, gentlemen, as you may see for yourselves, that my hair is of a very full and rich tint, so that it seemed to me that, if there was to be any competition in the matter, I stood as good a chance as any man that I had ever met.


sentence:
Vincent Spaulding seemed to know so much about it that I thought he might prove useful, so I just ordered him to put up the shutters for the day, and to come right away with me.


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He was very willing to have a holiday, so we shut the business up, and started off for the address that was given us in the advertisement.


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From north, south, east, and west every man who had a shade of red in his hair had tramped into the city to answer the advertisement.


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Fleet Street was choked with red-headed folk, and Pope’s Court looked like a coster’s orange barrow.


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I should not have thought there were so many in the whole country as were brought together by that single advertisement.


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Every shade of color they were—straw, lemon, orange, brick, Irish-setter, liver, clay; but, as Spaulding said, there were not many who had the real vivid flame-colored tint.


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When I saw how many were waiting, I would have given it up in despair; but Spaulding would not hear of it.


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How he did it I could not imagine, but he pushed and pulled and butted until he got me through the crowd, and right up to the steps which led to the office.


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There was a double stream upon the stair, some going up in hope, and some coming back dejected; but we wedged in as well as we could, and soon found ourselves in the office.


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Your experience has been a most entertaining one, remarked Holmes, as his client paused and refreshed his memory with a huge pinch of snuff.


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There was nothing in the office but a couple of wooden chairs and a deal table, behind which sat a small man, with a head that was even redder than mine.


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He said a few words to each candidate as he came up, and then he always managed to find some fault in them which would disqualify them.


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However, when our turn came, the little man was much more favorable to me than to any of the others, and he closed the door as we entered, so that he might have a private word with us.  ‘This is Mr.


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’ He took a step backward, cocked his head on one side, and gazed at my hair until I felt quite bashful.


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’ He stepped over to the window, and shouted through it at the top of his voice that the vacancy was filled.


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A groan of disappointment came up from below, and the folk all trooped away in different directions, until there was not a red head to be seen except my own and that of the manager.


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The fund was, of course, for the propagation and spread of the red-heads as well as for their maintenance.


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Holmes, for I thought that I was not to have the vacancy after all; but, after thinking it over for a few minutes, he said that it would be all right.


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‘In the case of another,’ said he, ‘the objection might be fatal, but we must stretch a point in favor of a man with such a head of hair as yours.


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When shall you be able to enter upon your new duties?’  ‘Well, it is a little awkward, for I have a business already,’ said I.


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Holmes, especially Thursday and Friday evening, which is just before pay-day; so it would suit me very well to earn a little in the mornings.


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’  ‘What do you call purely nominal?’  ‘Well, you have to be in the office, or at least in the building, the whole time.


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Jabez Wilson, and let me congratulate you once more on the important position which you have been fortunate enough to gain.


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’ He bowed me out of the room, and I went home with my assistant, hardly knowing what to say or do, I was so pleased at my own good fortune.


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Well, I thought over the matter all day, and by evening I was in low spirits again; for I had quite persuaded myself that the whole affair must be some great hoax or fraud, though what its object might be I could not imagine.


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It seemed altogether past belief that any one could make such a will, or that they would pay such a sum for doing anything so simple as copying out the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica.


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’ Vincent Spaulding did what he could to cheer me up, but by bedtime I had reasoned myself out of the whole thing.


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However, in the morning I determined to have a look at it anyhow, so I bought a penny bottle of ink, and with a quill-pen, and seven sheets of foolscap paper, I started off for Pope’s Court.


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He started me off upon the letter A, and then he left me; but he would drop in from time to time to see that all was right with me.


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At two o’clock he bade me good-day, complimented me upon the amount that I had written, and locked the door of the office after me.


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Holmes, and on Saturday the manager came in and planked down four golden sovereigns for my week’s work.


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Duncan Ross took to coming in only once of a morning, and then, after a time, he did not come in at all.


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Still, of course, I never dared to leave the room for an instant, for I was not sure when he might come, and the billet was such a good one, and suited me so well, that I would not risk the loss of it.


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Eight weeks passed away like this, and I had written about Abbots and Archery and Armor and Architecture and Attica, and hoped with diligence that I might get on to the B’s before very long.


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I went to my work as usual at ten o’clock, but the door was shut and locked, with a little square of card-board hammered on to the middle of the panel with a tack.


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_  Sherlock Holmes and I surveyed this curt announcement and the rueful face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely overtopped every other consideration that we both burst out into a roar of laughter.


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I cannot see that there is anything very funny, cried our client, flushing up to the roots of his flaming head.


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Finally, I went to the landlord, who is an accountant living on the ground-floor, and I asked him if he could tell me what had become of the Red-headed League.


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He was a solicitor, and was using my room as a temporary convenience until his new premises were ready.


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Holmes, but when I got to that address it was a manufactory of artificial knee-caps, and no one in it had ever heard of either Mr.


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I did not wish to lose such a place without a struggle, so, as I had heard that you were good enough to give advice to poor folk who were in need of it, I came right away to you.


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From what you have told me I think that it is possible that graver issues hang from it than might at first sight appear.


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As far as you are personally concerned, remarked Holmes, I do not see that you have any grievance against this extraordinary league.


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On the contrary, you are, as I understand, richer by some £30, to say nothing of the minute knowledge which you have gained on every subject which comes under the letter A.


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But I want to find out about them, and who they are, and what their object was in playing this prank—if it was a prank—upon me.


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This assistant of yours who first called your attention to the advertisement—how long had he been with you?  About a month then.


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What is he like, this Vincent Spaulding?  Small, stout-built, very quick in his ways, no hair on his face, though he’s not short of thirty.


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Well, Watson, said Holmes, when our visitor had left us, what do you make of it all?  I make nothing of it, I answered, frankly.


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It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.


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He curled himself up in his chair, with his thin knees drawn up to his hawk-like nose, and there he sat with his eyes closed and his black clay pipe thrusting out like the bill of some strange bird.


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I had come to the conclusion that he had dropped asleep, and indeed was nodding myself, when he suddenly sprang out of his chair with the gesture of a man who has made up his mind, and put his pipe down upon the mantel-piece.


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What do you think, Watson? Could your patients spare you for a few hours?  I have nothing to do to-day.


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I observe that there is a good deal of German music on the programme, which is rather more to my taste than Italian or French.


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Come along!  We travelled by the Underground as far as Aldersgate; and a short walk took us to Saxe-Coburg Square, the scene of the singular story which we had listened to in the morning.


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It was a pokey, little, shabby-genteel place, where four lines of dingy two-storied brick houses looked out into a small railed-in enclosure, where a lawn of weedy grass and a few clumps of faded laurel-bushes made a hard fight against a smoke-laden and uncongenial atmosphere.


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Three gilt balls and a brown board with JABEZ WILSON in white letters, upon a corner house, announced the place where our red-headed client carried on his business.


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Sherlock Holmes stopped in front of it with his head on one side, and looked it all over, with his eyes shining brightly between puckered lids.


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Then he walked slowly up the street, and then down again to the corner, still looking keenly at the houses.


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Finally he returned to the pawnbroker’s, and, having thumped vigorously upon the pavement with his stick two or three times, he went up to the door and knocked.


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He is, in my judgment, the fourth smartest man in London, and for daring I am not sure that he has not a claim to be third.


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The road in which we found ourselves as we turned round the corner from the retired Saxe-Coburg Square presented as great a contrast to it as the front of a picture does to the back.


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The roadway was blocked with the immense stream of commerce flowing in a double tide inward and outward, while the foot-paths were black with the hurrying swarm of pedestrians.


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It was difficult to realize as we looked at the line of fine shops and stately business premises that they really abutted on the other side upon the faded and stagnant square which we had just quitted.


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Let me see, said Holmes, standing at the corner, and glancing along the line, I should like just to remember the order of the houses here.


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There is Mortimer’s, the tobacconist, the little newspaper shop, the Coburg branch of the City and Suburban Bank, the Vegetarian Restaurant, and McFarlane’s carriage-building depot.


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A sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then off to violin-land, where all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony, and there are no red-headed clients to vex us with their conundrums.


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My friend was an enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a very capable performer, but a composer of no ordinary merit.


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All the afternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the most perfect happiness, gently waving his long, thin fingers in time to the music, while his gently smiling face and his languid, dreamy eyes were as unlike those of Holmes, the sleuth-hound, Holmes the relentless, keen-witted, ready-handed criminal agent, as it was possible to conceive.


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In his singular character the dual nature alternately asserted itself, and his extreme exactness and astuteness represented, as I have often thought, the reaction against the poetic and contemplative mood which occasionally predominated in him.


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The swing of his nature took him from extreme languor to devouring energy; and, as I knew well, he was never so truly formidable as when, for days on end, he had been lounging in his arm-chair amid his improvisations and his black-letter editions.


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Then it was that the lust of the chase would suddenly come upon him, and that his brilliant reasoning power would rise to the level of intuition, until those who were unacquainted with his methods would look askance at him as on a man whose knowledge was not that of other mortals.


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James’s Hall I felt that an evil time might be coming upon those whom he had set himself to hunt down.


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And, I say, doctor, there may be some little danger, so kindly put your army revolver in your pocket.


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[Illustration: ALL AFTERNOON HE SAT IN THE STALLS]  I trust that I am not more dense than my neighbors, but I was always oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings with Sherlock Holmes.


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Here I had heard what he had heard, I had seen what he had seen, and yet from his words it was evident that he saw clearly not only what had happened, but what was about to happen, while to me the whole business was still confused and grotesque.


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As I drove home to my house in Kensington I thought over it all, from the extraordinary story of the red-headed copier of the Encyclopædia down to the visit to Saxe-Coburg Square, and the ominous words with which he had parted from me.


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What was this nocturnal expedition, and why should I go armed? Where were we going, and what were we to do? I had the hint from Holmes that this smooth-faced pawnbroker’s assistant was a formidable man—a man who might play a deep game.


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I tried to puzzle it out, but gave it up in despair, and set the matter aside until night should bring an explanation.


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It was a quarter past nine when I started from home and made my way across the Park, and so through Oxford Street to Baker Street.


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Two hansoms were standing at the door, and, as I entered the passage, I heard the sound of voices from above.


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On entering his room I found Holmes in animated conversation with two men, one of whom I recognized as Peter Jones, the official police agent, while the other was a long, thin, sad-faced man, with a very shiny hat and oppressively respectable frock-coat.


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Ha! our party is complete, said Holmes, buttoning up his pea-jacket, and taking his heavy hunting crop from the rack.


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He has his own little methods, which are, if he won’t mind my saying so, just a little too theoretical and fantastic, but he has the makings of a detective in him.


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It is not too much to say that once or twice, as in that business of the Sholto murder and the Agra treasure, he has been more nearly correct than the official force.


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I think you will find, said Sherlock Holmes, that you will play for a higher stake to-night than you have ever done yet, and that the play will be more exciting. For you, Mr.


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Merryweather, the stake will be some £30,000; and for you, Jones, it will be the man upon whom you wish to lay your hands.


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Merryweather, but he is at the head of his profession, and I would rather have my bracelets on him than on any criminal in London.


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His brain is as cunning as his fingers, and though we meet signs of him at every turn, we never know where to find the man himself.


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He’ll crack a crib in Scotland one week, and be raising money to build an orphanage in Cornwall the next.


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Sherlock Holmes was not very communicative during the long drive, and lay back in the cab humming the tunes which he had heard in the afternoon.


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This also was opened, and led down a flight of winding stone steps, which terminated at another formidable gate. Mr.


sentence:
Merryweather stopped to light a lantern, and then conducted us down a dark, earth-smelling passage, and so, after opening a third door, into a huge vault or cellar, which was piled all round with crates and massive boxes.


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You are not very vulnerable from above, Holmes remarked, as he held up the lantern and gazed about him.


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Might I beg that you would have the goodness to sit down upon one of those boxes, and not to interfere?  The solemn Mr.


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Merryweather perched himself upon a crate, with a very injured expression upon his face, while Holmes fell upon his knees upon the floor, and, with the lantern and a magnifying lens, began to examine minutely the cracks between the stones.


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A few seconds sufficed to satisfy him, for he sprang to his feet again, and put his glass in his pocket.


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We have at least an hour before us, he remarked; for they can hardly take any steps until the good pawnbroker is safely in bed.


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Then they will not lose a minute, for the sooner they do their work the longer time they will have for their escape.


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We are at present, doctor—as no doubt you have divined—in the cellar of the city branch of one of the principal London banks. Mr.


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Merryweather is the chairman of directors, and he will explain to you that there are reasons why the more daring criminals of London should take a considerable interest in this cellar at present.


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We had occasion some months ago to strengthen our resources, and borrowed, for that purpose, 30,000 napoleons from the Bank of France.


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It has become known that we have never had occasion to unpack the money, and that it is still lying in our cellar.


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Our reserve of bullion is much larger at present than is usually kept in a single branch office, and the directors have had misgivings upon the subject.


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I had brought a pack of cards in my pocket, and I thought that, as we were a _partie carrée_, you might have your rubber after all.


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But I see that the enemy’s preparations have gone so far that we cannot risk the presence of a light.


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These are daring men, and though we shall take them at a disadvantage, they may do us some harm unless we are careful.


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Holmes shot the slide across the front of his lantern, and left us in pitch darkness—such an absolute darkness as I have never before experienced.


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The smell of hot metal remained to assure us that the light was still there, ready to flash out at a moment’s notice.


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To me, with my nerves worked up to a pitch of expectancy, there was something depressing and subduing in the sudden gloom, and in the cold, dank air of the vault.


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I hope that you have done what I asked you, Jones?  I have an inspector and two officers waiting at the front door.


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What a time it seemed! From comparing notes afterwards it was but an hour and a quarter, yet it appeared to me that the night must have almost gone, and the dawn be breaking above us.


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My limbs were weary and stiff, for I feared to change my position; yet my nerves were worked up to the highest pitch of tension, and my hearing was so acute that I could not only hear the gentle breathing of my companions, but I could distinguish the deeper, heavier in-breath of the bulky Jones from the thin, sighing note of the bank director.


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Then it lengthened out until it became a yellow line, and then, without any warning or sound, a gash seemed to open and a hand appeared; a white, almost womanly hand, which felt about in the centre of the little area of light.


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Then it was withdrawn as suddenly as it appeared, and all was dark again save the single lurid spark which marked a chink between the stones.


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With a rending, tearing sound, one of the broad, white stones turned over upon its side, and left a square, gaping hole, through which streamed the light of a lantern.


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Over the edge there peeped a clean-cut, boyish face, which looked keenly about it, and then, with a hand on either side of the aperture, drew itself shoulder-high and waist-high, until one knee rested upon the edge.


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In another instant he stood at the side of the hole, and was hauling after him a companion, lithe and small like himself, with a pale face and a shock of very red hair.


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Great Scott! Jump, Archie, jump, and I’ll swing for it!  Sherlock Holmes had sprung out and seized the intruder by the collar.


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The other dived down the hole, and I heard the sound of rending cloth as Jones clutched at his skirts.


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The light flashed upon the barrel of a revolver, but Holmes’s hunting crop came down on the man’s wrist, and the pistol clinked upon the stone floor.


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I beg that you will not touch me with your filthy hands, remarked our prisoner, as the handcuffs clattered upon his wrists.


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Well, would you please, sir, march up-stairs, where we can get a cab to carry your highness to the police-station?  That is better, said John Clay, serenely.


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He made a sweeping bow to the three of us, and walked quietly off in the custody of the detective.  Really Mr. Holmes, said Mr.


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Merryweather, as we followed them from the cellar, I do not know how the bank can thank you or repay you.


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There is no doubt that you have detected and defeated in the most complete manner one of the most determined attempts at bank robbery that have ever come within my experience.


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I have been at some small expense over this matter, which I shall expect the bank to refund, but beyond that I am amply repaid by having had an experience which is in many ways unique, and by hearing the very remarkable narrative of the Red-headed League.


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*       *       *       *       *  You see, Watson, he explained, in the early hours of the morning, as we sat over a glass of whiskey-and-soda in Baker Street, it was perfectly obvious from the first that the only possible object of this rather fantastic business of the advertisement of the League, and the copying of the ‘Encyclopædia,’ must be to get this not over-bright pawnbroker out of the way for a number of hours every day.


sentence:
The £4 a week was a lure which must draw him, and what was it to them, who were playing for thousands? They put in the advertisement, one rogue has the temporary office, the other rogue incites the man to apply for it, and together they manage to secure his absence every morning in the week.


sentence:
From the time that I heard of the assistant having come for half wages, it was obvious to me that he had some strong motive for securing the situation.


sentence:
But how could you guess what the motive was?  Had there been women in the house, I should have suspected a mere vulgar intrigue.


sentence:
The man’s business was a small one, and there was nothing in his house which could account for such elaborate preparations, and such an expenditure as they were at.


sentence:
What could it be? I thought of the assistant’s fondness for photography, and his trick of vanishing into the cellar.


sentence:
Then I made inquiries as to this mysterious assistant, and found that I had to deal with one of the coolest and most daring criminals in London.


sentence:
What could it be, once more? I could think of nothing save that he was running a tunnel to some other building.


sentence:
I walked round the corner, saw that the City and Suburban Bank abutted on our friend’s premises, and felt that I had solved my problem.


sentence:
When you drove home after the concert I called upon Scotland Yard, and upon the chairman of the bank directors, with the result that you have seen.


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But it was essential that they should use it soon, as it might be discovered, or the bullion might be removed.


sentence:
Saturday would suit them better than any other day, as it would give them two days for their escape.


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Adventure III  A CASE OF IDENTITY   My dear fellow, said Sherlock Holmes, as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.


sentence:
If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most _outré_ results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.


sentence:
We have in our police reports realism pushed to its extreme limits, and yet the result is, it must be confessed, neither fascinating nor artistic.


sentence:
This is wanting in the police report, where more stress is laid, perhaps, upon the platitudes of the magistrate than upon the details, which to an observer contain the vital essence of the whole matter.


sentence:
Of course, in your position of unofficial adviser and helper to everybody who is absolutely puzzled, throughout three continents, you are brought in contact with all that is strange and bizarre.


sentence:
’ There is half a column of print, but I know without reading it that it is all perfectly familiar to me.


sentence:
There is, of course, the other woman, the drink, the push, the blow, the bruise, the sympathetic sister or landlady.


sentence:
Indeed, your example is an unfortunate one for your argument, said Holmes, taking the paper and glancing his eye down it.


sentence:
This is the Dundas separation case, and, as it happens, I was engaged in clearing up some small points in connection with it.


sentence:
The husband was a teetotaler, there was no other woman, and the conduct complained of was that he had drifted into the habit of winding up every meal by taking out his false teeth and hurling them at his wife, which, you will allow, is not an action likely to occur to the imagination of the average story-teller.


sentence:
Its splendor was in such contrast to his homely ways and simple life that I could not help commenting upon it.


sentence:
It is a little souvenir from the King of Bohemia in return for my assistance in the case of the Irene Adler papers.


sentence:
It was from the reigning family of Holland, though the matter in which I served them was of such delicacy that I cannot confide it even to you, who have been good enough to chronicle one or two of my little problems.


sentence:
Indeed, I have found that it is usually in unimportant matters that there is a field for the observation, and for the quick analysis of cause and effect which gives the charm to an investigation.


sentence:
The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime, the more obvious, as a rule, is the motive.


sentence:
In these cases, save for one rather intricate matter which has been referred to me from Marseilles, there is nothing which presents any features of interest.


sentence:
It is possible, however, that I may have something better before very many minutes are over, for this is one of my clients, or I am much mistaken.


sentence:
He had risen from his chair, and was standing between the parted blinds, gazing down into the dull, neutral-tinted London street.


sentence:
Looking over his shoulder, I saw that on the pavement opposite there stood a large woman with a heavy fur boa round her neck, and a large curling red feather in a broad-brimmed hat which was tilted in a coquettish Duchess-of-Devonshire fashion over her ear.


sentence:
From under this great panoply she peeped up in a nervous, hesitating fashion at our windows, while her body oscillated backward and forward, and her fingers fidgetted with her glove buttons.


sentence:
Suddenly, with a plunge, as of the swimmer who leaves the bank, she hurried across the road, and we heard the sharp clang of the bell.


sentence:
When a woman has been seriously wronged by a man she no longer oscillates, and the usual symptom is a broken bell wire.


sentence:
Here we may take it that there is a love matter, but that the maiden is not so much angry as perplexed, or grieved.


sentence:
As he spoke there was a tap at the door, and the boy in buttons entered to announce Miss Mary Sutherland, while the lady herself loomed behind his small black figure like a full-sailed merchant-man behind a tiny pilot boat.


sentence:
Sherlock Holmes welcomed her with the easy courtesy for which he was remarkable, and having closed the door, and bowed her into an arm-chair, he looked her over in the minute, and yet abstracted fashion which was peculiar to him.


sentence:
Do you not find, he said, that with your short sight it is a little trying to do so much type-writing?  I did at first, she answered, but now I know where the letters are without looking.


sentence:
Then, suddenly realizing the full purport of his words, she gave a violent start and looked up, with fear and astonishment upon her broad, good-humored face.


sentence:
Holmes, she cried, else how could you know all that?  Never mind, said Holmes, laughing; it is my business to know things.


sentence:
Etherege, whose husband you found so easy when the police and every one had given him up for dead. Oh, Mr.


sentence:
I’m not rich, but still I have a hundred a year in my own right, besides the little that I make by the machine, and I would give it all to know what has become of Mr. Hosmer Angel.


sentence:
Why did you come away to consult me in such a hurry? asked Sherlock Holmes, with his finger-tips together, and his eyes to the ceiling.


sentence:
He would not go to the police, and he would not go to you, and so at last, as he would do nothing, and kept on saying that there was no harm done, it made me mad, and I just on with my things and came right away to you.


sentence:
I call him father, though it sounds funny, too, for he is only five years and two months older than myself.


sentence:
Holmes, when she married again so soon after father’s death, and a man who was nearly fifteen years younger than herself.


sentence:
Father was a plumber in the Tottenham Court Road, and he left a tidy business behind him, which mother carried on with Mr.


sentence:
They got £4700 for the goodwill and interest, which wasn’t near as much as father could have got if he had been alive.


sentence:
I had expected to see Sherlock Holmes impatient under this rambling and inconsequential narrative, but, on the contrary, he had listened with the greatest concentration of attention.


sentence:
And since you draw so large a sum as a hundred a year, with what you earn into the bargain, you no doubt travel a little, and indulge yourself in every way.


sentence:
Holmes, but you understand that as long as I live at home I don’t wish to be a burden to them, and so they have the use of the money just while I am staying with them.


sentence:
Windibank draws my interest every quarter, and pays it over to mother, and I find that I can do pretty well with what I earn at type-writing.


sentence:
They used to send father tickets when he was alive, and then afterwards they remembered us, and sent them to mother. Mr.


sentence:
But this time I was set on going, and I would go; for what right had he to prevent? He said the folk were not fit for us to know, when all father’s friends were to be there.


sentence:
And he said that I had nothing fit to wear, when I had my purple plush that I had never so much as taken out of the drawer.


sentence:
At last, when nothing else would do, he went off to France upon the business of the firm, but we went, mother and I, with Mr.


sentence:
He laughed, I remember, and shrugged his shoulders, and said there was no use denying anything to a woman, for she would have her way.  I see.


sentence:
Then at the gasfitters’ ball you met, as I understand, a gentleman called Mr. Hosmer Angel.  Yes, sir.


sentence:
I met him that night, and he called next day to ask if we had got home all safe, and after that we met him—that is to say, Mr.


sentence:
He wouldn’t have any visitors if he could help it, and he used to say that a woman should be happy in her own family circle.


sentence:
But then, as I used to say to mother, a woman wants her own circle to begin with, and I had not got mine yet.  But how about Mr.


sentence:
Hosmer Angel? Did he make no attempt to see you?  Well, father was going off to France again in a week, and Hosmer wrote and said that it would be safer and better not to see each other until he had gone.


sentence:
Angel—was a cashier in an office in Leadenhall Street—and—  What office?  That’s the worst of it, Mr.


sentence:
Where did you address your letters, then?  To the Leadenhall Street Post-office, to be left till called for.


sentence:
He said that if they were sent to the office he would be chaffed by all the other clerks about having letters from a lady, so I offered to type-write them, like he did his, but he wouldn’t have that, for he said that when I wrote them they seemed to come from me, but when they were type-written he always felt that the machine had come between us.


sentence:
He would rather walk with me in the evening than in the daylight, for he said that he hated to be conspicuous.


sentence:
He’d had the quinsy and swollen glands when he was young, he told me, and it had left him with a weak throat, and a hesitating, whispering fashion of speech.


sentence:
He was always well dressed, very neat and plain, but his eyes were weak, just as mine are, and he wore tinted glasses against the glare.


sentence:
He was in dreadful earnest, and made me swear, with my hands on the Testament, that whatever happened I would always be true to him.


sentence:
Then, when they talked of marrying within the week, I began to ask about father; but they both said never to mind about father, but just to tell him afterwards, and mother said she would make it all right with him.


sentence:
It seemed funny that I should ask his leave, as he was only a few years older than me; but I didn’t want to do anything on the sly, so I wrote to father at Bordeaux, where the company has its French offices, but the letter came back to me on the very morning of the wedding.


sentence:
Hosmer came for us in a hansom, but as there were two of us, he put us both into it, and stepped himself into a four-wheeler, which happened to be the only other cab in the street.


sentence:
We got to the church first, and when the four-wheeler drove up we waited for him to step out, but he never did, and when the cabman got down from the box and looked, there was no one there! The cabman said that he could not imagine what had become of him, for he had seen him get in with his own eyes.


sentence:
Holmes, and I have never seen or heard anything since then to throw any light upon what became of him.


sentence:
Why, all the morning he was saying to me that, whatever happened, I was to be true; and that even if something quite unforeseen occurred to separate us, I was always to remember that I was pledged to him, and that he would claim his pledge sooner or later.


sentence:
How did your mother take the matter?  She was angry, and said that I was never to speak of the matter again.


sentence:
And your father? Did you tell him?  Yes; and he seemed to think, with me, that something had happened, and that I should hear of Hosmer again.


sentence:
As he said, what interest could any one have in bringing me to the doors of the church, and then leaving me? Now, if he had borrowed my money, or if he had married me and got my money settled on him, there might be some reason; but Hosmer was very independent about money, and never would look at a shilling of mine.


sentence:
And yet, what could have happened? And why could he not write? Oh, it drives me half-mad to think of! and I can’t sleep a wink at night.


sentence:
I shall glance into the case for you, said Holmes, rising; and I have no doubt that we shall reach some definite result.


sentence:
Where is your father’s place of business?  He travels for Westhouse & Marbank, the great claret importers of Fenchurch Street.  Thank you.


sentence:
For all the preposterous hat and the vacuous face, there was something noble in the simple faith of our visitor which compelled our respect.


sentence:
She laid her little bundle of papers upon the table, and went her way, with a promise to come again whenever she might be summoned.


sentence:
Sherlock Holmes sat silent for a few minutes with his finger-tips still pressed together, his legs stretched out in front of him, and his gaze directed upward to the ceiling.


sentence:
Then he took down from the rack the old and oily clay pipe, which was to him as a counsellor, and, having lit it, he leaned back in his chair, with the thick blue cloud-wreaths spinning up from him, and a look of infinite languor in his face.


sentence:
You will find parallel cases, if you consult my index, in Andover in ’77, and there was something of the sort at The Hague last year.


sentence:
I can never bring you to realize the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumb-nails, or the great issues that may hang from a boot-lace.


sentence:
Her dress was brown, rather darker than coffee color, with a little purple plush at the neck and sleeves.


sentence:
She had small, round, hanging gold ear-rings, and a general air of being fairly well-to-do, in a vulgar, comfortable, easy-going way.


sentence:
It is true that you have missed everything of importance, but you have hit upon the method, and you have a quick eye for color.


sentence:
As you observe, this woman had plush upon her sleeves, which is a most useful material for showing traces.


sentence:
The double line a little above the wrist, where the type-writist presses against the table, was beautifully defined.


sentence:
The sewing-machine, of the hand type, leaves a similar mark, but only on the left arm, and on the side of it farthest from the thumb, instead of being right across the broadest part, as this was.


sentence:
I then glanced at her face, and observing the dint of a pince-nez at either side of her nose, I ventured a remark upon short sight and type-writing, which seemed to surprise her.  It surprised me.


sentence:
I was then much surprised and interested on glancing down to observe that, though the boots which she was wearing were not unlike each other, they were really odd ones; the one having a slightly decorated toe-cap, and the other a plain one.


sentence:
One was buttoned only in the two lower buttons out of five, and the other at the first, third, and fifth.


sentence:
Now, when you see that a young lady, otherwise neatly dressed, has come away from home with odd boots, half-buttoned, it is no great deduction to say that she came away in a hurry.


sentence:
I noted, in passing, that she had written a note before leaving home, but after being fully dressed.


sentence:
You observed that her right glove was torn at the forefinger, but you did not apparently see that both glove and finger were stained with violet ink.


sentence:
in height; strongly built, sallow complexion, black hair, a little bald in the centre, bushy, black side-whiskers and mustache; tinted glasses, slight infirmity of speech.


sentence:
Was dressed, when last seen, in black frock-coat faced with silk, black waistcoat, gold Albert chain, and gray Harris tweed trousers, with brown gaiters over elastic-sided boots.


sentence:
Of what?  My dear fellow, is it possible you do not see how strongly it bears upon the case?  I cannot say that I do, unless it were that he wished to be able to deny his signature if an action for breach of promise were instituted.


sentence:
And now, doctor, we can do nothing until the answers to those letters come, so we may put our little problem upon the shelf for the interim.


sentence:
I had had so many reasons to believe in my friend’s subtle powers of reasoning, and extraordinary energy in action, that I felt that he must have some solid grounds for the assured and easy demeanor with which he treated the singular mystery which he had been called upon to fathom.


sentence:
Once only had I known him to fail, in the case of the King of Bohemia and of the Irene Adler photograph; but when I looked back to the weird business of the Sign of Four, and the extraordinary circumstances connected with the Study in Scarlet, I felt that it would be a strange tangle indeed which he could not unravel.


sentence:
I left him then, still puffing at his black clay pipe, with the conviction that when I came again on the next evening I would find that he held in his hands all the clews which would lead up to the identity of the disappearing bridegroom of Miss Mary Sutherland.


sentence:
A professional case of great gravity was engaging my own attention at the time, and the whole of next day I was busy at the bedside of the sufferer.


sentence:
It was not until close upon six o’clock that I found myself free, and was able to spring into a hansom and drive to Baker Street, half afraid that I might be too late to assist at the _dénouement_ of the little mystery.


sentence:
I found Sherlock Holmes alone, however, half asleep, with his long, thin form curled up in the recesses of his arm-chair.


sentence:
A formidable array of bottles and test-tubes, with the pungent cleanly smell of hydrochloric acid, told me that he had spent his day in the chemical work which was so dear to him.


sentence:
There was never any mystery in the matter, though, as I said yesterday, some of the details are of interest.


sentence:
Who was he, then, and what was his object in deserting Miss Sutherland?  The question was hardly out of my mouth, and Holmes had not yet opened his lips to reply, when we heard a heavy footfall in the passage, and a tap at the door.


sentence:
Come in!  The man who entered was a sturdy, middle-sized fellow, some thirty years of age, clean shaven, and sallow skinned, with a bland, insinuating manner, and a pair of wonderfully sharp and penetrating gray eyes.


sentence:
He shot a questioning glance at each of us, placed his shiny top hat upon the sideboard, and with a slight bow sidled down into the nearest chair.  Good-evening, Mr.


sentence:
I think that this type-written letter is from you, in which you made an appointment with me for six o’clock?  Yes, sir.


sentence:
I am sorry that Miss Sutherland has troubled you about this little matter, for I think it is far better not to wash linen of the sort in public.


sentence:
It was quite against my wishes that she came, but she is a very excitable, impulsive girl, as you may have noticed, and she is not easily controlled when she has made up her mind on a point.


sentence:
Of course, I did not mind you so much, as you are not connected with the official police, but it is not pleasant to have a family misfortune like this noised abroad.


sentence:
Besides, it is a useless expense, for how could you possibly find this Hosmer Angel?  On the contrary, said Holmes, quietly; I have every reason to believe that I will succeed in discovering Mr. Hosmer Angel.  Mr.


sentence:
It is a curious thing, remarked Holmes, that a type-writer has really quite as much individuality as a man’s handwriting.


sentence:
Windibank, that in every case there is some little slurring over of the ‘e,’ and a slight defect in the tail of the ‘r.


sentence:
We do all our correspondence with this machine at the office, and no doubt it is a little worn, our visitor answered, glancing keenly at Holmes with his bright little eyes.


sentence:
I think of writing another little monograph some of these days on the type-writer and its relation to crime.


sentence:
In each case, not only are the ‘e’s’ slurred and the ‘r’s’ tailless, but you will observe, if you care to use my magnifying lens, that the fourteen other characteristics to which I have alluded are there as well.  Mr.


sentence:
It is quite too transparent, and it was a very bad compliment when you said that it was impossible for me to solve so simple a question.


sentence:
But between ourselves, Windibank, it was as cruel and selfish and heartless a trick in a petty way as ever came before me.


sentence:
The man sat huddled up in his chair, with his head sunk upon his breast, like one who is utterly crushed.


sentence:
Holmes stuck his feet up on the corner of the mantel-piece, and, leaning back with his hands in his pockets, began talking, rather to himself, as it seemed, than to us.


sentence:
The man married a woman very much older than himself for her money, said he, and he enjoyed the use of the money of the daughter as long as she lived with them.


sentence:
It was a considerable sum, for people in their position, and the loss of it would have made a serious difference.


sentence:
The daughter was of a good, amiable disposition, but affectionate and warm-hearted in her ways, so that it was evident that with her fair personal advantages, and her little income, she would not be allowed to remain single long.


sentence:
Now her marriage would mean, of course, the loss of a hundred a year, so what does her step-father do to prevent it? He takes the obvious course of keeping her at home, and forbidding her to seek the company of people of her own age.


sentence:
She became restive, insisted upon her rights, and finally announced her positive intention of going to a certain ball.


sentence:
What does her clever step-father do then? He conceives an idea more creditable to his head than to his heart.


sentence:
With the connivance and assistance of his wife he disguised himself, covered those keen eyes with tinted glasses, masked the face with a mustache and a pair of bushy whiskers, sunk that clear voice into an insinuating whisper, and doubly secure on account of the girl’s short sight, he appears as Mr.


sentence:
[Illustration: GLANCING ABOUT HIM LIKE A RAT IN A TRAP]  It was only a joke at first, groaned our visitor.


sentence:
However that may be, the young lady was very decidedly carried away, and having quite made up her mind that her step-father was in France, the suspicion of treachery never for an instant entered her mind.


sentence:
She was flattered by the gentleman’s attentions, and the effect was increased by the loudly expressed admiration of her mother. Then Mr.


sentence:
Angel began to call, for it was obvious that the matter should be pushed as far as it would go, if a real effect were to be produced.


sentence:
There were meetings, and an engagement, which would finally secure the girl’s affections from turning towards any one else.


sentence:
The thing to do was clearly to bring the business to an end in such a dramatic manner that it would leave a permanent impression upon the young lady’s mind, and prevent her from looking upon any other suitor for some time to come.


sentence:
Hence those vows of fidelity exacted upon a Testament, and hence also the allusions to a possibility of something happening on the very morning of the wedding.


sentence:
James Windibank wished Miss Sutherland to be so bound to Hosmer Angel, and so uncertain as to his fate, that for ten years to come, at any rate, she would not listen to another man.


sentence:
As far as the church door he brought her, and then, as he could go no farther, he conveniently vanished away by the old trick of stepping in at one door of a four-wheeler, and out at the other.


sentence:
Windibank!  Our visitor had recovered something of his assurance while Holmes had been talking, and he rose from his chair now with a cold sneer upon his pale face.


sentence:
Holmes, said he, but if you are so very sharp you ought to be sharp enough to know that it is you who are breaking the law now, and not me.


sentence:
I have done nothing actionable from the first, but as long as you keep that door locked you lay yourself open to an action for assault and illegal constraint.


sentence:
The law cannot, as you say, touch you, said Holmes, unlocking and throwing open the door, yet there never was a man who deserved punishment more.


sentence:
By Jove! he continued, flushing up at the sight of the bitter sneer upon the man’s face, it is not part of my duties to my client, but here’s a hunting crop handy, and I think I shall just treat myself to— He took two swift steps to the whip, but before he could grasp it there was a wild clatter of steps upon the stairs, the heavy hall door banged, and from the window we could see Mr.


sentence:
There’s a cold-blooded scoundrel! said Holmes, laughing, as he threw himself down into his chair once more.


sentence:
Hosmer Angel must have some strong object for his curious conduct, and it was equally clear that the only man who really profited by the incident, as far as we could see, was the step-father.


sentence:
Then the fact that the two men were never together, but that the one always appeared when the other was away, was suggestive.


sentence:
So were the tinted spectacles and the curious voice, which both hinted at a disguise, as did the bushy whiskers.


sentence:
My suspicions were all confirmed by his peculiar action in type-writing his signature, which, of course, inferred that his handwriting was so familiar to her that she would recognize even the smallest sample of it.


sentence:
Having taken the printed description, I eliminated everything from it which could be the result of a disguise—the whiskers, the glasses, the voice, and I sent it to the firm, with a request that they would inform me whether it answered to the description of any of their travellers.


sentence:
I had already noticed the peculiarities of the type-writer, and I wrote to the man himself at his business address, asking him if he would come here.


sentence:
As I expected, his reply was type-written, and revealed the same trivial but characteristic defects.


sentence:
The same post brought me a letter from Westhouse & Marbank, of Fenchurch Street, to say that the description tallied in every respect with that of their employé, James Windibank.


sentence:
You may remember the old Persian saying, ‘There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman.


sentence:
Adventure IV  THE BOSCOMBE VALLEY MYSTERY   We were seated at breakfast one morning, my wife and I, when the maid brought in a telegram.


sentence:
It was from Sherlock Holmes, and ran in this way:  Have you a couple of days to spare? Have just been wired for from the West of England in connection with Boscombe Valley tragedy.


sentence:
My experience of camp life in Afghanistan had at least had the effect of making me a prompt and ready traveller.


sentence:
My wants were few and simple, so that in less than the time stated I was in a cab with my valise, rattling away to Paddington Station.


sentence:
Sherlock Holmes was pacing up and down the platform, his tall, gaunt figure made even gaunter and taller by his long gray travelling-cloak and close-fitting cloth cap.


sentence:
We had the carriage to ourselves save for an immense litter of papers which Holmes had brought with him.


sentence:
Among these he rummaged and read, with intervals of note-taking and of meditation, until we were past Reading.


sentence:
In this case, however, they have established a very serious case against the son of the murdered man.


sentence:
I will explain the state of things to you, as far as I have been able to understand it, in a very few words.


sentence:
The men had known each other in the colonies, so that it was not unnatural that when they came to settle down they should do so as near each other as possible.


sentence:
Turner was apparently the richer man, so McCarthy became his tenant, but still remained, it seems, upon terms of perfect equality, as they were frequently together.


sentence:
McCarthy had one son, a lad of eighteen, and Turner had an only daughter of the same age, but neither of them had wives living.


sentence:
They appear to have avoided the society of the neighboring English families, and to have led retired lives, though both the McCarthys were fond of sport, and were frequently seen at the race-meetings of the neighborhood.


sentence:
On June 3, that is, on Monday last, McCarthy left his house at Hatherley about three in the afternoon, and walked down to the Boscombe Pool, which is a small lake formed by the spreading out of the stream which runs down the Boscombe Valley.


sentence:
He had been out with his serving-man in the morning at Ross, and he had told the man that he must hurry, as he had an appointment of importance to keep at three.


sentence:
From Hatherley Farm-house to the Boscombe Pool is a quarter of a mile, and two people saw him as he passed over this ground.


sentence:
One was an old woman, whose name is not mentioned, and the other was William Crowder, a game-keeper in the employ of Mr. Turner.


sentence:
To the best of his belief, the father was actually in sight at the time, and the son was following him.


sentence:
The two McCarthys were seen after the time when William Crowder, the game-keeper, lost sight of them.


sentence:
A girl of fourteen, Patience Moran, who is the daughter of the lodge-keeper of the Boscombe Valley estate, was in one of the woods picking flowers.


sentence:
McCarthy the elder using very strong language to his son, and she saw the latter raise up his hand as if to strike his father.


sentence:
She was so frightened by their violence that she ran away, and told her mother when she reached home that she had left the two McCarthys quarrelling near Boscombe Pool, and that she was afraid that they were going to fight.


sentence:
McCarthy came running up to the lodge to say that he had found his father dead in the wood, and to ask for the help of the lodge-keeper.


sentence:
He was much excited, without either his gun or his hat, and his right hand and sleeve were observed to be stained with fresh blood.


sentence:
The injuries were such as might very well have been inflicted by the butt-end of his son’s gun, which was found lying on the grass within a few paces of the body.


sentence:
Under these circumstances the young man was instantly arrested, and a verdict of ‘Wilful Murder’ having been returned at the inquest on Tuesday, he was on Wednesday brought before the magistrates at Ross, who have referred the case to the next assizes.


sentence:
It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different.


sentence:
It must be confessed, however, that the case looks exceedingly grave against the young man, and it is very possible that he is indeed the culprit.


sentence:
There are several people in the neighborhood, however, and among them Miss Turner, the daughter of the neighboring land-owner, who believe in his innocence, and who have retained Lestrade, whom you may recollect in connection with the Study in Scarlet, to work out the case in his interest.


sentence:
Lestrade, being rather puzzled, has referred the case to me, and hence it is that two middle-aged gentlemen are flying westward at fifty miles an hour, instead of quietly digesting their breakfasts at home.


sentence:
I am afraid, said I, that the facts are so obvious that you will find little credit to be gained out of this case.


sentence:
Besides, we may chance to hit upon some other obvious facts which may have been by no means obvious to Mr. Lestrade.


sentence:
You know me too well to think that I am boasting when I say that I shall either confirm or destroy his theory by means which he is quite incapable of employing, or even of understanding.


sentence:
To take the first example to hand, I very clearly perceive that in your bedroom the window is upon the right-hand side, and yet I question whether Mr.


sentence:
You shave every morning, and in this season you shave by the sunlight; but since your shaving is less and less complete as we get farther back on the left side, until it becomes positively slovenly as we get round the angle of the jaw, it is surely very clear that that side is less well illuminated than the other.


sentence:
I could not imagine a man of your habits looking at himself in an equal light, and being satisfied with such a result.


sentence:
Therein lies my _métier_, and it is just possible that it may be of some service in the investigation which lies before us.


sentence:
There are one or two minor points which were brought out in the inquest, and which are worth considering.


sentence:
[Illustration: THEY FOUND THE BODY]  What are they?  It appears that his arrest did not take place at once, but after the return to Hatherley Farm.


sentence:
On the inspector of constabulary informing him that he was a prisoner, he remarked that he was not surprised to hear it, and that it was no more than his deserts.


sentence:
This observation of his had the natural effect of removing any traces of doubt which might have remained in the minds of the coroner’s jury.


sentence:
However innocent he might be, he could not be such an absolute imbecile as not to see that the circumstances were very black against him.


sentence:
Had he appeared surprised at his own arrest, or feigned indignation at it, I should have looked upon it as highly suspicious, because such surprise or anger would not be natural under the circumstances, and yet might appear to be the best policy to a scheming man.


sentence:
His frank acceptance of the situation marks him as either an innocent man, or else as a man of considerable self-restraint and firmness.


sentence:
As to his remark about his deserts, it was also not unnatural if you consider that he stood beside the dead body of his father, and that there is no doubt that he had that very day so far forgotten his filial duty as to bandy words with him, and even, according to the little girl whose evidence is so important, to raise his hand as if to strike him.


sentence:
The self-reproach and contrition which are displayed in his remark appear to me to be the signs of a healthy mind, rather than of a guilty one.  I shook my head.


sentence:
What is the young man’s own account of the matter?  It is, I am afraid, not very encouraging to his supporters, though there are one or two points in it which are suggestive.


sentence:
He picked out from his bundle a copy of the local Herefordshire paper, and having turned down the sheet, he pointed out the paragraph in which the unfortunate young man had given his own statement of what had occurred.


sentence:
James McCarthy, the only son of the deceased, was then called, and gave evidence as follows: ‘I had been away from home for three days at Bristol, and had only just returned upon the morning of last Monday, the 3rd.


sentence:
My father was absent from home at the time of my arrival, and I was informed by the maid that he had driven over to Ross with John Cobb, the groom.


sentence:
Shortly after my return I heard the wheels of his trap in the yard, and, looking out of my window, I saw him get out and walk rapidly out of the yard, though I was not aware in which direction he was going.


sentence:
I then took my gun, and strolled out in the direction of the Boscombe Pool, with the intention of visiting the rabbit-warren which is upon the other side.


sentence:
On my way I saw William Crowder, the game-keeper, as he had stated in his evidence; but he is mistaken in thinking that I was following my father.


sentence:
When about a hundred yards from the Pool I heard a cry of Cooee! which was a usual signal between my father and myself.


sentence:
A conversation ensued which led to high words, and almost to blows, for my father was a man of a very violent temper.


sentence:
I had not gone more than 150 yards, however, when I heard a hideous outcry behind me, which caused me to run back again.


sentence:
He was not a popular man, being somewhat cold and forbidding in his manners; but he had, as far as I know, no active enemies.


sentence:
’  The Coroner: Did your father make any statement to you before he died?  Witness: He mumbled a few words, but I could only catch some allusion to a rat.


sentence:
The Coroner: What was the point upon which you and your father had this final quarrel?  Witness: I should prefer not to answer.


sentence:
I need not point out to you that your refusal to answer will prejudice your case considerably in any future proceedings which may arise.


sentence:
The Coroner: I understand that the cry of ‘Cooee’ was a common signal between you and your father?  Witness: It was.


sentence:
The Coroner: How was it, then, that he uttered it before he saw you, and before he even knew that you had returned from Bristol?  Witness (with considerable confusion): I do not know.


sentence:
A Juryman: Did you see nothing which aroused your suspicions when you returned on hearing the cry, and found your father fatally injured?  Witness: Nothing definite.


sentence:
The Coroner: What do you mean?  Witness: I was so disturbed and excited as I rushed out into the open, that I could think of nothing except of my father.


sentence:
Yet I have a vague impression that as I ran forward something lay upon the ground to the left of me.


sentence:
’  ‘Then if it was removed it was while you were within a dozen yards of it?’  ‘Yes, but with my back towards it.


sentence:
I see, said I, as I glanced down the column, that the coroner in his concluding remarks was rather severe upon young McCarthy.


sentence:
He calls attention, and with reason, to the discrepancy about his father having signalled to him before seeing him, also to his refusal to give details of his conversation with his father, and his singular account of his father’s dying words.


sentence:
Both you and the coroner have been at some pains, said he, to single out the very strongest points in the young man’s favor.


sentence:
Too little, if he could not invent a cause of quarrel which would give him the sympathy of the jury; too much, if he evolved from his own inner consciousness anything so _outré_ as a dying reference to a rat, and the incident of the vanishing cloth.


sentence:
No, sir, I shall approach this case from the point of view that what this young man says is true, and we shall see whither that hypothesis will lead us.


sentence:
And now here is my pocket Petrarch, and not another word shall I say of this case until we are on the scene of action.


sentence:
It was nearly four o’clock when we at last, after passing through the beautiful Stroud Valley, and over the broad gleaming Severn, found ourselves at the pretty little country-town of Ross.


sentence:
In spite of the light brown dustcoat and leather-leggings which he wore in deference to his rustic surroundings, I had no difficulty in recognizing Lestrade, of Scotland Yard.


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I knew your energetic nature, and that you would not be happy until you had been on the scene of the crime.


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I have a caseful of cigarettes here which need smoking, and the sofa is very much superior to the usual country hotel abomination.


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She had heard of you, and would have your opinion, though I repeatedly told her that there was nothing which you could do which I had not already done.


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He had hardly spoken before there rushed into the room one of the most lovely young women that I have ever seen in my life.


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Her violet eyes shining, her lips parted, a pink flush upon her cheeks, all thought of her natural reserve lost in her overpowering excitement and concern.  Oh, Mr.


sentence:
Sherlock Holmes! she cried, glancing from one to the other of us, and finally, with a woman’s quick intuition, fastening upon my companion, I am so glad that you have come.


sentence:
We have known each other since we were little children, and I know his faults as no one else does; but he is too tender-hearted to hurt a fly.


sentence:
You have formed some conclusion? Do you not see some loophole, some flaw? Do you not yourself think that he is innocent?  I think that it is very probable.


sentence:
I am afraid that my colleague has been a little quick in forming his conclusions, he said.  But he is right.


sentence:
And about his quarrel with his father, I am sure that the reason why he would not speak about it to the coroner was because I was concerned in it.


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James and I have always loved each other as brother and sister; but of course he is young, and has seen very little of life yet, and—and—well, he naturally did not wish to do anything like that yet.


sentence:
A quick blush passed over her fresh young face as Holmes shot one of his keen, questioning glances at her.


sentence:
The doctor?  Yes, have you not heard? Poor father has never been strong for years back, but this has broken him down completely.


sentence:
She hurried from the room as impulsively as she had entered, and we heard the wheels of her carriage rattle off down the street.


sentence:
Why should you raise up hopes which you are bound to disappoint? I am not over-tender of heart, but I call it cruel.


sentence:
I walked down to the station with them, and then wandered through the streets of the little town, finally returning to the hotel, where I lay upon the sofa and tried to interest myself in a yellow-backed novel.


sentence:
The puny plot of the story was so thin, however, when compared to the deep mystery through which we were groping, and I found my attention wander so continually from the fiction to the fact, that I at last flung it across the room, and gave myself up entirely to a consideration of the events of the day.


sentence:
Supposing that this unhappy young man’s story was absolutely true, then what hellish thing, what absolutely unforeseen and extraordinary calamity could have occurred between the time when he parted from his father, and the moment when, drawn back by his screams, he rushed into the glade? It was something terrible and deadly.


sentence:
What could it be? Might not the nature of the injuries reveal something to my medical instincts? I rang the bell, and called for the weekly county paper, which contained a verbatim account of the inquest.


sentence:
In the surgeon’s deposition it was stated that the posterior third of the left parietal bone and the left half of the occipital bone had been shattered by a heavy blow from a blunt weapon.


sentence:
That was to some extent in favor of the accused, as when seen quarrelling he was face to face with his father.


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Still, it did not go for very much, for the older man might have turned his back before the blow fell.


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If that were true, the murderer must have dropped some part of his dress, presumably his overcoat, in his flight, and must have had the hardihood to return and to carry it away at the instant when the son was kneeling with his back turned not a dozen paces off.


sentence:
What a tissue of mysteries and improbabilities the whole thing was! I did not wonder at Lestrade’s opinion, and yet I had so much faith in Sherlock Holmes’s insight that I could not lose hope as long as every fresh fact seemed to strengthen his conviction of young McCarthy’s innocence.


sentence:
On the other hand, a man should be at his very best and keenest for such nice work as that, and I did not wish to do it when fagged by a long journey.


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I was inclined to think at one time that he knew who had done it, and was screening him or her, but I am convinced now that he is as puzzled as every one else.


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I cannot admire his taste, I remarked, if it is indeed a fact that he was averse to a marriage with so charming a young lady as this Miss Turner.


sentence:
This fellow is madly, insanely in love with her, but some two years ago, when he was only a lad, and before he really knew her, for she had been away five years at a boarding-school, what does the idiot do but get into the clutches of a barmaid in Bristol, and marry her at a registry office? No one knows a word of the matter, but you can imagine how maddening it must be to him to be upbraided for not doing what he would give his very eyes to do, but what he knows to be absolutely impossible.


sentence:
It was sheer frenzy of this sort which made him throw his hands up into the air when his father, at their last interview, was goading him on to propose to Miss Turner.


sentence:
On the other hand, he had no means of supporting himself, and his father, who was by all accounts a very hard man, would have thrown him over utterly had he known the truth.


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It was with his barmaid wife that he had spent the last three days in Bristol, and his father did not know where he was. Mark that point. It is of importance.


sentence:
Good has come out of evil, however, for the barmaid, finding from the papers that he is in serious trouble, and likely to be hanged, has thrown him over utterly, and has written to him to say that she has a husband already in the Bermuda Dockyard, so that there is really no tie between them.


sentence:
But if he is innocent, who has done it?  Ah! who? I would call your attention very particularly to two points.


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One is that the murdered man had an appointment with some one at the Pool, and that the some one could not have been his son, for his son was away, and he did not know when he would return.


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The second is that the murdered man was heard to cry ‘Cooee!’ before he knew that his son had returned.


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And now let us talk about George Meredith, if you please, and we shall leave all minor matters until to-morrow.


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At nine o’clock Lestrade called for us with the carriage, and we set off for Hatherley Farm and the Boscombe Pool.


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About sixty; but his constitution has been shattered by his life abroad, and he has been in failing health for some time.


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He was an old friend of McCarthy’s, and, I may add, a great benefactor to him, for I have learned that he gave him Hatherley Farm rent free.


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Really! Does it not strike you as a little singular that this McCarthy, who appears to have had little of his own, and to have been under such obligations to Turner, should still talk of marrying his son to Turner’s daughter, who is, presumably, heiress to the estate, and that in such a very cocksure manner, as if it were merely a case of a proposal and all else would follow? It is the more strange, since we know that Turner himself was averse to the idea.


sentence:
Do you not deduce something from that?  We have got to the deductions and the inferences, said Lestrade, winking at me.


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Anyhow, I have grasped one fact which you seem to find it difficult to get hold of, replied Lestrade, with some warmth.


sentence:
And that is—  That McCarthy, senior, met his death from McCarthy, junior, and that all theories to the contrary are the merest moonshine.


sentence:
It was a wide-spread, comfortable-looking building, two-storied, slate roofed, with great yellow blotches of lichen upon the gray walls.


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The drawn blinds and the smokeless chimneys, however, gave it a stricken look, as though the weight of this horror still lay heavy upon it.


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We called at the door, when the maid, at Holmes’s request, showed us the boots which her master wore at the time of his death, and also a pair of the son’s, though not the pair which he had then had.


sentence:
Having measured these very carefully from seven or eight different points, Holmes desired to be led to the court-yard, from which we all followed the winding track which led to Boscombe Pool.


sentence:
Men who had only known the quiet thinker and logician of Baker Street would have failed to recognize him.


sentence:
His brows were drawn into two hard, black lines, while his eyes shone out from beneath them with a steely glitter.


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His face was bent downward, his shoulders bowed, his lips compressed, and the veins stood out like whip-cord in his long, sinewy neck.


sentence:
His nostrils seemed to dilate with a purely animal lust for the chase, and his mind was so absolutely concentrated upon the matter before him, that a question or remark fell unheeded upon his ears, or, at the most, only provoked a quick, impatient snarl in reply.


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Swiftly and silently he made his way along the track which ran through the meadows, and so by way of the woods to the Boscombe Pool.


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It was damp, marshy ground, as is all that district, and there were marks of many feet, both upon the path and amid the short grass which bounded it on either side.


sentence:
Sometimes Holmes would hurry on, sometimes stop dead, and once he made quite a little _détour_ into the meadow.


sentence:
Lestrade and I walked behind him, the detective indifferent and contemptuous, while I watched my friend with the interest which sprang from the conviction that every one of his actions was directed towards a definite end.


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The Boscombe Pool, which is a little reed-girt sheet of water some fifty yards across, is situated at the boundary between the Hatherley Farm and the private park of the wealthy Mr. Turner.


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Above the woods which lined it upon the farther side we could see the red, jutting pinnacles which marked the site of the rich land-owner’s dwelling.


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On the Hatherley side of the Pool the woods grew very thick, and there was a narrow belt of sodden grass twenty paces across between the edge of the trees and the reeds which lined the lake.


sentence:
Lestrade showed us the exact spot at which the body had been found, and, indeed, so moist was the ground, that I could plainly see the traces which had been left by the fall of the stricken man.


sentence:
To Holmes, as I could see by his eager face and peering eyes, very many other things were to be read upon the trampled grass.


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But how on earth—  Oh, tut, tut! I have no time! That left foot of yours with its inward twist is all over the place.


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Oh, how simple it would all have been had I been here before they came like a herd of buffalo, and wallowed all over it.


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Here is where the party with the lodge-keeper came, and they have covered all tracks for six or eight feet round the body.


sentence:
He drew out a lens, and lay down upon his waterproof to have a better view, talking all the time rather to himself than to us.


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Twice he was walking, and once he ran swiftly so that the soles are deeply marked, and the heels hardly visible.


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And this? Ha, ha! What have we here? Tiptoes! tiptoes! Square, too, quite unusual boots! They come, they go, they come again—of course that was for the cloak.


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Now where did they come from? He ran up and down, sometimes losing, sometimes finding the track until we were well within the edge of the wood, and under the shadow of a great beech, the largest tree in the neighborhood.


sentence:
Holmes traced his way to the farther side of this, and lay down once more upon his face with a little cry of satisfaction.


sentence:
For a long time he remained there, turning over the leaves and dried sticks, gathering up what seemed to me to be dust into an envelope, and examining with his lens not only the ground, but even the bark of the tree as far as he could reach.


sentence:
Then he followed a pathway through the wood until he came to the high-road, where all traces were lost.


sentence:
It was about ten minutes before we regained our cab, and drove back into Ross, Holmes still carrying with him the stone which he had picked up in the wood.


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And the murderer?  Is a tall man, left-handed, limps with the right leg, wears thick-soled shooting-boots and a gray cloak, smokes Indian cigars, uses a cigar-holder, and carries a blunt penknife in his pocket.


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There are several other indications, but these may be enough to aid us in our search.  Lestrade laughed.


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I am a practical man, he said, and I really cannot undertake to go about the country looking for a left-handed gentleman with a game-leg.


sentence:
Holmes was silent and buried in thought with a pained expression upon his face, as one who finds himself in a perplexing position.


sentence:
Look here, Watson, he said, when the cloth was cleared; just sit down in this chair and let me preach to you for a little.


sentence:
Well, now, in considering this case there are two points about young McCarthy’s narrative which struck us both instantly, although they impressed me in his favor and you against him.


sentence:
Now from this double point our research must commence, and we will begin it by presuming that what the lad says is absolutely true.


sentence:
There is a strong presumption that the person whom McCarthy expected to meet him at Boscombe Pool was some one who had been in Australia.


sentence:
What of the rat, then?  Sherlock Holmes took a folded paper from his pocket and flattened it out on the table.


sentence:
The possession of a gray garment was a third point which, granting the son’s statement to be correct, was a certainty.


sentence:
We have come now out of mere vagueness to the definite conception of an Australian from Ballarat with a gray cloak.  Certainly.


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And one who was at home in the district, for the Pool can only be approached by the farm or by the estate, where strangers could hardly wander.  Quite so.


sentence:
By an examination of the ground I gained the trifling details which I gave to that imbecile Lestrade, as to the personality of the criminal.


sentence:
Now, how can that be unless it were by a left-handed man? He had stood behind that tree during the interview between the father and son.


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I found the ash of a cigar, which my special knowledge of tobacco ashes enabled me to pronounce as an Indian cigar.


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I have, as you know, devoted some attention to this, and written a little monograph on the ashes of 140 different varieties of pipe, cigar, and cigarette tobacco.


sentence:
Having found the ash, I then looked round and discovered the stump among the moss where he had tossed it.


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The tip had been cut off, not bitten off, but the cut was not a clean one, so I deduced a blunt pen-knife.


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Holmes, I said, you have drawn a net round this man from which he cannot escape, and you have saved an innocent human life as truly as if you had cut the cord which was hanging him.


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John Turner, cried the hotel waiter, opening the door of our sitting-room, and ushering in a visitor.


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His slow, limping step and bowed shoulders gave the appearance of decrepitude, and yet his hard, deep-lined, craggy features, and his enormous limbs showed that he was possessed of unusual strength of body and of character.


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His tangled beard, grizzled hair, and outstanding, drooping eyebrows combined to give an air of dignity and power to his appearance, but his face was of an ashen white, while his lips and the corners of his nostrils were tinged with a shade of blue.


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And why did you wish to see me? He looked across at my companion with despair in his weary eyes, as though his question was already answered.


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I understand that it was your daughter who required my presence here, and I am acting in her interests.


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It’s as well, said the old man; it’s a question whether I shall live to the Assizes, so it matters little to me, but I should wish to spare Alice the shock.


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And now I will make the thing clear to you; it has been a long time in the acting, but will not take me long to tell.


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I was a young chap then, hot-blooded and reckless, ready to turn my hand at anything; I got among bad companions, took to drink, had no luck with my claim, took to the bush, and in a word became what you would call over here a highway robber.


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There were six of us, and we had a wild, free life of it, sticking up a station from time to time, or stopping the wagons on the road to the diggings.


sentence:
Black Jack of Ballarat was the name I went under, and our party is still remembered in the colony as the Ballarat Gang.


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One day a gold convoy came down from Ballarat to Melbourne, and we lay in wait for it and attacked it.


sentence:
There were six troopers and six of us, so it was a close thing, but we emptied four of their saddles at the first volley.


sentence:
I wish to the Lord that I had shot him then, but I spared him, though I saw his wicked little eyes fixed on my face, as though to remember every feature.


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We got away with the gold, became wealthy men, and made our way over to England without being suspected.


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I bought this estate, which chanced to be in the market, and I set myself to do a little good with my money, to make up for the way in which I had earned it.


sentence:
Even when she was just a baby her wee hand seemed to lead me down the right path as nothing else had ever done.


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I had gone up to town about an investment, and I met him in Regent Street with hardly a coat to his back or a boot to his foot.


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If you don’t—it’s a fine, law-abiding country is England, and there’s always a policeman within hail.


sentence:
’  Well, down they came to the West country, there was no shaking them off, and there they have lived rent free on my best land ever since.


sentence:
There was no rest for me, no peace, no forgetfulness; turn where I would, there was his cunning, grinning face at my elbow.


sentence:
It grew worse as Alice grew up, for he soon saw I was more afraid of her knowing my past than of the police.


sentence:
Whatever he wanted he must have, and whatever it was I gave him without question, land, money, houses, until at last he asked a thing which I could not give. He asked for Alice.


sentence:
His son, you see, had grown up, and so had my girl, and as I was known to be in weak health, it seemed a fine stroke to him that his lad should step into the whole property.


sentence:
I would not have his cursed stock mixed with mine; not that I had any dislike to the lad, but his blood was in him, and that was enough. I stood firm. McCarthy threatened.


sentence:
When I went down there I found him talking with his son, so I smoked a cigar, and waited behind a tree until he should be alone.


sentence:
He was urging his son to marry my daughter with as little regard for what she might think as if she were a slut from off the streets.


sentence:
It drove me mad to think that I and all that I held most dear should be in the power of such a man as this.


sentence:
But my memory and my girl! Both could be saved, if I could but silence that foul tongue. I did it, Mr. Holmes. I would do it again.


sentence:
His cry brought back his son; but I had gained the cover of the wood, though I was forced to go back to fetch the cloak which I had dropped in my flight.


sentence:
Well, it is not for me to judge you, said Holmes, as the old man signed the statement which had been drawn out.


sentence:
You are yourself aware that you will soon have to answer for your deed at a higher court than the Assizes.


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If not, it shall never be seen by mortal eye; and your secret, whether you be alive or dead, shall be safe with us.


sentence:
Your own death-beds, when they come, will be the easier for the thought of the peace which you have given to mine.


sentence:
Why does fate play such tricks with poor, helpless worms? I never hear of such a case as this that I do not think of Baxter’s words, and say, ‘There, but for the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes.


sentence:
’  James McCarthy was acquitted at the Assizes, on the strength of a number of objections which had been drawn out by Holmes, and submitted to the defending counsel.


sentence:
Old Turner lived for seven months after our interview, but he is now dead; and there is every prospect that the son and daughter may come to live happily together, in ignorance of the black cloud which rests upon their past.


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Adventure V  THE FIVE ORANGE PIPS   When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock Holmes cases between the years ’82 and ’90, I am faced by so many which present strange and interesting features that it is no easy matter to know which to choose and which to leave.


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Some, however, have already gained publicity through the papers, and others have not offered a field for those peculiar qualities which my friend possessed in so high a degree, and which it is the object of these papers to illustrate.


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Some, too, have baffled his analytical skill, and would be, as narratives, beginnings without an ending, while others have been but partially cleared up, and have their explanations founded rather upon conjecture and surmise than on that absolute logical proof which was so dear to him.


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There is, however, one of these last which was so remarkable in its details and so startling in its results that I am tempted to give some account of it, in spite of the fact that there are points in connection with it which never have been, and probably never will be, entirely cleared up.


sentence:
The year ’87 furnished us with a long series of cases of greater or less interest, of which I retain the records.


sentence:
Among my headings under this one twelve months I find an account of the adventure of the Paradol Chamber, of the Amateur Mendicant Society, who held a luxurious club in the lower vault of a furniture warehouse, of the facts connected with the loss of the British bark _Sophy Anderson_, of the singular adventures of the Grice Patersons in the island of Uffa, and finally of the Camberwell poisoning case.


sentence:
In the latter, as may be remembered, Sherlock Holmes was able, by winding up the dead man’s watch, to prove that it had been wound up two hours before, and that therefore the deceased had gone to bed within that time—a deduction which was of the greatest importance in clearing up the case.


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All these I may sketch out at some future date, but none of them present such singular features as the strange train of circumstances which I have now taken up my pen to describe.


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It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales had set in with exceptional violence.


sentence:
All day the wind had screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that even here in the heart of great, hand-made London we were forced to raise our minds for the instant from the routine of life, and to recognize the presence of those great elemental forces which shriek at mankind through the bars of his civilization, like untamed beasts in a cage.


sentence:
As evening drew in, the storm grew higher and louder, and the wind cried and sobbed like a child in the chimney.


sentence:
Sherlock Holmes sat moodily at one side of the fireplace cross-indexing his records of crime, while I at the other was deep in one of Clark Russell’s fine sea-stories, until the howl of the gale from without seemed to blend with the text, and the splash of the rain to lengthen out into the long swash of the sea waves.


sentence:
My wife was on a visit to her mother’s, and for a few days I was a dweller once more in my old quarters at Baker Street.


sentence:
Sherlock Holmes was wrong in his conjecture, however, for there came a step in the passage and a tapping at the door.


sentence:
He stretched out his long arm to turn the lamp away from himself and towards the vacant chair upon which a new-comer must sit. Come in! said he.


sentence:
The man who entered was young, some two-and-twenty at the outside, well-groomed and trimly clad, with something of refinement and delicacy in his bearing.


sentence:
The steaming umbrella which he held in his hand, and his long shining waterproof told of the fierce weather through which he had come.


sentence:
He looked about him anxiously in the glare of the lamp, and I could see that his face was pale and his eyes heavy, like those of a man who is weighed down with some great anxiety.


sentence:
But what is that compared with the number of your successes?  It is true that I have been generally successful.


sentence:
And yet I question, sir, whether, in all your experience, you have ever listened to a more mysterious and inexplicable chain of events than those which have happened in my own family.


sentence:
Pray give us the essential facts from the commencement, and I can afterwards question you as to those details which seem to me to be most important.


sentence:
My name, said he, is John Openshaw, but my own affairs have, as far as I can understand it, little to do with this awful business.


sentence:
It is an hereditary matter; so in order to give you an idea of the facts, I must go back to the commencement of the affair.


sentence:
My father had a small factory at Coventry, which he enlarged at the time of the invention of bicycling.


sentence:
He was the patentee of the Openshaw unbreakable tire, and his business met with such success that he was able to sell it, and to retire upon a handsome competence.


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My uncle Elias emigrated to America when he was a young man, and became a planter in Florida, where he was reported to have done very well.


sentence:
At the time of the war he fought in Jackson’s army, and afterwards under Hood, where he rose to be a colonel.


sentence:
When Lee laid down his arms my uncle returned to his plantation, where he remained for three or four years.


sentence:
He had made a very considerable fortune in the States, and his reason for leaving them was his aversion to the negroes, and his dislike of the Republican policy in extending the franchise to them.


sentence:
He was a singular man, fierce and quick-tempered, very foul-mouthed when he was angry, and of a most retiring disposition.


sentence:
He had a garden and two or three fields round his house, and there he would take his exercise, though very often for weeks on end he would never leave his room.


sentence:
He drank a great deal of brandy, and smoked very heavily, but he would see no society, and did not want any friends, not even his own brother.


sentence:
He didn’t mind me, in fact, he took a fancy to me, for at the time when he saw me first I was a youngster of twelve or so.


sentence:
When he was sober he used to be fond of playing backgammon and draughts with me, and he would make me his representative both with the servants and with the tradespeople, so that by the time that I was sixteen I was quite master of the house.


sentence:
I kept all the keys, and could go where I liked and do what I liked, so long as I did not disturb him in his privacy.


sentence:
There was one singular exception, however, for he had a single room, a lumber-room up among the attics, which was invariably locked, and which he would never permit either me or anyone else to enter.


sentence:
With a boy’s curiosity I have peeped through the key-hole, but I was never able to see more than such a collection of old trunks and bundles as would be expected in such a room.


sentence:
One day—it was in March, 1883—a letter with a foreign stamp lay upon the table in front of the Colonel’s plate.


sentence:
It was not a common thing for him to receive letters, for his bills were all paid in ready money, and he had no friends of any sort.


sentence:
‘From India!’ said he, as he took it up, ‘Pondicherry postmark! What can this be?’ Opening it hurriedly, out there jumped five little dried orange pips, which pattered down upon his plate.


sentence:
His lip had fallen, his eyes were protruding, his skin the color of putty, and he glared at the envelope which he still held in his trembling hand. ‘K. K. K.


sentence:
!’ he shrieked, and then, ‘My God, my God, my sins have overtaken me!’  ‘What is it, uncle?’ I cried.


sentence:
‘Death,’ said he, and rising from the table he retired to his room, leaving me palpitating with horror.


sentence:
I took up the envelope, and saw scrawled in red ink upon the inner flap, just above the gum, the letter K three times repeated.


sentence:
What could be the reason of his overpowering terror? I left the breakfast-table, and as I ascended the stair I met him coming down with an old rusty key, which must have belonged to the attic, in one hand, and a small brass box, like a cash-box, in the other.


sentence:
‘Tell Mary that I shall want a fire in my room to-day, and send down to Fordham, the Horsham lawyer.


sentence:
The fire was burning brightly, and in the grate there was a mass of black, fluffy ashes, as of burned paper, while the brass box stood open and empty beside it.


sentence:
As I glanced at the box I noticed, with a start, that upon the lid were printed the treble K which I had read in the morning upon the envelope.


sentence:
I leave my estate, with all its advantages and all its disadvantages to my brother, your father, whence it will, no doubt, descend to you.


sentence:
If you can enjoy it in peace, well and good! If you find you cannot, take my advice, my boy, and leave it to your deadliest enemy.


sentence:
The singular incident made, as you may think, the deepest impression upon me, and I pondered over it, and turned it every way in my mind without being able to make anything of it.


sentence:
Yet I could not shake off the vague feeling of dread which it left behind though the sensation grew less keen as the weeks passed, and nothing happened to disturb the usual routine of our lives.


sentence:
Most of his time he would spend in his room, with the door locked upon the inside, but sometimes he would emerge in a sort of drunken frenzy, and would burst out of the house and tear about the garden with a revolver in his hand, screaming out that he was afraid of no man, and that he was not to be cooped up, like a sheep in a pen, by man or devil.


sentence:
When these hot fits were over, however, he would rush tumultuously in at the door, and lock and bar it behind him, like a man who can brazen it out no longer against the terror which lies at the roots of his soul.


sentence:
At such times I have seen his face, even on a cold day, glisten with moisture, as though it were new raised from a basin.


sentence:
Holmes, and not to abuse your patience, there came a night when he made one of those drunken sallies from which he never came back.


sentence:
We found him, when we went to search for him, face downward in a little green-scummed pool, which lay at the foot of the garden.


sentence:
There was no sign of any violence, and the water was but two feet deep, so that the jury, having regard to his known eccentricity, brought in a verdict of suicide.


sentence:
But I, who knew how he winced from the very thought of death, had much ado to persuade myself that he had gone out of his way to meet it.


sentence:
The matter passed, however, and my father entered into possession of the estate, and of some £14,000, which lay to his credit at the bank.


sentence:
Let me have the date of the reception by your uncle of the letter, and the date of his supposed suicide.


sentence:
When my father took over the Horsham property, he, at my request, made a careful examination of the attic, which had been always locked up.


sentence:
For the rest, there was nothing of much importance in the attic, save a great many scattered papers and note-books bearing upon my uncle’s life in America.


sentence:
Some of them were of the war time, and showed that he had done his duty well, and had borne the repute of a brave soldier.


sentence:
Others were of a date during the reconstruction of the Southern States, and were mostly concerned with politics, for he had evidently taken a strong part in opposing the carpet-bag politicians who had been sent down from the North.


sentence:
Well, it was the beginning of ’84 when my father came to live at Horsham, and all went as well as possible with us until the January of ’85.


sentence:
On the fourth day after the new year I heard my father give a sharp cry of surprise as we sat together at the breakfast-table.


sentence:
There he was, sitting with a newly-opened envelope in one hand and five dried orange pips in the outstretched palm of the other one.


sentence:
He had always laughed at what he called my cock-and-a-bull story about the Colonel, but he looked very scared and puzzled now that the same thing had come upon himself.


sentence:
But what is this written above them?’  ‘Put the papers on the sundial,’ I read, peeping over his shoulder.


sentence:
On the third day after the coming of the letter my father went from home to visit an old friend of his, Major Freebody, who is in command of one of the forts upon Portsdown Hill.


sentence:
I was glad that he should go, for it seemed to me that he was farther from danger when he was away from home.


sentence:
Upon the second day of his absence I received a telegram from the Major, imploring me to come at once.


sentence:
My father had fallen over one of the deep chalk-pits which abound in the neighborhood, and was lying senseless, with a shattered skull.


sentence:
He had, as it appears, been returning from Fareham in the twilight, and as the country was unknown to him, and the chalk-pit unfenced, the jury had no hesitation in bringing in a verdict of ‘Death from accidental causes.


sentence:
’ Carefully as I examined every fact connected with his death, I was unable to find anything which could suggest the idea of murder.


sentence:
There were no signs of violence, no footmarks, no robbery, no record of strangers having been seen upon the roads.


sentence:
And yet I need not tell you that my mind was far from at ease, and that I was wellnigh certain that some foul plot had been woven round him.


sentence:
You will ask me why I did not dispose of it? I answer, because I was well convinced that our troubles were in some way dependent upon an incident in my uncle’s life, and that the danger would be as pressing in one house as in another.


sentence:
It was in January, ’85, that my poor father met his end, and two years and eight months have elapsed since then.


sentence:
During that time I have lived happily at Horsham, and I had begun to hope that this curse had passed away from the family, and that it had ended with the last generation.


sentence:
I had begun to take comfort too soon, however; yesterday morning the blow fell in the very shape in which it had come upon my father.


sentence:
The young man took from his waistcoat a crumpled envelope, and, turning to the table, he shook out upon it five little dried orange pips.


sentence:
I seem to be in the grasp of some resistless, inexorable evil, which no foresight and no precautions can guard against.


sentence:
I am convinced that the inspector has formed the opinion that the letters are all practical jokes, and that the deaths of my relations were really accidents, as the jury stated, and were not to be connected with the warnings.


sentence:
It was only to-day that I spoke to Major Prendergast about my troubles, and was advised by him to come to you.


sentence:
You have no further evidence, I suppose, than that which you have placed before us—no suggestive detail which might help us?  There is one thing, said John Openshaw.


sentence:
He rummaged in his coat pocket, and drawing out a piece of discolored, blue-tinted paper, he laid it out upon the table.


sentence:
I have some remembrance, said he, that on the day when my uncle burned the papers I observed that the small, unburned margins which lay amid the ashes were of this particular color.


sentence:
I found this single sheet upon the floor of his room, and I am inclined to think that it may be one of the papers which has, perhaps, fluttered out from among the others, and in that way have escaped destruction.


sentence:
Holmes moved the lamp, and we both bent over the sheet of paper, which showed by its ragged edge that it had indeed been torn from a book.


sentence:
It was headed, March, 1869, and beneath were the following enigmatical notices:  4th. Hudson came. Same old platform.  7th.


sentence:
Set the pips on McCauley, Paramore, and John Swain, of St. Augustine.  9th. McCauley cleared.  10th. John Swain cleared.  12th. Visited Paramore. All well.


sentence:
You must put this piece of paper which you have shown us into the brass box which you have described.


sentence:
You must also put in a note to say that all the other papers were burned by your uncle, and that this is the only one which remains.


sentence:
I think that we may gain that by means of the law; but we have our web to weave, while theirs is already woven.


sentence:
And, above all, take care of yourself in the meanwhile, for I do not think that there can be a doubt that you are threatened by a very real and imminent danger.


sentence:
This strange, wild story seemed to have come to us from amid the mad elements—blown in upon us like a sheet of sea-weed in a gale—and now to have been reabsorbed by them once more.


sentence:
Sherlock Holmes sat for some time in silence, with his head sunk forward and his eyes bent upon the red glow of the fire.


sentence:
Then he lit his pipe, and leaning back in his chair he watched the blue smoke-rings as they chased each other up to the ceiling.


sentence:
I think, Watson, he remarked at last, that of all our cases we have had none more fantastic than this.


sentence:
But have you, I asked, formed any definite conception as to what these perils are?  There can be no question as to their nature, he answered.


sentence:
, and why does he pursue this unhappy family?  Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes and placed his elbows upon the arms of his chair, with his finger-tips together.


sentence:
The ideal reasoner, he remarked, would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it, but also all the results which would follow from it.


sentence:
As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents, should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after.


sentence:
Problems may be solved in the study which have baffled all those who have sought a solution by the aid of their senses.


sentence:
To carry the art, however, to its highest pitch, it is necessary that the reasoner should be able to utilize all the facts which have come to his knowledge; and this in itself implies, as you will readily see, a possession of all knowledge, which, even in these days of free education and encyclopædias, is a somewhat rare accomplishment.


sentence:
It is not so impossible, however, that a man should possess all knowledge which is likely to be useful to him in his work, and this I have endeavored in my case to do.


sentence:
If I remember rightly, you on one occasion, in the early days of our friendship, defined my limits in a very precise fashion.


sentence:
Botany variable, geology profound as regards the mud-stains from any region within fifty miles of town, chemistry eccentric, anatomy unsystematic, sensational literature and crime records unique, violin-player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and self-poisoner by cocaine and tobacco.


sentence:
Well, he said, I say now, as I said then, that a man should keep his little brain-attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.


sentence:
Now, for such a case as the one which has been submitted to us to-night, we need certainly to muster all our resources.


sentence:
Kindly hand me down the letter K of the American Encyclopædia which stands upon the shelf beside you. Thank you.


sentence:
In the first place, we may start with a strong presumption that Colonel Openshaw had some very strong reason for leaving America.


sentence:
Men at his time of life do not change all their habits, and exchange willingly the charming climate of Florida for the lonely life of an English provincial town.


sentence:
His extreme love of solitude in England suggests the idea that he was in fear of some one or something, so we may assume as a working hypothesis that it was fear of some one or something which drove him from America.


sentence:
As to what it was he feared, we can only deduce that by considering the formidable letters which were received by himself and his successors.


sentence:
Did you remark the post-marks of those letters?  The first was from Pondicherry, the second from Dundee, and the third from London.  From East London.


sentence:
There can be no doubt that the probability—the strong probability—is that the writer was on board of a ship.


sentence:
In the case of Pondicherry, seven weeks elapsed between the threat and its fulfilment, in Dundee it was only some three or four days.


sentence:
It looks as if they always sent their singular warning or token before them when starting upon their mission.


sentence:
If they had come from Pondicherry in a steamer they would have arrived almost as soon as their letter.


sentence:
I think that those seven weeks represented the difference between the mail-boat which brought the letter, and the sailing-vessel which brought the writer.  It is possible.  More than that. It is probable.


sentence:
The blow has always fallen at the end of the time which it would take the senders to travel the distance.


sentence:
Good God! I cried; what can it mean, this relentless persecution?  The papers which Openshaw carried are obviously of vital importance to the person or persons in the sailing-ship.


sentence:
But of what society?  Have you never— said Sherlock Holmes, bending forward and sinking his voice—have you never heard of the Ku Klux Klan?  I never have.


sentence:
This terrible secret society was formed by some ex-Confederate soldiers in the Southern States after the Civil War, and it rapidly formed local branches in different parts of the country, notably in Tennessee, Louisiana, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida.


sentence:
Its power was used for political purposes, principally for the terrorizing of the negro voters, and the murdering and driving from the country of those who were opposed to its views.


sentence:
Its outrages were usually preceded by a warning sent to the marked man in some fantastic but generally recognized shape—a sprig of oak-leaves in some parts, melon seeds or orange pips in others.


sentence:
On receiving this the victim might either openly abjure his former ways, or might fly from the country.


sentence:
If he braved the matter out, death would unfailingly come upon him, and usually in some strange and unforeseen manner.


sentence:
So perfect was the organization of the society, and so systematic its methods, that there is hardly a case upon record where any man succeeded in braving it with impunity, or in which any of its outrages were traced home to the perpetrators.


sentence:
For some years the organization flourished, in spite of the efforts of the United States Government and of the better classes of the community in the South.


sentence:
Eventually, in the year 1869, the movement rather suddenly collapsed, although there have been sporadic outbreaks of the same sort since that date.


sentence:
’  You will observe, said Holmes, laying down the volume, that the sudden breaking up of the society was coincident with the disappearance of Openshaw from America with their papers.


sentence:
You can understand that this register and diary may implicate some of the first men in the South, and that there may be many who will not sleep easy at night until it is recovered.


sentence:
It ran, if I remember right, ‘sent the pips to A, B, and C,’—that is, sent the society’s warning to them.


sentence:
Then there are successive entries that A and B cleared, or left the country, and finally that C was visited, with, I fear, a sinister result for C.


sentence:
Well, I think, Doctor, that we may let some light into this dark place, and I believe that the only chance young Openshaw has in the mean time is to do what I have told him.


sentence:
There is nothing more to be said or to be done to-night, so hand me over my violin, and let us try to forget for half an hour the miserable weather and the still more miserable ways of our fellow-men.


sentence:
*       *       *       *       *  It had cleared in the morning, and the sun was shining with a subdued brightness through the dim veil which hangs over the great city.


sentence:
You will excuse me for not waiting for you, said he; I have, I foresee, a very busy day before me in looking into this case of young Openshaw’s.


sentence:
’ Here is the account: ‘Between nine and ten last night Police-constable Cook, of the H Division, on duty near Waterloo Bridge, heard a cry for help and a splash in the water.


sentence:
The night, however, was extremely dark and stormy, so that, in spite of the help of several passers-by, it was quite impossible to effect a rescue.


sentence:
The alarm, however, was given, and, by the aid of the water-police, the body was eventually recovered.


sentence:
It proved to be that of a young gentleman whose name, as it appears from an envelope which was found in his pocket, was John Openshaw, and whose residence is near Horsham.


sentence:
It is conjectured that he may have been hurrying down to catch the last train from Waterloo Station, and that in his haste and the extreme darkness he missed his path and walked over the edge of one of the small landing-places for river steamboats.


sentence:
The body exhibited no traces of violence, and there can be no doubt that the deceased had been the victim of an unfortunate accident, which should have the effect of calling the attention of the authorities to the condition of the river-side landing-stages.


sentence:
It becomes a personal matter with me now, and, if God sends me health, I shall set my hand upon this gang.


sentence:
That he should come to me for help, and that I should send him away to his death—! He sprang from his chair and paced about the room in uncontrollable agitation, with a flush upon his sallow cheeks, and a nervous clasping and unclasping of his long, thin hands.


sentence:
How could they have decoyed him down there? The Embankment is not on the direct line to the station.


sentence:
I am going out now!  [Illustration: ‘HOLMES,’ I CRIED, ‘YOU ARE TOO LATE’]  To the police?  No; I shall be my own police.


sentence:
All day I was engaged in my professional work, and it was late in the evening before I returned to Baker Street.


sentence:
He walked up to the sideboard, and, tearing a piece from the loaf, he devoured it voraciously, washing it down with a long draught of water.


sentence:
It is well thought of!  What do you mean?  He took an orange from the cupboard, and, tearing it to pieces, he squeezed out the pips upon the table.


sentence:
How did you trace it, then?  He took a large sheet of paper from his pocket, all covered with dates and names.


sentence:
I have spent the whole day, said he, over Lloyd’s registers and the files of the old papers, following the future career of every vessel which touched at Pondicherry in January and February in ’83.


sentence:
Of these, one, the _Lone Star_, instantly attracted my attention, since, although it was reported as having cleared from London, the name is that which is given to one of the States of the Union.  Texas, I think.


sentence:
What then?  I searched the Dundee records, and when I found that the bark _Lone Star_ was there in January, ’85, my suspicion became a certainty.


sentence:
I went down to the Albert Dock, and found that she had been taken down the river by the early tide this morning, homeward bound to Savannah.


sentence:
I wired to Gravesend, and learned that she had passed some time ago; and as the wind is easterly, I have no doubt that she is now past the Goodwins, and not very far from the Isle of Wight.


sentence:
By the time that their sailing-ship reaches Savannah the mail-boat will have carried this letter, and the cable will have informed the police of Savannah that these three gentlemen are badly wanted here upon a charge of murder.


sentence:
There is ever a flaw, however, in the best laid of human plans, and the murderers of John Openshaw were never to receive the orange pips which would show them that another, as cunning and as resolute as themselves, was upon their track.


sentence:
We did at last hear that somewhere far out in the Atlantic a shattered stern-post of a boat was seen swinging in the trough of a wave, with the letters L. S.


sentence:
The habit grew upon him, as I understand, from some foolish freak when he was at college; for having read De Quincey’s description of his dreams and sensations, he had drenched his tobacco with laudanum in an attempt to produce the same effects.


sentence:
He found, as so many more have done, that the practice is easier to attain than to get rid of, and for many years he continued to be a slave to the drug, an object of mingled horror and pity to his friends and relatives.


sentence:
I can see him now, with yellow, pasty face, drooping lids, and pin-point pupils, all huddled in a chair, the wreck and ruin of a noble man.


sentence:
One night—it was in June, ’89—there came a ring to my bell, about the hour when a man gives his first yawn and glances at the clock.


sentence:
I sat up in my chair, and my wife laid her needle-work down in her lap and made a little face of disappointment.


sentence:
Our own door flew open, and a lady, clad in some dark-colored stuff, with a black veil, entered the room.


sentence:
You will excuse my calling so late, she began, and then, suddenly losing her self-control, she ran forward, threw her arms about my wife’s neck, and sobbed upon her shoulder.


sentence:
Or should you rather that I sent James off to bed?  Oh, no, no! I want the Doctor’s advice and help, too. It’s about Isa.


sentence:
I am so frightened about him!  It was not the first time that she had spoken to us of her husband’s trouble, to me as a doctor, to my wife as an old friend and school companion.


sentence:
Did she know where her husband was? Was it possible that we could bring him back to her?  It seemed that it was.


sentence:
She had the surest information that of late he had, when the fit was on him, made use of an opium den in the farthest east of the city.


sentence:
Hitherto his orgies had always been confined to one day, and he had come back, twitching and shattered, in the evening.


sentence:
But now the spell had been upon him eight-and-forty hours, and he lay there, doubtless among the dregs of the docks, breathing in the poison or sleeping off the effects.


sentence:
But what was she to do? How could she, a young and timid woman, make her way into such a place, and pluck her husband out from among the ruffians who surrounded him?  There was the case, and of course there was but one way out of it.


sentence:
Might I not escort her to this place? And then, as a second thought, why should she come at all? I was Isa Whitney’s medical adviser, and as such I had influence over him.


sentence:
I promised her on my word that I would send him home in a cab within two hours if he were indeed at the address which she had given me.


sentence:
And so in ten minutes I had left my arm-chair and cheery sitting-room behind me, and was speeding eastward in a hansom on a strange errand, as it seemed to me at the time, though the future only could show how strange it was to be.


sentence:
Upper Swandam Lane is a vile alley lurking behind the high wharves which line the north side of the river to the east of London Bridge.


sentence:
Between a slop-shop and a gin-shop, approached by a steep flight of steps leading down to a black gap like the mouth of a cave, I found the den of which I was in search.


sentence:
Ordering my cab to wait, I passed down the steps, worn hollow in the centre by the ceaseless tread of drunken feet, and by the light of a flickering oil-lamp above the door I found the latch, and made my way into a long, low room, thick and heavy with the brown opium smoke, and terraced with wooden berths, like the forecastle of an emigrant ship.


sentence:
Through the gloom one could dimly catch a glimpse of bodies lying in strange fantastic poses, bowed shoulders, bent knees, heads thrown back and chins pointing upward, with here and there a dark, lack-lustre eye turned upon the new-comer.


sentence:
Out of the black shadows there glimmered little red circles of light, now bright, now faint, as the burning poison waxed or waned in the bowls of the metal pipes.


sentence:
The most lay silent, but some muttered to themselves, and others talked together in a strange, low, monotonous voice, their conversation coming in gushes, and then suddenly tailing off into silence, each mumbling out his own thoughts, and paying little heed to the words of his neighbor.


sentence:
At the farther end was a small brazier of burning charcoal, beside which on a three-legged wooden stool there sat a tall, thin old man, with his jaw resting upon his two fists, and his elbows upon his knees, staring into the fire.


sentence:
As I entered, a sallow Malay attendant had hurried up with a pipe for me and a supply of the drug, beckoning me to an empty berth.  Thank you.


sentence:
There was a movement and an exclamation from my right, and, peering through the gloom, I saw Whitney, pale, haggard, and unkempt, staring out at me.


sentence:
What d’you want to frighten a chap for? He sank his face onto his arms, and began to sob in a high treble key.


sentence:
But you’ve got mixed, Watson, for I have only been here a few hours, three pipes, four pipes—I forget how many.


sentence:
I walked down the narrow passage between the double row of sleepers, holding my breath to keep out the vile, stupefying fumes of the drug, and looking about for the manager.


sentence:
As I passed the tall man who sat by the brazier I felt a sudden pluck at my skirt, and a low voice whispered, Walk past me, and then look back at me.


sentence:
They could only have come from the old man at my side, and yet he sat now as absorbed as ever, very thin, very wrinkled, bent with age, an opium pipe dangling down from between his knees, as though it had dropped in sheer lassitude from his fingers.


sentence:
His form had filled out, his wrinkles were gone, the dull eyes had regained their fire, and there, sitting by the fire, and grinning at my surprise, was none other than Sherlock Holmes.


sentence:
He made a slight motion to me to approach him, and instantly, as he turned his face half round to the company once more, subsided into a doddering, loose-lipped senility.


sentence:
Holmes! I whispered, what on earth are you doing in this den?  As low as you can, he answered; I have excellent ears.


sentence:
If you would have the great kindness to get rid of that sottish friend of yours I should be exceedingly glad to have a little talk with you.


sentence:
I should recommend you also to send a note by the cabman to your wife to say that you have thrown in your lot with me.


sentence:
It was difficult to refuse any of Sherlock Holmes’s requests, for they were always so exceedingly definite, and put forward with such a quiet air of mastery.


sentence:
I felt, however, that when Whitney was once confined in the cab my mission was practically accomplished, and for the rest, I could not wish anything better than to be associated with my friend in one of those singular adventures which were the normal condition of his existence.


sentence:
In a few minutes I had written my note, paid Whitney’s bill, led him out to the cab, and seen him driven through the darkness.


sentence:
In a very short time a decrepit figure had emerged from the opium den, and I was walking down the street with Sherlock Holmes.


sentence:
I suppose, Watson, said he, that you imagine that I have added opium-smoking to cocaine injections, and all the other little weaknesses on which you have favored me with your medical views.


sentence:
Briefly, Watson, I am in the midst of a very remarkable inquiry, and I have hoped to find a clew in the incoherent ramblings of these sots, as I have done before now.


sentence:
Had I been recognized in that den my life would not have been worth an hour’s purchase; for I have used it before now for my own purposes, and the rascally Lascar who runs it has sworn to have vengeance upon me.


sentence:
There is a trap-door at the back of that building, near the corner of Paul’s Wharf, which could tell some strange tales of what has passed through it upon the moonless nights.


sentence:
He put his two forefingers between his teeth and whistled shrilly—a signal which was answered by a similar whistle from the distance, followed shortly by the rattle of wheels and the clink of horses’ hoofs.


sentence:
Now, Watson, said Holmes, as a tall dog-cart dashed up through the gloom, throwing out two golden tunnels of yellow light from its side lanterns.


sentence:
So long, then!  He flicked the horse with his whip, and we dashed away through the endless succession of sombre and deserted streets, which widened gradually, until we were flying across a broad balustraded bridge, with the murky river flowing sluggishly beneath us.


sentence:
Beyond lay another dull wilderness of bricks and mortar, its silence broken only by the heavy, regular footfall of the policeman, or the songs and shouts of some belated party of revellers.


sentence:
A dull wrack was drifting slowly across the sky, and a star or two twinkled dimly here and there through the rifts of the clouds.


sentence:
Holmes drove in silence, with his head sunk upon his breast, and the air of a man who is lost in thought, while I sat beside him, curious to learn what this new quest might be which seemed to tax his powers so sorely, and yet afraid to break in upon the current of his thoughts.


sentence:
We had driven several miles, and were beginning to get to the fringe of the belt of suburban villas, when he shook himself, shrugged his shoulders, and lit up his pipe with the air of a man who has satisfied himself that he is acting for the best.


sentence:
’Pon my word, it is a great thing for me to have some one to talk to, for my own thoughts are not over pleasant.


sentence:
Now, I’ll state the case clearly and concisely to you, Watson, and maybe you can see a spark where all is dark to me.  Proceed, then.


sentence:
By degrees he made friends in the neighborhood, and in 1887 he married the daughter of a local brewer, by whom he now has two children.


sentence:
He had no occupation, but was interested in several companies, and went into town as a rule in the morning, returning by the 5.


sentence:
Clair is now thirty-seven years of age, is a man of temperate habits, a good husband, a very affectionate father, and a man who is popular with all who know him.


sentence:
I may add that his whole debts at the present moment, as far as we have been able to ascertain, amount to £88 10_s.


sentence:
There is no reason, therefore, to think that money troubles have been weighing upon his mind.  Last Monday Mr. Neville St.


sentence:
Clair went into town rather earlier than usual, remarking before he started that he had two important commissions to perform, and that he would bring his little boy home a box of bricks.


sentence:
Now, by the merest chance, his wife received a telegram upon this same Monday, very shortly after his departure, to the effect that a small parcel of considerable value which she had been expecting was waiting for her at the offices of the Aberdeen Shipping Company.


sentence:
Now, if you are well up in your London, you will know that the offices of the company is in Fresno Street, which branches out of Upper Swandam Lane, where you found me to-night. Mrs. St.


sentence:
Clair had her lunch, started for the city, did some shopping, proceeded to the company’s office, got her packet, and found herself at exactly 4.


sentence:
Clair walked slowly, glancing about in the hope of seeing a cab, as she did not like the neighborhood in which she found herself.


sentence:
While she was walking in this way down Swandam Lane, she suddenly heard an ejaculation or cry, and was struck cold to see her husband looking down at her, and, as it seemed to her, beckoning to her from a second-floor window.


sentence:
The window was open, and she distinctly saw his face, which she describes as being terribly agitated.


sentence:
He waved his hands frantically to her, and then vanished from the window so suddenly that it seemed to her that he had been plucked back by some irresistible force from behind.


sentence:
One singular point which struck her quick feminine eye was that, although he wore some dark coat, such as he had started to town in, he had on neither collar nor necktie.


sentence:
]  Convinced that something was amiss with him, she rushed down the steps—for the house was none other than the opium den in which you found me to-night—and, running through the front room, she attempted to ascend the stairs which led to the first floor.


sentence:
At the foot of the stairs, however, she met this Lascar scoundrel of whom I have spoken, who thrust her back, and, aided by a Dane, who acts as assistant there, pushed her out into the street.


sentence:
Filled with the most maddening doubts and fears, she rushed down the lane, and, by rare good-fortune, met, in Fresno Street, a number of constables with an inspector, all on their way to their beat.


sentence:
The inspector and two men accompanied her back, and, in spite of the continued resistance of the proprietor, they made their way to the room in which Mr. St.


sentence:
In fact, in the whole of that floor there was no one to be found, save a crippled wretch of hideous aspect, who, it seems, made his home there.


sentence:
Both he and the Lascar stoutly swore that no one else had been in the front room during the afternoon.


sentence:
So determined was their denial that the inspector was staggered, and had almost come to believe that Mrs. St.


sentence:
Clair had been deluded, when, with a cry, she sprang at a small deal box which lay upon the table, and tore the lid from it.


sentence:
This discovery, and the evident confusion which the cripple showed, made the inspector realize that the matter was serious.


sentence:
The front room was plainly furnished as a sitting-room, and led into a small bedroom, which looked out upon the back of one of the wharves.


sentence:
Between the wharf and the bedroom window is a narrow strip, which is dry at low tide, but is covered at high tide with at least four and a half feet of water.


sentence:
On examination traces of blood were to be seen upon the window-sill, and several scattered drops were visible upon the wooden floor of the bedroom.


sentence:
There were no signs of violence upon any of these garments, and there were no other traces of Mr. Neville St. Clair.


sentence:
Out of the window he must apparently have gone, for no other exit could be discovered, and the ominous blood-stains upon the sill gave little promise that he could save himself by swimming, for the tide was at its very highest at the moment of the tragedy.


sentence:
Clair’s story, he was known to have been at the foot of the stair within a very few seconds of her husband’s appearance at the window, he could hardly have been more than an accessory to the crime.


sentence:
His defense was one of absolute ignorance, and he protested that he had no knowledge as to the doings of Hugh Boone, his lodger, and that he could not account in any way for the presence of the missing gentleman’s clothes.


sentence:
Now for the sinister cripple who lives upon the second floor of the opium den, and who was certainly the last human being whose eyes rested upon Neville St. Clair.


sentence:
His name is Hugh Boone, and his hideous face is one which is familiar to every man who goes much to the city.


sentence:
He is a professional beggar, though, in order to avoid the police regulations, he pretends to a small trade in wax vestas.


sentence:
Some little distance down Threadneedle Street, upon the left-hand side, there is, as you may have remarked, a small angle in the wall.


sentence:
Here it is that this creature takes his daily seat, cross-legged, with his tiny stock of matches on his lap, and, as he is a piteous spectacle, a small rain of charity descends into the greasy leather cap which lies upon the pavement beside him.


sentence:
I have watched the fellow more than once, before ever I thought of making his professional acquaintance, and I have been surprised at the harvest which he has reaped in a short time.


sentence:
A shock of orange hair, a pale face disfigured by a horrible scar, which, by its contraction, has turned up the outer edge of his upper lip, a bull-dog chin, and a pair of very penetrating dark eyes, which present a singular contrast to the color of his hair, all mark him out from amid the common crowd of mendicants, and so, too, does his wit, for he is ever ready with a reply to any piece of chaff which may be thrown at him by the passers-by.


sentence:
This is the man whom we now learn to have been the lodger at the opium den, and to have been the last man to see the gentleman of whom we are in quest.


sentence:
What could he have done single-handed against a man in the prime of life?  He is a cripple in the sense that he walks with a limp; but in other respects he appears to be a powerful and well-nurtured man.


sentence:
Surely your medical experience would tell you, Watson, that weakness in one limb is often compensated for by exceptional strength in the others.


sentence:
Clair had fainted at the sight of the blood upon the window, and she was escorted home in a cab by the police, as her presence could be of no help to them in their investigations.


sentence:
Inspector Barton, who had charge of the case, made a very careful examination of the premises, but without finding anything which threw any light upon the matter.


sentence:
One mistake had been made in not arresting Boone instantly, as he was allowed some few minutes during which he might have communicated with his friend the Lascar, but this fault was soon remedied, and he was seized and searched, without anything being found which could incriminate him.


sentence:
There were, it is true, some blood-stains upon his right shirt-sleeve, but he pointed to his ring-finger, which had been cut near the nail, and explained that the bleeding came from there, adding that he had been to the window not long before, and that the stains which had been observed there came doubtless from the same source.


sentence:
Clair, and swore that the presence of the clothes in his room was as much a mystery to him as to the police. As to Mrs. St.


sentence:
Clair’s assertion that she had actually seen her husband at the window, he declared that she must have been either mad or dreaming.


sentence:
He was removed, loudly protesting, to the police-station, while the inspector remained upon the premises in the hope that the ebbing tide might afford some fresh clew.


sentence:
And it did, though they hardly found upon the mud-bank what they had feared to find. It was Neville St.


sentence:
It seemed likely enough that the weighted coat had remained when the stripped body had been sucked away into the river.


sentence:
What would he do then? It would of course instantly strike him that he must get rid of the tell-tale garments.


sentence:
He would seize the coat, then, and be in the act of throwing it out, when it would occur to him that it would swim and not sink.


sentence:
He has little time, for he has heard the scuffle down-stairs when the wife tried to force her way up, and perhaps he has already heard from his Lascar confederate that the police are hurrying up the street.


sentence:
He rushes to some secret horde, where he has accumulated the fruits of his beggary, and he stuffs all the coins upon which he can lay his hands into the pockets to make sure of the coat’s sinking.


sentence:
He throws it out, and would have done the same with the other garments had not he heard the rush of steps below, and only just had time to close the window when the police appeared.


sentence:
Boone, as I have told you, was arrested and taken to the station, but it could not be shown that there had ever before been anything against him.


sentence:
He had for years been known as a professional beggar, but his life appeared to have been a very quiet and innocent one.


sentence:
Clair was doing in the opium den, what happened to him when there, where is he now, and what Hugh Boone had to do with his disappearance—are all as far from a solution as ever.


sentence:
I confess that I cannot recall any case within my experience which looked at the first glance so simple, and yet which presented such difficulties.


sentence:
While Sherlock Holmes had been detailing this singular series of events, we had been whirling through the outskirts of the great town until the last straggling houses had been left behind, and we rattled along with a country hedge upon either side of us.


sentence:
Just as he finished, however, we drove through two scattered villages, where a few lights still glimmered in the windows.


sentence:
We have touched on three English counties in our short drive, starting in Middlesex, passing over an angle of Surrey, and ending in Kent.


sentence:
See that light among the trees? That is ‘The Cedars,’ and beside that lamp sits a woman whose anxious ears have already, I have little doubt, caught the clink of our horse’s feet.


sentence:
Clair has most kindly put two rooms at my disposal, and you may rest assured that she will have nothing but a welcome for my friend and colleague.


sentence:
A stable-boy had run out to the horse’s head, and, springing down, I followed Holmes up the small, winding gravel-drive which led to the house.


sentence:
As we approached, the door flew open, and a little blonde woman stood in the opening, clad in some sort of light mousseline de soie, with a touch of fluffy pink chiffon at her neck and wrists.


sentence:
She stood with her figure outlined against the flood of light, one hand upon the door, one half-raised in her eagerness, her body slightly bent, her head and face protruded, with eager eyes and parted lips, a standing question.


sentence:
Well? she cried, well? And then, seeing that there were two of us, she gave a cry of hope which sank into a groan as she saw that my companion shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.


sentence:
He has been of most vital use to me in several of my cases, and a lucky chance has made it possible for me to bring him out and associate him with this investigation.


sentence:
You will, I am sure, forgive anything that may be wanting in our arrangements, when you consider the blow which has come so suddenly upon us.


sentence:
My dear madam, said I, I am an old campaigner, and if I were not, I can very well see that no apology is needed.


sentence:
If I can be of any assistance, either to you or to my friend here, I shall be indeed happy.  Now, Mr.


sentence:
Sherlock Holmes, said the lady, as we entered a well-lit dining-room, upon the table of which a cold supper had been laid out, I should very much like to ask you one or two plain questions, to which I beg that you will give a plain answer.  Certainly, madam.


sentence:
Upon what point?  In your heart of hearts do you think that Neville is alive?  Sherlock Holmes seemed to be embarrassed by the question.


sentence:
Frankly, now! she repeated, standing upon the rug and looking keenly down at him as he leaned back in a basket-chair.


sentence:
Sherlock Holmes sprang out of his chair as if he had been galvanized.  What! he roared.  Yes, to-day.


sentence:
He snatched it from her in his eagerness, and smoothing it out upon the table, he drew over the lamp, and examined it intently.


sentence:
The envelope was a very coarse one, and was stamped with the Gravesend post-mark, and with the date of that very day, or rather of the day before, for it was considerably after midnight.


sentence:
This man has written the name, and there has then been a pause before he wrote the address, which can only mean that he was not familiar with it.


sentence:
Ha! And the flap has been gummed, if I am not very much in error, by a person who had been chewing tobacco.


sentence:
On the very day that I saw him last he cut himself in the bedroom, and yet I in the dining-room rushed up-stairs instantly with the utmost certainty that something had happened.


sentence:
Do you think that I would respond to such a trifle, and yet be ignorant of his death?  I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner.


sentence:
But if your husband is alive, and able to write letters, why should he remain away from you?  I cannot imagine. It is unthinkable.


sentence:
You did not see any one else in the room?  No, but this horrible man confessed to having been there, and the Lascar was at the foot of the stairs.  Quite so.


sentence:
A large and comfortable double-bedded room had been placed at our disposal, and I was quickly between the sheets, for I was weary after my night of adventure.


sentence:
Sherlock Holmes was a man, however, who, when he had an unsolved problem upon his mind, would go for days, and even for a week, without rest, turning it over, rearranging his facts, looking at it from every point of view, until he had either fathomed it, or convinced himself that his data were insufficient.


sentence:
He took off his coat and waistcoat, put on a large blue dressing-gown, and then wandered about the room collecting pillows from his bed and cushions from the sofa and arm-chairs.


sentence:
With these he constructed a sort of Eastern divan, upon which he perched himself cross-legged, with an ounce of shag tobacco and a box of matches laid out in front of him.


sentence:
In the dim light of the lamp I saw him sitting there, an old briar pipe between his lips, his eyes fixed vacantly upon the corner of the ceiling, the blue smoke curling up from him, silent, motionless, with the light shining upon his strong-set aquiline features.


sentence:
So he sat as I dropped off to sleep, and so he sat when a sudden ejaculation caused me to wake up, and I found the summer sun shining into the apartment.


sentence:
The pipe was still between his lips, the smoke still curled upward, and the room was full of a dense tobacco haze, but nothing remained of the heap of shag which I had seen upon the previous night.


sentence:
No one is stirring yet, but I know where the stable-boy sleeps, and we shall soon have the trap out.


sentence:
He chuckled to himself as he spoke, his eyes twinkled, and he seemed a different man to the sombre thinker of the previous night.


sentence:
I think, Watson, that you are now standing in the presence of one of the most absolute fools in Europe.


sentence:
A few country carts were stirring, bearing in vegetables to the metropolis, but the lines of villas on either side were as silent and lifeless as some city in a dream.


sentence:
I confess that I have been as blind as a mole, but it is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all.


sentence:
In town the earliest risers were just beginning to look sleepily from their windows as we drove through the streets of the Surrey side.


sentence:
Passing down the Waterloo Bridge Road we crossed over the river, and dashing up Wellington Street wheeled sharply to the right, and found ourselves in Bow Street.


sentence:
Ah, Bradstreet, how are you? A tall, stout official had come down the stone-flagged passage, in a peaked cap and frogged jacket.


sentence:
It was a small, office-like room, with a huge ledger upon the table, and a telephone projecting from the wall.


sentence:
Holmes?  I called about that beggarman, Boone—the one who was charged with being concerned in the disappearance of Mr. Neville St. Clair, of Lee.  Yes.


sentence:
Dirty?  Yes, it is all we can do to make him wash his hands, and his face is as black as a tinker’s.


sentence:
Well, when once his case has been settled, he will have a regular prison bath; and I think, if you saw him, you would agree with me that he needed it.


sentence:
He led us down a passage, opened a barred door, passed down a winding stair, and brought us to a whitewashed corridor with a line of doors on each side.


sentence:
He was a middle-sized man, coarsely clad as became his calling, with a colored shirt protruding through the rent in his tattered coat.


sentence:
He was, as the inspector had said, extremely dirty, but the grime which covered his face could not conceal its repulsive ugliness.


sentence:
A broad wheal from an old scar ran right across it from eye to chin, and by its contraction had turned up one side of the upper lip, so that three teeth were exposed in a perpetual snarl.


sentence:
He opened the Gladstone bag as he spoke, and took out, to my astonishment, a very large bath-sponge.


sentence:
Now, if you will have the great goodness to open that door very quietly, we will soon make him cut a much more respectable figure.


sentence:
He doesn’t look a credit to the Bow Street cells, does he? He slipped his key into the lock, and we all very quietly entered the cell.


sentence:
Holmes stooped to the water-jug, moistened his sponge, and then rubbed it twice vigorously across and down the prisoner’s face.


sentence:
Gone was the coarse brown tint! Gone, too, was the horrid scar which had seamed it across, and the twisted lip which had given the repulsive sneer to the face! A twitch brought away the tangled red hair, and there, sitting up in his bed, was a pale, sad-faced, refined-looking man, black-haired and smooth-skinned, rubbing his eyes, and staring about him with sleepy bewilderment.


sentence:
Then suddenly realizing the exposure, he broke into a scream, and threw himself down with his face to the pillow.


sentence:
The prisoner turned with the reckless air of a man who abandons himself to his destiny. Be it so, said he.


sentence:
—— Oh, come, you can’t be charged with that, unless they make a case of attempted suicide of it, said the inspector, with a grin.


sentence:
Well, I have been twenty-seven years in the force, but this really takes the cake.  If I am Mr. Neville St.


sentence:
Clair, then it is obvious that no crime has been committed, and that, therefore, I am illegally detained.


sentence:
My God! What an exposure! What can I do?  Sherlock Holmes sat down beside him on the couch and patted him kindly on the shoulder.


sentence:
If you leave it to a court of law to clear the matter up, said he, of course you can hardly avoid publicity.


sentence:
On the other hand, if you convince the police authorities that there is no possible case against you, I do not know that there is any reason that the details should find their way into the papers.


sentence:
Inspector Bradstreet would, I am sure, make notes upon anything which you might tell us, and submit it to the proper authorities.


sentence:
I would have endured imprisonment, aye, even execution, rather than have left my miserable secret as a family blot to my children.


sentence:
I travelled in my youth, took to the stage, and finally became a reporter on an evening paper in London.


sentence:
One day my editor wished to have a series of articles upon begging in the metropolis, and I volunteered to supply them.


sentence:
It was only by trying begging as an amateur that I could get the facts upon which to base my articles.


sentence:
When an actor I had, of course, learned all the secrets of making up, and had been famous in the greenroom for my skill.


sentence:
I painted my face, and to make myself as pitiable as possible I made a good scar and fixed one side of my lip in a twist by the aid of a small slip of flesh-colored plaster.


sentence:
Then with a red head of hair, and an appropriate dress, I took my station in the busiest part of the city, ostensibly as a match-seller, but really as a beggar.


sentence:
For seven hours I plied my trade, and when I returned home in the evening I found, to my surprise, that I had received no less than 26_s._ 4_d.


sentence:
_  I wrote my articles, and thought little more of the matter until, some time later, I backed a bill for a friend, and had a writ served upon me for £25.


sentence:
I begged a fortnight’s grace from the creditor, asked for a holiday from my employers, and spent the time in begging in the city under my disguise.


sentence:
Well, you can imagine how hard it was to settle down to arduous work at £2 a week, when I knew that I could earn as much in a day by smearing my face with a little paint, laying my cap on the ground, and sitting still.


sentence:
It was a long fight between my pride and the money, but the dollars won at last, and I threw up reporting, and sat day after day in the corner which I had first chosen, inspiring pity by my ghastly face, and filling my pockets with coppers.


sentence:
He was the keeper of a low den in which I used to lodge in Swandam Lane, where I could every morning emerge as a squalid beggar, and in the evenings transform myself into a well-dressed man about town.


sentence:
This fellow, a Lascar, was well paid by me for his rooms, so that I knew that my secret was safe in his possession.


sentence:
I do not mean that any beggar in the streets of London could earn £700 a year—which is less than my average takings—but I had exceptional advantages in my power of making up, and also in a facility of repartee, which improved by practice, and made me quite a recognized character in the city.


sentence:
All day a stream of pennies, varied by silver, poured in upon me, and it was a very bad day in which I failed to take £2.


sentence:
As I grew richer I grew more ambitious, took a house in the country, and eventually married, without any one having a suspicion as to my real occupation.


sentence:
Last Monday I had finished for the day, and was dressing in my room above the opium den, when I looked out of my window, and saw, to my horror and astonishment, that my wife was standing in the street, with her eyes fixed full upon me.


sentence:
I gave a cry of surprise, threw up my arms to cover my face, and, rushing to my confidant, the Lascar, entreated him to prevent any one from coming up to me.


sentence:
But then it occurred to me that there might be a search in the room, and that the clothes might betray me.


sentence:
I threw open the window, reopening by my violence a small cut which I had inflicted upon myself in the bedroom that morning.


sentence:
Then I seized my coat, which was weighted by the coppers which I had just transferred to it from the leather bag in which I carried my takings.


sentence:
The other clothes would have followed, but at that moment there was a rush of constables up the stair, and a few minutes after I found, rather, I confess, to my relief, that instead of being identified as Mr. Neville St.


sentence:
I was determined to preserve my disguise as long as possible, and hence my preference for a dirty face.


sentence:
Knowing that my wife would be terribly anxious, I slipped off my ring, and confided it to the Lascar at a moment when no constable was watching me, together with a hurried scrawl, telling her that she had no cause to fear.


sentence:
Good God! What a week she must have spent!  The police have watched this Lascar, said Inspector Bradstreet, and I can quite understand that he might find it difficult to post a letter unobserved.


sentence:
But have you never been prosecuted for begging?  Many times; but what was a fine to me?  It must stop here, however, said Bradstreet.


sentence:
Adventure VII  THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLUE CARBUNCLE   I had called upon my friend Sherlock Holmes upon the second morning after Christmas, with the intention of wishing him the compliments of the season.


sentence:
He was lounging upon the sofa in a purple dressing-gown, a pipe-rack within his reach upon the right, and a pile of crumpled morning papers, evidently newly studied, near at hand.


sentence:
Beside the couch was a wooden chair, and on the angle of the back hung a very seedy and disreputable hard-felt hat, much the worse for wear, and cracked in several places.


sentence:
A lens and a forceps lying upon the seat of the chair suggested that the hat had been suspended in this manner for the purpose of examination.


sentence:
The matter is a perfectly trivial one (he jerked his thumb in the direction of the old hat), but there are points in connection with it which are not entirely devoid of interest and even of instruction.


sentence:
I seated myself in his arm-chair and warmed my hands before his crackling fire, for a sharp frost had set in, and the windows were thick with the ice crystals.


sentence:
I suppose, I remarked, that, homely as it looks, this thing has some deadly story linked on to it—that it is the clew which will guide you in the solution of some mystery and the punishment of some crime.  No, no.


sentence:
Only one of those whimsical little incidents which will happen when you have four million human beings all jostling each other within the space of a few square miles.


sentence:
Amid the action and reaction of so dense a swarm of humanity, every possible combination of events may be expected to take place, and many a little problem will be presented which may be striking and bizarre without being criminal.


sentence:
So much so, I remarked, that of the last six cases which I have added to my notes, three have been entirely free of any legal crime.  Precisely.


sentence:
You allude to my attempt to recover the Irene Adler papers, to the singular case of Miss Mary Sutherland, and to the adventure of the man with the twisted lip.


sentence:
It arrived upon Christmas morning, in company with a good fat goose, which is, I have no doubt, roasting at this moment in front of Peterson’s fire.


sentence:
The facts are these: about four o’clock on Christmas morning, Peterson, who, as you know, is a very honest fellow, was returning from some small jollification, and was making his way homeward down Tottenham Court Road.


sentence:
In front of him he saw, in the gaslight, a tallish man, walking with a slight stagger, and carrying a white goose slung over his shoulder.


sentence:
As he reached the corner of Goodge Street, a row broke out between this stranger and a little knot of roughs.


sentence:
One of the latter knocked off the man’s hat, on which he raised his stick to defend himself, and, swinging it over his head, smashed the shop window behind him.


sentence:
Peterson had rushed forward to protect the stranger from his assailants; but the man, shocked at having broken the window, and seeing an official-looking person in uniform rushing towards him, dropped his goose, took to his heels, and vanished amid the labyrinth of small streets which lie at the back of Tottenham Court Road.


sentence:
The roughs had also fled at the appearance of Peterson, so that he was left in possession of the field of battle, and also of the spoils of victory in the shape of this battered hat and a most unimpeachable Christmas goose.


sentence:
Henry Baker’ was printed upon a small card which was tied to the bird’s left leg, and it is also true that the initials ‘H. B.


sentence:
’ are legible upon the lining of this hat; but as there are some thousands of Bakers, and some hundreds of Henry Bakers in this city of ours, it is not easy to restore lost property to any one of them.


sentence:
What, then, did Peterson do?  He brought round both hat and goose to me on Christmas morning, knowing that even the smallest problems are of interest to me.


sentence:
The goose we retained until this morning, when there were signs that, in spite of the slight frost, it would be well that it should be eaten without unnecessary delay.


sentence:
Its finder has carried it off, therefore, to fulfil the ultimate destiny of a goose, while I continue to retain the hat of the unknown gentleman who lost his Christmas dinner.


sentence:
What can you gather yourself as to the individuality of the man who has worn this article?  I took the tattered object in my hands and turned it over rather ruefully.


sentence:
For the rest, it was cracked, exceedingly dusty, and spotted in several places, although there seemed to have been some attempt to hide the discolored patches by smearing them with ink.


sentence:
Then, pray tell me what it is that you can infer from this hat?  He picked it up and gazed at it in the peculiar introspective fashion which was characteristic of him.


sentence:
It is perhaps less suggestive than it might have been, he remarked, and yet there are a few inferences which are very distinct, and a few others which represent at least a strong balance of probability.


sentence:
That the man was highly intellectual is of course obvious upon the face of it, and also that he was fairly well-to-do within the last three years, although he has now fallen upon evil days.


sentence:
He had foresight, but has less now than formerly, pointing to a moral retrogression, which, when taken with the decline of his fortunes, seems to indicate some evil influence, probably drink, at work upon him.


sentence:
My dear Holmes!  He has, however, retained some degree of self-respect, he continued, disregarding my remonstrance.


sentence:
He is a man who leads a sedentary life, goes out little, is out of training entirely, is middle-aged, has grizzled hair which he has had cut within the last few days, and which he anoints with lime-cream.


sentence:
Is it possible that even now, when I give you these results, you are unable to see how they are attained?  I have no doubt that I am very stupid; but I must confess that I am unable to follow you.


sentence:
For example, how did you deduce that this man was intellectual?  For answer Holmes clapped the hat upon his head.


sentence:
If this man could afford to buy so expensive a hat three years ago, and has had no hat since, then he has assuredly gone down in the world.


sentence:
Here is the foresight, said he, putting his finger upon the little disk and loop of the hat-securer.


sentence:
If this man ordered one, it is a sign of a certain amount of foresight, since he went out of his way to take this precaution against the wind.


sentence:
But since we see that he has broken the elastic, and has not troubled to replace it, it is obvious that he has less foresight now than formerly, which is a distinct proof of a weakening nature.


sentence:
On the other hand, he has endeavored to conceal some of these stains upon the felt by daubing them with ink, which is a sign that he has not entirely lost his self-respect.


sentence:
The further points, that he is middle-aged, that his hair is grizzled, that it has been recently cut, and that he uses lime-cream, are all to be gathered from a close examination of the lower part of the lining.


sentence:
This dust, you will observe, is not the gritty, gray dust of the street, but the fluffy brown dust of the house, showing that it has been hung up in-doors most of the time; while the marks of moisture upon the inside are proof positive that the wearer perspired very freely, and could, therefore, hardly be in the best of training.


sentence:
When I see you, my dear Watson, with a week’s accumulation of dust upon your hat, and when your wife allows you to go out in such a state, I shall fear that you also have been unfortunate enough to lose your wife’s affection.


sentence:
But how on earth do you deduce that the gas is not laid on in his house?  One tallow stain, or even two, might come by chance; but when I see no less than five, I think that there can be little doubt that the individual must be brought into frequent contact with burning tallow—walks up-stairs at night probably with his hat in one hand and a guttering candle in the other.


sentence:
Are you satisfied?  Well, it is very ingenious, said I, laughing; but since, as you said just now, there has been no crime committed, and no harm done, save the loss of a goose, all this seems to be rather a waste of energy.


sentence:
Sherlock Holmes had opened his mouth to reply, when the door flew open, and Peterson, the commissionaire, rushed into the apartment with flushed cheeks and the face of a man who is dazed with astonishment.  The goose, Mr.


sentence:
Eh? What of it, then? Has it returned to life and flapped off through the kitchen window? Holmes twisted himself round upon the sofa to get a fairer view of the man’s excited face.


sentence:
See here, sir! See what my wife found in its crop! He held out his hand and displayed upon the centre of the palm a brilliantly scintillating blue stone, rather smaller than a bean in size, but of such purity and radiance that it twinkled like an electric point in the dark hollow of his hand.


sentence:
I ought to know its size and shape, seeing that I have read the advertisement about it in _The Times_ every day lately.


sentence:
It is absolutely unique, and its value can only be conjectured, but the reward offered of £1000 is certainly not within a twentieth part of the market price.


sentence:
A thousand pounds! Great Lord of mercy! The commissionaire plumped down into a chair, and stared from one to the other of us.


sentence:
That is the reward, and I have reason to know that there are sentimental considerations in the background which would induce the countess to part with half her fortune if she could but recover the gem.


sentence:
He rummaged amid his newspapers, glancing over the dates, until at last he smoothed one out, doubled it over, and read the following paragraph:  ‘Hotel Cosmopolitan Jewel Robbery.


sentence:
abstracted from the jewel-case of the Countess of Morcar the valuable gem known as the blue carbuncle.


sentence:
James Ryder, upper-attendant at the hotel, gave his evidence to the effect that he had shown Horner up to the dressing-room of the Countess of Morcar upon the day of the robbery, in order that he might solder the second bar of the grate, which was loose.


sentence:
On returning, he found that Horner had disappeared, that the bureau had been forced open, and that the small morocco casket in which, as it afterwards transpired, the countess was accustomed to keep her jewel, was lying empty upon the dressing-table.


sentence:
Ryder instantly gave the alarm, and Horner was arrested the same evening; but the stone could not be found either upon his person or in his rooms.


sentence:
Catherine Cusack, maid to the countess, deposed to having heard Ryder’s cry of dismay on discovering the robbery, and to having rushed into the room, where she found matters as described by the last witness.


sentence:
Inspector Bradstreet, B division, gave evidence as to the arrest of Horner, who struggled frantically, and protested his innocence in the strongest terms.


sentence:
Evidence of a previous conviction for robbery having been given against the prisoner, the magistrate refused to deal summarily with the offence, but referred it to the Assizes.


sentence:
Horner, who had shown signs of intense emotion during the proceedings, fainted away at the conclusion, and was carried out of court.


sentence:
The question for us now to solve is the sequence of events leading from a rifled jewel-case at one end to the crop of a goose in Tottenham Court Road at the other.


sentence:
You see, Watson, our little deductions have suddenly assumed a much more important and less innocent aspect.


sentence:
Henry Baker, the gentleman with the bad hat and all the other characteristics with which I have bored you.


sentence:
So now we must set ourselves very seriously to finding this gentleman, and ascertaining what part he has played in this little mystery.


sentence:
To do this, we must try the simplest means first, and these lie undoubtedly in an advertisement in all the evening papers.


sentence:
But will he see it?  Well, he is sure to keep an eye on the papers, since, to a poor man, the loss was a heavy one.


sentence:
He was clearly so scared by his mischance in breaking the window and by the approach of Peterson, that he thought of nothing but flight; but since then he must have bitterly regretted the impulse which caused him to drop his bird.


sentence:
Then, again, the introduction of his name will cause him to see it, for every one who knows him will direct his attention to it.


sentence:
Here you are, Peterson, run down to the advertising agency, and have this put in the evening papers.


sentence:
And, I say, Peterson, just buy a goose on your way back, and leave it here with me, for we must have one to give to this gentleman in place of the one which your family is now devouring.


sentence:
It was found in the banks of the Amoy River in Southern China, and is remarkable in having every characteristic of the carbuncle, save that it is blue in shade, instead of ruby red.


sentence:
There have been two murders, a vitriol-throwing, a suicide, and several robberies brought about for the sake of this forty-grain weight of crystallized charcoal.


sentence:
Who would think that so pretty a toy would be a purveyor to the gallows and the prison? I’ll lock it up in my strong box now, and drop a line to the countess to say that we have it.


sentence:
Well, then, do you imagine that this other one, Henry Baker, had anything to do with the matter?  It is, I think, much more likely that Henry Baker is an absolutely innocent man, who had no idea that the bird which he was carrying was of considerably more value than if it were made of solid gold.


sentence:
But I shall come back in the evening at the hour you have mentioned, for I should like to see the solution of so tangled a business.


sentence:
I had been delayed at a case, and it was a little after half-past six when I found myself in Baker Street once more.


sentence:
As I approached the house I saw a tall man in a Scotch bonnet with a coat which was buttoned up to his chin, waiting outside in the bright semicircle which was thrown from the fanlight.


sentence:
Henry Baker, I believe, said he, rising from his arm-chair, and greeting his visitor with the easy air of geniality which he could so readily assume.


sentence:
He was a large man, with rounded shoulders, a massive head, and a broad, intelligent face, sloping down to a pointed beard of grizzled brown.


sentence:
A touch of red in nose and cheeks, with a slight tremor of his extended hand, recalled Holmes’s surmise as to his habits.


sentence:
His rusty black frock-coat was buttoned right up in front, with the collar turned up, and his lank wrists protruded from his sleeves without a sign of cuff or shirt.


sentence:
He spoke in a slow staccato fashion, choosing his words with care, and gave the impression generally of a man of learning and letters who had had ill-usage at the hands of fortune.


sentence:
We have retained these things for some days, said Holmes, because we expected to see an advertisement from you giving your address.


sentence:
But I presume that this other goose upon the sideboard, which is about the same weight and perfectly fresh, will answer your purpose equally well?  Oh, certainly, certainly; answered Mr.


sentence:
Of course, we still have the feathers, legs, crop, and so on of your own bird, so if you wish—  The man burst into a hearty laugh.


sentence:
They might be useful to me as relics of my adventure, said he, but beyond that I can hardly see what use the _disjecta membra_ of my late acquaintance are going to be to me.


sentence:
No, sir, I think that, with your permission, I will confine my attentions to the excellent bird which I perceive upon the sideboard.


sentence:
By-the-way, would it bore you to tell me where you got the other one from? I am somewhat of a fowl fancier, and I have seldom seen a better grown goose.


sentence:
There are a few of us who frequent the ‘Alpha Inn,’ near the Museum—we are to be found in the Museum itself during the day, you understand.


sentence:
This year our good host, Windigate by name, instituted a goose club, by which, on consideration of some few pence every week, we were each to receive a bird at Christmas.


sentence:
With a comical pomposity of manner he bowed solemnly to both of us and strode off upon his way.  So much for Mr.


sentence:
Then I suggest that we turn our dinner into a supper, and follow up this clew while it is still hot.  By all means.


sentence:
Outside, the stars were shining coldly in a cloudless sky, and the breath of the passers-by blew out into smoke like so many pistol shots.


sentence:
Our footfalls rang out crisply and loudly as we swung through the Doctors’ quarter, Wimpole Street, Harley Street, and so through Wigmore Street into Oxford Street.


sentence:
In a quarter of an hour we were in Bloomsbury at the Alpha Inn, which is a small public-house at the corner of one of the streets which runs down into Holborn.


sentence:
Holmes pushed open the door of the private bar, and ordered two glasses of beer from the ruddy-faced, white-aproned landlord.


sentence:
Remember, Watson, that though we have so homely a thing as a goose at one end of this chain, we have at the other a man who will certainly get seven years’ penal servitude unless we can establish his innocence.


sentence:
It is possible that our inquiry may but confirm his guilt; but, in any case, we have a line of investigation which has been missed by the police, and which a singular chance has placed in our hands.


sentence:
Faces to the south, then, and quick march!  We passed across Holborn, down Endell Street, and so through a zigzag of slums to Covent Garden Market.


sentence:
One of the largest stalls bore the name of Breckinridge upon it, and the proprietor, a horsey-looking man, with a sharp face and trim side-whiskers, was helping a boy to put up the shutters.  Good-evening.


sentence:
Now where did you get them from?  To my surprise the question provoked a burst of anger from the salesman.


sentence:
Now, then, mister, said he, with his head cocked and his arms akimbo, what are you driving at? Let’s have it straight, now.


sentence:
So now!  Oh, it is a matter of no importance; but I don’t know why you should be so warm over such a trifle.


sentence:
When I pay good money for a good article there should be an end of the business; but it’s ‘Where are the geese?’ and ‘Who did you sell the geese to?’ and ‘What will you take for the geese?’ One would think they were the only geese in the world, to hear the fuss that is made over them.


sentence:
Well, I have no connection with any other people who have been making inquiries, said Holmes, carelessly.


sentence:
But I’m always ready to back my opinion on a matter of fowls, and I have a fiver on it that the bird I ate is country bred.


sentence:
D’you think you know more about fowls than I, who have handled them ever since I was a nipper? I tell you, all those birds that went to the ‘Alpha’ were town bred.


sentence:
The small boy brought round a small thin volume and a great greasy-backed one, laying them out together beneath the hanging lamp.  Now then, Mr.


sentence:
Cocksure, said the salesman, I thought that I was out of geese, but before I finish you’ll find that there is still one left in my shop.


sentence:
D’you see? Well, then, here on this page are the country folk, and the numbers after their names are where their accounts are in the big ledger.


sentence:
He drew a sovereign from his pocket and threw it down upon the slab, turning away with the air of a man whose disgust is too deep for words.


sentence:
A few yards off he stopped under a lamp-post, and laughed in the hearty, noiseless fashion which was peculiar to him.


sentence:
When you see a man with whiskers of that cut and the ‘pink ‘un’ protruding out of his pocket, you can always draw him by a bet, said he.


sentence:
I dare say that if I had put £100 down in front of him, that man would not have given me such complete information as was drawn from him by the idea that he was doing me on a wager.


sentence:
Well, Watson, we are, I fancy, nearing the end of our quest, and the only point which remains to be determined is whether we should go on to this Mrs.


sentence:
It is clear from what that surly fellow said that there are others besides ourselves who are anxious about the matter, and I should—  His remarks were suddenly cut short by a loud hubbub which broke out from the stall which we had just left.


sentence:
Turning round we saw a little rat-faced fellow standing in the centre of the circle of yellow light which was thrown by the swinging lamp, while Breckinridge the salesman, framed in the door of his stall, was shaking his fists fiercely at the cringing figure.


sentence:
Oakshott here and I’ll answer her, but what have you to do with it? Did I buy the geese off you?  No; but one of them was mine all the same, whined the little man.


sentence:
Striding through the scattered knots of people who lounged round the flaring stalls, my companion speedily overtook the little man and touched him upon the shoulder.


sentence:
He sprang round, and I could see in the gaslight that every vestige of color had been driven from his face.


sentence:
You will excuse me, said Holmes, blandly, but I could not help overhearing the questions which you put to the salesman just now.


sentence:
Oh, sir, you are the very man whom I have longed to meet, cried the little fellow, with outstretched hands and quivering fingers.


sentence:
In that case we had better discuss it in a cosey room rather than in this windswept market-place, said he.


sentence:
’ Pray step into the cab, and I shall soon be able to tell you everything which you would wish to know.


sentence:
The little man stood glancing from one to the other of us with half-frightened, half-hopeful eyes, as one who is not sure whether he is on the verge of a windfall or of a catastrophe.


sentence:
Nothing had been said during our drive, but the high, thin breathing of our new companion, and the claspings and unclaspings of his hands, spoke of the nervous tension within him.


sentence:
Holmes unlocked his strong-box, and held up the blue carbuncle, which shone out like a star, with a cold, brilliant, many-pointed radiance.


sentence:
What a shrimp it is, to be sure!  For a moment he had staggered and nearly fallen, but the brandy brought a tinge of color into his cheeks, and he sat staring with frightened eyes at his accuser.


sentence:
I have almost every link in my hands, and all the proofs which I could possibly need, so there is little which you need tell me.


sentence:
You had heard, Ryder, of this blue stone of the Countess of Morcar’s?  It was Catherine Cusack who told me of it, said he, in a crackling voice.


sentence:
Well, the temptation of sudden wealth so easily acquired was too much for you, as it has been for better men before you; but you were not very scrupulous in the means you used.


sentence:
You knew that this man Horner, the plumber, had been concerned in some such matter before, and that suspicion would rest the more readily upon him.


sentence:
What did you do, then? You made some small job in my lady’s room—you and your confederate Cusack—and you managed that he should be the man sent for.


sentence:
Then, when he had left, you rifled the jewel-case, raised the alarm, and had this unfortunate man arrested.


sentence:
Oh, don’t bring it into court! For Christ’s sake, don’t!  Get back into your chair! said Holmes, sternly.


sentence:
It is very well to cringe and crawl now, but you thought little enough of this poor Horner in the dock for a crime of which he knew nothing.  I will fly, Mr. Holmes.


sentence:
How came the stone into the goose, and how came the goose into the open market? Tell us the truth, for there lies your only hope of safety.


sentence:
When Horner had been arrested, it seemed to me that it would be best for me to get away with the stone at once, for I did not know at what moment the police might not take it into their heads to search me and my room.


sentence:
She had married a man named Oakshott, and lived in Brixton Road, where she fattened fowls for the market.


sentence:
All the way there every man I met seemed to me to be a policeman or a detective; and, for all that it was a cold night, the sweat was pouring down my face before I came to the Brixton Road.


sentence:
My sister asked me what was the matter, and why I was so pale; but I told her that I had been upset by the jewel robbery at the hotel.


sentence:
I had a friend once called Maudsley, who went to the bad, and has just been serving his time in Pentonville.


sentence:
One day he had met me, and fell into talk about the ways of thieves, and how they could get rid of what they stole.


sentence:
I knew that he would be true to me, for I knew one or two things about him; so I made up my mind to go right on to Kilburn, where he lived, and take him into my confidence.


sentence:
But how to get to him in safety? I thought of the agonies I had gone through in coming from the hotel.


sentence:
I was leaning against the wall at the time, and looking at the geese which were waddling about round my feet, and suddenly an idea came into my head which showed me how I could beat the best detective that ever lived.


sentence:
My sister had told me some weeks before that I might have the pick of her geese for a Christmas present, and I knew that she was always as good as her word.


sentence:
There was a little shed in the yard, and behind this I drove one of the birds—a fine big one, white, with a barred tail.


sentence:
I caught it, and, prying its bill open, I thrust the stone down its throat as far as my finger could reach.


sentence:
’  ‘Thank you, Maggie,’ says I; ‘but if it is all the same to you, I’d rather have that one I was handling just now.


sentence:
’  ‘The other is a good three pound heavier,’ said she, ‘and we fattened it expressly for you.’  ‘Never mind.


sentence:
‘Which is it you want, then?’  ‘That white one with the barred tail, right in the middle of the flock.’  ‘Oh, very well.


sentence:
My heart turned to water, for there was no sign of the stone, and I knew that some terrible mistake had occurred.


sentence:
’  ‘But was there another with a barred tail?’ I asked, ‘the same as the one I chose?’  ‘Yes, Jem; there were two barred-tailed ones, and I could never tell them apart.


sentence:
’  Well, then, of course I saw it all, and I ran off as hard as my feet would carry me to this man Breckinridge; but he had sold the lot at once, and not one word would he tell me as to where they had gone.


sentence:
And now—and now I am myself a branded thief, without ever having touched the wealth for which I sold my character.


sentence:
There was a long silence, broken only by his heavy breathing, and by the measured tapping of Sherlock Holmes’s finger-tips upon the edge of the table.


sentence:
There was a rush, a clatter upon the stairs, the bang of a door, and the crisp rattle of running footfalls from the street.


sentence:
After all, Watson, said Holmes, reaching up his hand for his clay pipe, I am not retained by the police to supply their deficiencies.


sentence:
If Horner were in danger it would be another thing; but this fellow will not appear against him, and the case must collapse.


sentence:
Chance has put in our way a most singular and whimsical problem, and its solution is its own reward.


sentence:
If you will have the goodness to touch the bell, doctor, we will begin another investigation, in which, also, a bird will be the chief feature.


sentence:
Adventure VIII  THE ADVENTURE OF THE SPECKLED BAND   On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth, he refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic.


sentence:
Of all these varied cases, however, I cannot recall any which presented more singular features than that which was associated with the well-known Surrey family of the Roylotts of Stoke Moran.


sentence:
The events in question occurred in the early days of my association with Holmes, when we were sharing rooms as bachelors in Baker Street.


sentence:
It is possible that I might have placed them upon record before, but a promise of secrecy was made at the time, from which I have only been freed during the last month by the untimely death of the lady to whom the pledge was given.


sentence:
It is perhaps as well that the facts should now come to light, for I have reasons to know that there are wide-spread rumors as to the death of Dr.


sentence:
It was early in April in the year ’83 that I woke one morning to find Sherlock Holmes standing, fully dressed, by the side of my bed.


sentence:
He was a late riser as a rule, and as the clock on the mantel-piece showed me that it was only a quarter past seven, I blinked up at him in some surprise, and perhaps just a little resentment, for I was myself regular in my habits.


sentence:
It seems that a young lady has arrived in a considerable state of excitement, who insists upon seeing me.


sentence:
Now, when young ladies wander about the metropolis at this hour of the morning, and knock sleepy people up out of their beds, I presume that it is something very pressing which they have to communicate.


sentence:
I had no keener pleasure than in following Holmes in his professional investigations, and in admiring the rapid deductions, as swift as intuitions, and yet always founded on a logical basis, with which he unravelled the problems which were submitted to him.


sentence:
I rapidly threw on my clothes, and was ready in a few minutes to accompany my friend down to the sitting-room.


sentence:
Pray draw up to it, and I shall order you a cup of hot coffee, for I observe that you are shivering.


sentence:
It is not cold which makes me shiver, said the woman, in a low voice, changing her seat as requested.


sentence:
She raised her veil as she spoke, and we could see that she was indeed in a pitiable state of agitation, her face all drawn and gray, with restless, frightened eyes, like those of some hunted animal.


sentence:
Her features and figure were those of a woman of thirty, but her hair was shot with premature gray, and her expression was weary and haggard.


sentence:
You know me, then?  No, but I observe the second half of a return ticket in the palm of your left glove.


sentence:
You must have started early, and yet you had a good drive in a dog-cart, along heavy roads, before you reached the station.


sentence:
There is no vehicle save a dog-cart which throws up mud in that way, and then only when you sit on the left-hand side of the driver.


sentence:
I started from home before six, reached Leatherhead at twenty past, and came in by the first train to Waterloo.


sentence:
I have no one to turn to—none, save only one, who cares for me, and he, poor fellow, can be of little aid.


sentence:
Oh, sir, do you not think that you could help me, too, and at least throw a little light through the dense darkness which surrounds me? At present it is out of my power to reward you for your services, but in a month or six weeks I shall be married, with the control of my own income, and then at least you shall not find me ungrateful.


sentence:
I can only say, madam, that I shall be happy to devote the same care to your case as I did to that of your friend.


sentence:
As to reward, my profession is its own reward; but you are at liberty to defray whatever expenses I may be put to, at the time which suits you best.


sentence:
And now I beg that you will lay before us everything that may help us in forming an opinion upon the matter.


sentence:
Alas! replied our visitor, the very horror of my situation lies in the fact that my fears are so vague, and my suspicions depend so entirely upon small points, which might seem trivial to another, that even he to whom of all others I have a right to look for help and advice looks upon all that I tell him about it as the fancies of a nervous woman.


sentence:
My name is Helen Stoner, and I am living with my step-father, who is the last survivor of one of the oldest Saxon families in England, the Roylotts of Stoke Moran, on the western border of Surrey.


sentence:
The family was at one time among the richest in England, and the estates extended over the borders into Berkshire in the north, and Hampshire in the west.


sentence:
In the last century, however, four successive heirs were of a dissolute and wasteful disposition, and the family ruin was eventually completed by a gambler in the days of the Regency.


sentence:
Nothing was left save a few acres of ground, and the two-hundred-year-old house, which is itself crushed under a heavy mortgage.


sentence:
The last squire dragged out his existence there, living the horrible life of an aristocratic pauper; but his only son, my step-father, seeing that he must adapt himself to the new conditions, obtained an advance from a relative, which enabled him to take a medical degree, and went out to Calcutta, where, by his professional skill and his force of character, he established a large practice.


sentence:
In a fit of anger, however, caused by some robberies which had been perpetrated in the house, he beat his native butler to death, and narrowly escaped a capital sentence.


sentence:
As it was, he suffered a long term of imprisonment, and afterwards returned to England a morose and disappointed man.  When Dr.


sentence:
My sister Julia and I were twins, and we were only two years old at the time of my mother’s re-marriage.


sentence:
Roylott entirely while we resided with him, with a provision that a certain annual sum should be allowed to each of us in the event of our marriage.


sentence:
Shortly after our return to England my mother died—she was killed eight years ago in a railway accident near Crewe. Dr.


sentence:
Roylott then abandoned his attempts to establish himself in practice in London, and took us to live with him in the old ancestral house at Stoke Moran.


sentence:
The money which my mother had left was enough for all our wants, and there seemed to be no obstacle to our happiness.


sentence:
Instead of making friends and exchanging visits with our neighbors, who had at first been overjoyed to see a Roylott of Stoke Moran back in the old family seat, he shut himself up in his house, and seldom came out save to indulge in ferocious quarrels with whoever might cross his path.


sentence:
Violence of temper approaching to mania has been hereditary in the men of the family, and in my step-father’s case it had, I believe, been intensified by his long residence in the tropics.


sentence:
A series of disgraceful brawls took place, two of which ended in the police-court, until at last he became the terror of the village, and the folks would fly at his approach, for he is a man of immense strength, and absolutely uncontrollable in his anger.


sentence:
Last week he hurled the local blacksmith over a parapet into a stream, and it was only by paying over all the money which I could gather together that I was able to avert another public exposure.


sentence:
He had no friends at all save the wandering gypsies, and he would give these vagabonds leave to encamp upon the few acres of bramble-covered land which represent the family estate, and would accept in return the hospitality of their tents, wandering away with them sometimes for weeks on end.


sentence:
He has a passion also for Indian animals, which are sent over to him by a correspondent, and he has at this moment a cheetah and a baboon, which wander freely over his grounds, and are feared by the villagers almost as much as their master.


sentence:
She was but thirty at the time of her death, and yet her hair had already begun to whiten, even as mine has.


sentence:
Your sister is dead, then?  She died just two years ago, and it is of her death that I wish to speak to you.


sentence:
You can understand that, living the life which I have described, we were little likely to see anyone of our own age and position.


sentence:
We had, however, an aunt, my mother’s maiden sister, Miss Honoria Westphail, who lives near Harrow, and we were occasionally allowed to pay short visits at this lady’s house.


sentence:
Julia went there at Christmas two years ago, and met there a half-pay major of marines, to whom she became engaged.


sentence:
My step-father learned of the engagement when my sister returned, and offered no objection to the marriage; but within a fortnight of the day which had been fixed for the wedding, the terrible event occurred which has deprived me of my only companion.


sentence:
Sherlock Holmes had been leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed and his head sunk in a cushion, but he half opened his lids now and glanced across at his visitor.


sentence:
The bedrooms in this wing are on the ground floor, the sitting-rooms being in the central block of the buildings.


sentence:
Roylott had gone to his room early, though we knew that he had not retired to rest, for my sister was troubled by the smell of the strong Indian cigars which it was his custom to smoke.


sentence:
She left her room, therefore, and came into mine, where she sat for some time, chatting about her approaching wedding.


sentence:
‘Tell me, Helen,’ said she, ‘have you ever heard any one whistle in the dead of the night?’  ‘Never,’ said I.


sentence:
But why?’  ‘Because during the last few nights I have always, about three in the morning, heard a low, clear whistle.


sentence:
My sister and I, you will recollect, were twins, and you know how subtle are the links which bind two souls which are so closely allied. It was a wild night.


sentence:
As I opened my door I seemed to hear a low whistle, such as my sister described, and a few moments later a clanging sound, as if a mass of metal had fallen.


sentence:
By the light of the corridor-lamp I saw my sister appear at the opening, her face blanched with terror, her hands groping for help, her whole figure swaying to and fro like that of a drunkard.


sentence:
I ran to her and threw my arms round her, but at that moment her knees seemed to give way and she fell to the ground.


sentence:
At first I thought that she had not recognized me, but as I bent over her she suddenly shrieked out in a voice which I shall never forget, ‘Oh, my God! Helen! It was the band! The speckled band!’ There was something else which she would fain have said, and she stabbed with her finger into the air in the direction of the doctor’s room, but a fresh convulsion seized her and choked her words.


sentence:
I rushed out, calling loudly for my step-father, and I met him hastening from his room in his dressing-gown.


sentence:
When he reached my sister’s side she was unconscious, and though he poured brandy down her throat and sent for medical aid from the village, all efforts were in vain, for she slowly sank and died without having recovered her consciousness.


sentence:
One moment, said Holmes; are you sure about this whistle and metallic sound? Could you swear to it?  That was what the county coroner asked me at the inquiry.


sentence:
It is my strong impression that I heard it, and yet, among the crash of the gale and the creaking of an old house, I may possibly have been deceived.


sentence:
Showing that she had struck a light and looked about her when the alarm took place. That is important.


sentence:
Roylott’s conduct had long been notorious in the county, but he was unable to find any satisfactory cause of death.


sentence:
My evidence showed that the door had been fastened upon the inner side, and the windows were blocked by old-fashioned shutters with broad iron bars, which were secured every night.


sentence:
The walls were carefully sounded, and were shown to be quite solid all round, and the flooring was also thoroughly examined, with the same result.


sentence:
What do you think that this unfortunate lady died of, then?  It is my belief that she died of pure fear and nervous shock, though what it was that frightened her I cannot imagine.


sentence:
Ah, and what did you gather from this allusion to a band—a speckled band?  Sometimes I have thought that it was merely the wild talk of delirium, sometimes that it may have referred to some band of people, perhaps to these very gypsies in the plantation.


sentence:
I do not know whether the spotted handkerchiefs which so many of them wear over their heads might have suggested the strange adjective which she used.


sentence:
A month ago, however, a dear friend, whom I have known for many years, has done me the honor to ask my hand in marriage.


sentence:
My step-father has offered no opposition to the match, and we are to be married in the course of the spring.


sentence:
Two days ago some repairs were started in the west wing of the building, and my bedroom wall has been pierced, so that I have had to move into the chamber in which my sister died, and to sleep in the very bed in which she slept.


sentence:
Imagine, then, my thrill of terror when last night, as I lay awake, thinking over her terrible fate, I suddenly heard in the silence of the night the low whistle which had been the herald of her own death.


sentence:
I was too shaken to go to bed again, however, so I dressed, and as soon as it was daylight I slipped down, got a dog-cart at the ‘Crown Inn,’ which is opposite, and drove to Leatherhead, from whence I have come on this morning with the one object of seeing you and asking your advice.


sentence:
Why, what do you mean?  For answer Holmes pushed back the frill of black lace which fringed the hand that lay upon our visitor’s knee.


sentence:
There was a long silence, during which Holmes leaned his chin upon his hands and stared into the crackling fire.


sentence:
There are a thousand details which I should desire to know before I decide upon our course of action.


sentence:
If we were to come to Stoke Moran to-day, would it be possible for us to see over these rooms without the knowledge of your step-father?  As it happens, he spoke of coming into town to-day upon some most important business.


sentence:
We have a house-keeper now, but she is old and foolish, and I could easily get her out of the way.  Excellent.


sentence:
What are you going to do yourself?  I have one or two things which I would wish to do now that I am in town.


sentence:
Yet if the lady is correct in saying that the flooring and walls are sound, and that the door, window, and chimney are impassable, then her sister must have been undoubtedly alone when she met her mysterious end.


sentence:
What becomes, then, of these nocturnal whistles, and what of the very peculiar words of the dying woman?  I cannot think.


sentence:
When you combine the ideas of whistles at night, the presence of a band of gypsies who are on intimate terms with this old doctor, the fact that we have every reason to believe that the doctor has an interest in preventing his step-daughter’s marriage, the dying allusion to a band, and, finally, the fact that Miss Helen Stoner heard a metallic clang, which might have been caused by one of those metal bars which secured the shutters falling back into their place, I think that there is good ground to think that the mystery may be cleared along those lines.


sentence:
But what in the name of the devil!  The ejaculation had been drawn from my companion by the fact that our door had been suddenly dashed open, and that a huge man had framed himself in the aperture.


sentence:
His costume was a peculiar mixture of the professional and of the agricultural, having a black top-hat, a long frock-coat, and a pair of high gaiters, with a hunting-crop swinging in his hand.


sentence:
So tall was he that his hat actually brushed the cross bar of the doorway, and his breadth seemed to span it across from side to side.


sentence:
A large face, seared with a thousand wrinkles, burned yellow with the sun, and marked with every evil passion, was turned from one to the other of us, while his deep-set, bile-shot eyes, and his high, thin, fleshless nose, gave him somewhat the resemblance to a fierce old bird of prey.


sentence:
Ha! You put me off, do you? said our new visitor, taking a step forward and shaking his hunting-crop.


sentence:
See that you keep yourself out of my grip, he snarled, and hurling the twisted poker into the fireplace, he strode out of the room.


sentence:
I am not quite so bulky, but if he had remained I might have shown him that my grip was not much more feeble than his own.


sentence:
Fancy his having the insolence to confound me with the official detective force! This incident gives zest to our investigation, however, and I only trust that our little friend will not suffer from her imprudence in allowing this brute to trace her.


sentence:
And now, Watson, we shall order breakfast, and afterwards I shall walk down to Doctors’ Commons, where I hope to get some data which may help us in this matter.


sentence:
*       *       *       *       *  It was nearly one o’clock when Sherlock Holmes returned from his excursion.


sentence:
To determine its exact meaning I have been obliged to work out the present prices of the investments with which it is concerned.


sentence:
The total income, which at the time of the wife’s death was little short of £1100, is now, through the fall in agricultural prices, not more than £750.


sentence:
It is evident, therefore, that if both girls had married, this beauty would have had a mere pittance, while even one of them would cripple him to a very serious extent.


sentence:
My morning’s work has not been wasted, since it has proved that he has the very strongest motives for standing in the way of anything of the sort.


sentence:
And now, Watson, this is too serious for dawdling, especially as the old man is aware that we are interesting ourselves in his affairs; so if you are ready, we shall call a cab and drive to Waterloo.


sentence:
At Waterloo we were fortunate in catching a train for Leatherhead, where we hired a trap at the station inn, and drove for four or five miles through the lovely Surrey lanes.


sentence:
The trees and way-side hedges were just throwing out their first green shoots, and the air was full of the pleasant smell of the moist earth.


sentence:
To me at least there was a strange contrast between the sweet promise of the spring and this sinister quest upon which we were engaged.


sentence:
My companion sat in the front of the trap, his arms folded, his hat pulled down over his eyes, and his chin sunk upon his breast, buried in the deepest thought.


sentence:
A heavily-timbered park stretched up in a gentle slope, thickening into a grove at the highest point.


sentence:
There’s the village, said the driver, pointing to a cluster of roofs some distance to the left; but if you want to get to the house, you’ll find it shorter to get over this stile, and so by the foot-path over the fields.


sentence:
I thought it as well, said Holmes, as we climbed the stile, that this fellow should think we had come here as architects, or on some definite business.


sentence:
We have had the pleasure of making the doctor’s acquaintance, said Holmes, and in a few words he sketched out what had occurred.


sentence:
What will he say when he returns?  He must guard himself, for he may find that there is some one more cunning than himself upon his track.


sentence:
Now, we must make the best use of our time, so kindly take us at once to the rooms which we are to examine.


sentence:
The building was of gray, lichen-blotched stone, with a high central portion, and two curving wings, like the claws of a crab, thrown out on each side.


sentence:
In one of these wings the windows were broken, and blocked with wooden boards, while the roof was partly caved in, a picture of ruin.


sentence:
The central portion was in little better repair, but the right-hand block was comparatively modern, and the blinds in the windows, with the blue smoke curling up from the chimneys, showed that this was where the family resided.


sentence:
Some scaffolding had been erected against the end wall, and the stone-work had been broken into, but there were no signs of any workmen at the moment of our visit.


sentence:
Holmes walked slowly up and down the ill-trimmed lawn, and examined with deep attention the outsides of the windows.


sentence:
This, I take it, belongs to the room in which you used to sleep, the centre one to your sister’s, and the one next to the main building to Dr.


sentence:
By-the-way, there does not seem to be any very pressing need for repairs at that end wall.  There were none.


sentence:
Miss Stoner did so, and Holmes, after a careful examination through the open window, endeavored in every way to force the shutter open, but without success.


sentence:
Then with his lens he tested the hinges, but they were of solid iron, built firmly into the massive masonry.


sentence:
Hum! said he, scratching his chin in some perplexity; my theory certainly presents some difficulties.


sentence:
Holmes refused to examine the third chamber, so we passed at once to the second, that in which Miss Stoner was now sleeping, and in which her sister had met with her fate.


sentence:
It was a homely little room, with a low ceiling and a gaping fireplace, after the fashion of old country-houses.


sentence:
A brown chest of drawers stood in one corner, a narrow white-counterpaned bed in another, and a dressing-table on the left-hand side of the window.


sentence:
These articles, with two small wicker-work chairs, made up all the furniture in the room, save for a square of Wilton carpet in the centre.


sentence:
The boards round and the panelling of the walls were of brown, worm-eaten oak, so old and discolored that it may have dated from the original building of the house.


sentence:
Holmes drew one of the chairs into a corner and sat silent, while his eyes travelled round and round and up and down, taking in every detail of the apartment.


sentence:
Where does that bell communicate with? he asked, at last, pointing to a thick bell-rope which hung down beside the bed, the tassel actually lying upon the pillow.


sentence:
He threw himself down upon his face with his lens in his hand, and crawled swiftly backward and forward, examining minutely the cracks between the boards.


sentence:
Finally he walked over to the bed, and spent some time in staring at it, and in running his eye up and down the wall.


sentence:
You can see now that it is fastened to a hook just above where the little opening for the ventilator is.


sentence:
For example, what a fool a builder must be to open a ventilator into another room, when, with the same trouble, he might have communicated with the outside air!  That is also quite modern, said the lady.


sentence:
They seem to have been of a most interesting character—dummy bell-ropes, and ventilators which do not ventilate.


sentence:
A camp-bed, a small wooden shelf full of books, mostly of a technical character, an arm-chair beside the bed, a plain wooden chair against the wall, a round table, and a large iron safe were the principal things which met the eye.


sentence:
What a strange idea!  Well, look at this! He took up a small saucer of milk which stood on the top of it.


sentence:
Ah, yes, of course! Well, a cheetah is just a big cat, and yet a saucer of milk does not go very far in satisfying its wants, I dare say.


sentence:
He squatted down in front of the wooden chair, and examined the seat of it with the greatest attention.  Thank you.


sentence:
Hello! Here is something interesting!  The object which had caught his eye was a small dog-lash hung on one corner of the bed.


sentence:
That is not quite so common, is it? Ah, me! it’s a wicked world, and when a clever man turns his brains to crime it is the worst of all.


sentence:
I think that I have seen enough now, Miss Stoner, and with your permission we shall walk out upon the lawn.


sentence:
I had never seen my friend’s face so grim or his brow so dark as it was when we turned from the scene of this investigation.


sentence:
We had walked several times up and down the lawn, neither Miss Stoner nor myself liking to break in upon his thoughts before he roused himself from his reverie.


sentence:
It is very essential, Miss Stoner, said he, that you should absolutely follow my advice in every respect.


sentence:
You must confine yourself to your room, on pretence of a headache, when your step-father comes back.


sentence:
Then when you hear him retire for the night, you must open the shutters of your window, undo the hasp, put your lamp there as a signal to us, and then withdraw quietly with everything which you are likely to want into the room which you used to occupy.


sentence:
I have no doubt that, in spite of the repairs, you could manage there for one night.  Oh yes, easily.


sentence:
But what will you do?  We shall spend the night in your room, and we shall investigate the cause of this noise which has disturbed you.  I believe, Mr.


sentence:
Holmes, that you have already made up your mind, said Miss Stoner, laying her hand upon my companion’s sleeve.  Perhaps I have.


sentence:
You can at least tell me whether my own thought is correct, and if she died from some sudden fright.


sentence:
Good-bye, and be brave, for if you will do what I have told you, you may rest assured that we shall soon drive away the dangers that threaten you.


sentence:
They were on the upper floor, and from our window we could command a view of the avenue gate, and of the inhabited wing of Stoke Moran Manor House. At dusk we saw Dr.


sentence:
Grimesby Roylott drive past, his huge form looming up beside the little figure of the lad who drove him.


sentence:
The boy had some slight difficulty in undoing the heavy iron gates, and we heard the hoarse roar of the doctor’s voice, and saw the fury with which he shook his clinched fists at him.


sentence:
The trap drove on, and a few minutes later we saw a sudden light spring up among the trees as the lamp was lit in one of the sitting-rooms.


sentence:
Do you know, Watson, said Holmes, as we sat together in the gathering darkness, I have really some scruples as to taking you to-night.


sentence:
I saw nothing remarkable save the bell-rope, and what purpose that could answer I confess is more than I can imagine.


sentence:
You saw the ventilator, too?  Yes, but I do not think that it is such a very unusual thing to have a small opening between two rooms.


sentence:
It must always be in the same relative position to the ventilator and to the rope—for so we may call it, since it was clearly never meant for a bell-pull.


sentence:
But we shall have horrors enough before the night is over; for goodness’ sake let us have a quiet pipe, and turn our minds for a few hours to something more cheerful.


sentence:
*       *       *       *       *  About nine o’clock the light among the trees was extinguished, and all was dark in the direction of the Manor House.


sentence:
Two hours passed slowly away, and then, suddenly, just at the stroke of eleven, a single bright light shone out right in front of us.


sentence:
As we passed out he exchanged a few words with the landlord, explaining that we were going on a late visit to an acquaintance, and that it was possible that we might spend the night there.


sentence:
A moment later we were out on the dark road, a chill wind blowing in our faces, and one yellow light twinkling in front of us through the gloom to guide us on our sombre errand.


sentence:
There was little difficulty in entering the grounds, for unrepaired breaches gaped in the old park wall.


sentence:
Making our way among the trees, we reached the lawn, crossed it, and were about to enter through the window, when out from a clump of laurel bushes there darted what seemed to be a hideous and distorted child, who threw itself upon the grass with writhing limbs, and then ran swiftly across the lawn into the darkness.


sentence:
I confess that I felt easier in my mind when, after following Holmes’s example and slipping off my shoes, I found myself inside the bedroom.


sentence:
My companion noiselessly closed the shutters, moved the lamp onto the table, and cast his eyes round the room.


sentence:
Then creeping up to me and making a trumpet of his hand, he whispered into my ear again so gently that it was all that I could do to distinguish the words:  The least sound would be fatal to our plans.


sentence:
How shall I ever forget that dreadful vigil? I could not hear a sound, not even the drawing of a breath, and yet I knew that my companion sat open-eyed, within a few feet of me, in the same state of nervous tension in which I was myself.


sentence:
From outside came the occasional cry of a night-bird, and once at our very window a long drawn cat-like whine, which told us that the cheetah was indeed at liberty.


sentence:
Far away we could hear the deep tones of the parish clock, which boomed out every quarter of an hour.


sentence:
How long they seemed, those quarters! Twelve struck, and one and two and three, and still we sat waiting silently for whatever might befall.


sentence:
Suddenly there was the momentary gleam of a light up in the direction of the ventilator, which vanished immediately, but was succeeded by a strong smell of burning oil and heated metal.


sentence:
I heard a gentle sound of movement, and then all was silent once more, though the smell grew stronger.


sentence:
Then suddenly another sound became audible—a very gentle, soothing sound, like that of a small jet of steam escaping continually from a kettle.


sentence:
The instant that we heard it, Holmes sprang from the bed, struck a match, and lashed furiously with his cane at the bell-pull.


sentence:
At the moment when Holmes struck the light I heard a low, clear whistle, but the sudden glare flashing into my weary eyes made it impossible for me to tell what it was at which my friend lashed so savagely.


sentence:
He had ceased to strike, and was gazing up at the ventilator, when suddenly there broke from the silence of the night the most horrible cry to which I have ever listened.


sentence:
It swelled up louder and louder, a hoarse yell of pain and fear and anger all mingled in the one dreadful shriek.


sentence:
They say that away down in the village, and even in the distant parsonage, that cry raised the sleepers from their beds.


sentence:
It struck cold to our hearts, and I stood gazing at Holmes, and he at me, until the last echoes of it had died away into the silence from which it rose.


sentence:
On the table stood a dark-lantern with the shutter half open, throwing a brilliant beam of light upon the iron safe, the door of which was ajar.


sentence:
Grimesby Roylott, clad in a long gray dressing-gown, his bare ankles protruding beneath, and his feet thrust into red heelless Turkish slippers.


sentence:
His chin was cocked upward and his eyes were fixed in a dreadful, rigid stare at the corner of the ceiling.


sentence:
Round his brow he had a peculiar yellow band, with brownish speckles, which seemed to be bound tightly round his head.


sentence:
In an instant his strange head-gear began to move, and there reared itself from among his hair the squat diamond-shaped head and puffed neck of a loathsome serpent.


sentence:
Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.


sentence:
Let us thrust this creature back into its den, and we can then remove Miss Stoner to some place of shelter, and let the county police know what has happened.


sentence:
As he spoke he drew the dog-whip swiftly from the dead man’s lap, and throwing the noose round the reptile’s neck, he drew it from its horrid perch, and carrying it at arm’s length, threw it into the iron safe, which he closed upon it.


sentence:
It is not necessary that I should prolong a narrative which has already run to too great a length, by telling how we broke the sad news to the terrified girl, how we conveyed her by the morning train to the care of her good aunt at Harrow, of how the slow process of official inquiry came to the conclusion that the doctor met his fate while indiscreetly playing with a dangerous pet.


sentence:
The little which I had yet to learn of the case was told me by Sherlock Holmes as we travelled back next day.


sentence:
I had, said he, come to an entirely erroneous conclusion, which shows, my dear Watson, how dangerous it always is to reason from insufficient data.


sentence:
The presence of the gypsies, and the use of the word ‘band,’ which was used by the poor girl, no doubt to explain the appearance which she had caught a hurried glimpse of by the light of her match, were sufficient to put me upon an entirely wrong scent.


sentence:
I can only claim the merit that I instantly reconsidered my position when, however, it became clear to me that whatever danger threatened an occupant of the room could not come either from the window or the door.


sentence:
My attention was speedily drawn, as I have already remarked to you, to this ventilator, and to the bell-rope which hung down to the bed.


sentence:
The discovery that this was a dummy, and that the bed was clamped to the floor, instantly gave rise to the suspicion that the rope was there as bridge for something passing through the hole, and coming to the bed.


sentence:
The idea of a snake instantly occurred to me, and when I coupled it with my knowledge that the doctor was furnished with a supply of creatures from India, I felt that I was probably on the right track.


sentence:
The idea of using a form of poison which could not possibly be discovered by any chemical test was just such a one as would occur to a clever and ruthless man who had had an Eastern training.


sentence:
The rapidity with which such a poison would take effect would also, from his point of view, be an advantage.


sentence:
It would be a sharp-eyed coroner, indeed, who could distinguish the two little dark punctures which would show where the poison fangs had done their work.


sentence:
He would put it through this ventilator at the hour that he thought best, with the certainty that it would crawl down the rope and land on the bed.


sentence:
It might or might not bite the occupant, perhaps she might escape every night for a week, but sooner or later she must fall a victim.


sentence:
An inspection of his chair showed me that he had been in the habit of standing on it, which of course would be necessary in order that he should reach the ventilator.


sentence:
The sight of the safe, the saucer of milk, and the loop of whip-cord were enough to finally dispel any doubts which may have remained.


sentence:
The metallic clang heard by Miss Stoner was obviously caused by her step-father hastily closing the door of his safe upon its terrible occupant.


sentence:
Having once made up my mind, you know the steps which I took in order to put the matter to the proof.


sentence:
I heard the creature hiss, as I have no doubt that you did also, and I instantly lit the light and attacked it.


sentence:
Some of the blows of my cane came home, and roused its snakish temper, so that it flew upon the first person it saw.


sentence:
Grimesby Roylott’s death, and I cannot say that it is likely to weigh very heavily upon my conscience.


sentence:
Adventure IX  THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENGINEER’S THUMB   Of all the problems which have been submitted to my friend Mr.


sentence:
Sherlock Holmes for solution during the years of our intimacy, there were only two which I was the means of introducing to his notice—that of Mr.


sentence:
Of these the latter may have afforded a finer field for an acute and original observer, but the other was so strange in its inception and so dramatic in its details, that it may be the more worthy of being placed upon record, even if it gave my friend fewer openings for those deductive methods of reasoning by which he achieved such remarkable results.


sentence:
The story has, I believe, been told more than once in the newspapers, but, like all such narratives, its effect is much less striking when set forth _en bloc_ in a single half-column of print than when the facts slowly evolve before your own eyes, and the mystery clears gradually away as each new discovery furnishes a step which leads on to the complete truth.


sentence:
At the time the circumstances made a deep impression upon me, and the lapse of two years has hardly served to weaken the effect.


sentence:
It was in the summer of ’89, not long after my marriage, that the events occurred which I am now about to summarize.


sentence:
I had returned to civil practice, and had finally abandoned Holmes in his Baker Street rooms, although I continually visited him, and occasionally even persuaded him to forego his Bohemian habits so far as to come and visit us.


sentence:
My practice had steadily increased, and as I happened to live at no very great distance from Paddington Station, I got a few patients from among the officials.


sentence:
One of these, whom I had cured of a painful and lingering disease, was never weary of advertising my virtues, and of endeavoring to send me on every sufferer over whom he might have any influence.


sentence:
One morning, at a little before seven o’clock, I was awakened by the maid tapping at the door, to announce that two men had come from Paddington, and were waiting in the consulting-room.


sentence:
I dressed hurriedly, for I knew by experience that railway cases were seldom trivial, and hastened down-stairs.


sentence:
As I descended, my old ally, the guard, came out of the room and closed the door tightly behind him.


sentence:
What is it, then? I asked, for his manner suggested that it was some strange creature which he had caged up in my room.


sentence:
He was quietly dressed in a suit of heather tweed, with a soft cloth cap, which he had laid down upon my books.


sentence:
He was young, not more than five-and-twenty, I should say, with a strong, masculine face; but he was exceedingly pale, and gave me the impression of a man who was suffering from some strong agitation, which it took all his strength of mind to control.


sentence:
I am sorry to knock you up so early, doctor, said he, but I have had a very serious accident during the night.


sentence:
I came in by train this morning, and on inquiring at Paddington as to where I might find a doctor, a worthy fellow very kindly escorted me here.


sentence:
He laughed very heartily, with a high, ringing note, leaning back in his chair and shaking his sides.


sentence:
He was off in one of those hysterical outbursts which come upon a strong nature when some great crisis is over and gone.


sentence:
And now, doctor, perhaps you would kindly attend to my thumb, or rather to the place where my thumb used to be.


sentence:
There were four protruding fingers and a horrid red, spongy surface where the thumb should have been.


sentence:
When I came to I found that it was still bleeding, so I tied one end of my handkerchief very tightly round the wrist, and braced it up with a twig.


sentence:
I sponged the wound, cleaned it, dressed it, and finally covered it over with cotton wadding and carbolized bandages.


sentence:
I shall have to tell my tale to the police; but, between ourselves, if it were not for the convincing evidence of this wound of mine, I should be surprised if they believed my statement; for it is a very extraordinary one, and I have not much in the way of proof with which to back it up; and, even if they believe me, the clews which I can give them are so vague that it is a question whether justice will be done.


sentence:
Ha! cried I, if it is anything in the nature of a problem which you desire to see solved, I should strongly recommend you to come to my friend Mr.


sentence:
Oh, I have heard of that fellow, answered my visitor, and I should be very glad if he would take the matter up, though of course I must use the official police as well.


sentence:
I rushed up-stairs, explained the matter shortly to my wife, and in five minutes was inside a hansom, driving with my new acquaintance to Baker Street.


sentence:
Sherlock Holmes was, as I expected, lounging about his sitting-room in his dressing-gown, reading the agony column of _The Times_, and smoking his before-breakfast pipe, which was composed of all the plugs and dottels left from his smokes of the day before, all carefully dried and collected on the corner of the mantel-piece.


sentence:
He received us in his quietly genial fashion, ordered fresh rashers and eggs, and joined us in a hearty meal.


sentence:
When it was concluded he settled our new acquaintance upon the sofa, placed a pillow beneath his head, and laid a glass of brandy-and-water within his reach.


sentence:
Tell us what you can, but stop when you are tired, and keep up your strength with a little stimulant.


sentence:
Thank you, said my patient, but I have felt another man since the doctor bandaged me, and I think that your breakfast has completed the cure.


sentence:
I shall take up as little of your valuable time as possible, so I shall start at once upon my peculiar experiences.


sentence:
Holmes sat in his big arm-chair with the weary, heavy-lidded expression which veiled his keen and eager nature, while I sat opposite to him, and we listened in silence to the strange story which our visitor detailed to us.


sentence:
By profession I am an hydraulic engineer, and I have had considerable experience of my work during the seven years that I was apprenticed to Venner & Matheson, the well-known firm, of Greenwich.


sentence:
Two years ago, having served my time, and having also come into a fair sum of money through my poor father’s death, I determined to start in business for myself, and took professional chambers in Victoria Street.


sentence:
During two years I have had three consultations and one small job, and that is absolutely all that my profession has brought me.


sentence:
_ Every day, from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon, I waited in my little den, until at last my heart began to sink, and I came to believe that I should never have any practice at all.


sentence:
Yesterday, however, just as I was thinking of leaving the office, my clerk entered to say there was a gentleman waiting who wished to see me upon business.


sentence:
Close at his heels came the colonel himself, a man rather over the middle size, but of an exceeding thinness.


sentence:
His whole face sharpened away into nose and chin, and the skin of his cheeks was drawn quite tense over his outstanding bones.


sentence:
Yet this emaciation seemed to be his natural habit, and due to no disease, for his eye was bright, his step brisk, and his bearing assured.


sentence:
He was plainly but neatly dressed, and his age, I should judge, would be nearer forty than thirty.  ‘Mr.


sentence:
Hatherley, as being a man who is not only proficient in his profession, but is also discreet and capable of preserving a secret.


sentence:
‘May I ask who it was who gave me so good a character?’  ‘Well, perhaps it is better that I should not tell you that just at this moment.


sentence:
I have it from the same source that you are both an orphan and a bachelor, and are residing alone in London.


sentence:
’  ‘That is quite correct,’ I answered, ‘but you will excuse me if I say that I cannot see how all this bears upon my professional qualifications.


sentence:
I understood that it was on a professional matter that you wished to speak to me?’  ‘Undoubtedly so.


sentence:
I have a professional commission for you, but absolute secrecy is quite essential—_absolute_ secrecy, you understand, and of course we may expect that more from a man who is alone than from one who lives in the bosom of his family.


sentence:
’  He looked very hard at me as I spoke, and it seemed to me that I had never seen so suspicious and questioning an eye.


sentence:
’  ‘Absolute and complete silence before, during, and after? No reference to the matter at all, either in word or writing?’  ‘I have already given you my word.’  ‘Very good.


sentence:
’ He drew up his chair very close to mine, and began to stare at me again with the same questioning and thoughtful look.


sentence:
A feeling of repulsion, and of something akin to fear had begun to rise within me at the strange antics of this fleshless man.


sentence:
What do you think of such a commission as that?’  ‘The work appears to be light and the pay munificent.’  ‘Precisely so.


sentence:
It is to recompense you for any inconvenience that we are paying to you, a young and unknown man, a fee which would buy an opinion from the very heads of your profession.


sentence:
I should like, however, to understand a little more clearly what it is that you wish me to do.’  ‘Quite so.


sentence:
It is very natural that the pledge of secrecy which we have exacted from you should have aroused your curiosity.


sentence:
You are probably aware that fuller’s-earth is a valuable product, and that it is only found in one or two places in England?’  ‘I have heard so.


sentence:
On examining it, however, I found that this deposit was a comparatively small one, and that it formed a link between two very much larger ones upon the right and left—both of them, however, in the grounds of my neighbors.


sentence:
These good people were absolutely ignorant that their land contained that which was quite as valuable as a gold-mine.


sentence:
Naturally, it was to my interest to buy their land before they discovered its true value; but, unfortunately, I had no capital by which I could do this.


sentence:
I took a few of my friends into the secret, however, and they suggested that we should quietly and secretly work our own little deposit, and that in this way we should earn the money which would enable us to buy the neighboring fields.


sentence:
This we have now been doing for some time, and in order to help us in our operations we erected an hydraulic press.


sentence:
This press, as I have already explained, has got out of order, and we wish your advice upon the subject.


sentence:
We guard our secret very jealously, however, and if it once became known that we had hydraulic engineers coming to our little house, it would soon rouse inquiry, and then, if the facts came out, it would be good-bye to any chance of getting these fields and carrying out our plans.


sentence:
That is why I have made you promise me that you will not tell a human being that you are going to Eyford to-night.


sentence:
‘The only point which I could not quite understand, was what use you could make of an hydraulic press in excavating fuller’s-earth, which, as I understand, is dug out like gravel from a pit.


sentence:
’ He looked at me with a last, long, questioning gaze, and then, pressing my hand in a cold, dank grasp, he hurried from the room.


sentence:
Well, when I came to think it all over in cool blood I was very much astonished, as you may both think, at this sudden commission which had been intrusted to me.


sentence:
On the one hand, of course, I was glad, for the fee was at least tenfold what I should have asked had I set a price upon my own services, and it was possible that this order might lead to other ones.


sentence:
On the other hand, the face and manner of my patron had made an unpleasant impression upon me, and I could not think that his explanation of the fuller’s-earth was sufficient to explain the necessity for my coming at midnight, and his extreme anxiety lest I should tell any one of my errand.


sentence:
However, I threw all fears to the winds, ate a hearty supper, drove to Paddington, and started off, having obeyed to the letter the injunction as to holding my tongue.


sentence:
[Illustration: ‘NOT A WORD TO A SOUL’]  At Reading I had to change not only my carriage, but my station.


sentence:
However, I was in time for the last train to Eyford, and I reached the little dim-lit station after eleven o’clock.


sentence:
I was the only passenger who got out there, and there was no one upon the platform save a single sleepy porter with a lantern.


sentence:
As I passed out through the wicket gate, however, I found my acquaintance of the morning waiting in the shadow upon the other side.


sentence:
Without a word he grasped my arm and hurried me into a carriage, the door of which was standing open.


sentence:
He drew up the windows on either side, tapped on the wood-work, and away we went as fast as the horse could go.


sentence:
Did you observe the color?  Yes, I saw it by the side-lights when I was stepping into the carriage. It was a chestnut.


sentence:
Colonel Lysander Stark had said that it was only seven miles, but I should think, from the rate that we seemed to go, and from the time that we took, that it must have been nearer twelve.


sentence:
He sat at my side in silence all the time, and I was aware, more than once when I glanced in his direction, that he was looking at me with great intensity.


sentence:
The country roads seem to be not very good in that part of the world, for we lurched and jolted terribly.


sentence:
I tried to look out of the windows to see something of where we were, but they were made of frosted glass, and I could make out nothing save the occasional bright blur of a passing light.


sentence:
Now and then I hazarded some remark to break the monotony of the journey, but the colonel answered only in monosyllables, and the conversation soon flagged.


sentence:
At last, however, the bumping of the road was exchanged for the crisp smoothness of a gravel-drive, and the carriage came to a stand.


sentence:
Colonel Lysander Stark sprang out, and, as I followed after him, pulled me swiftly into a porch which gaped in front of us.


sentence:
We stepped, as it were, right out of the carriage and into the hall, so that I failed to catch the most fleeting glance of the front of the house.


sentence:
The instant that I had crossed the threshold the door slammed heavily behind us, and I heard faintly the rattle of the wheels as the carriage drove away.


sentence:
It was pitch dark inside the house, and the colonel fumbled about looking for matches, and muttering under his breath.


sentence:
Suddenly a door opened at the other end of the passage, and a long, golden bar of light shot out in our direction.


sentence:
It grew broader, and a woman appeared with a lamp in her hand, which she held above her head, pushing her face forward and peering at us.


sentence:
I could see that she was pretty, and from the gloss with which the light shone upon her dark dress I knew that it was a rich material.


sentence:
She spoke a few words in a foreign tongue in a tone as though asking a question, and when my companion answered in a gruff monosyllable she gave such a start that the lamp nearly fell from her hand.


sentence:
Colonel Stark went up to her, whispered something in her ear, and then, pushing her back into the room from whence she had come, he walked towards me again with the lamp in his hand.


sentence:
‘Perhaps you will have the kindness to wait in this room for a few minutes,’ said he, throwing open another door.


sentence:
It was a quiet, little, plainly-furnished room, with a round table in the centre, on which several German books were scattered.


sentence:
I glanced at the books upon the table, and in spite of my ignorance of German I could see that two of them were treatises on science, the others being volumes of poetry.


sentence:
Then I walked across to the window, hoping that I might catch some glimpse of the country-side, but an oak shutter, heavily barred, was folded across it.


sentence:
There was an old clock ticking loudly somewhere in the passage, but otherwise everything was deadly still.


sentence:
Who were these German people, and what were they doing, living in this strange, out-of-the-way place? And where was the place? I was ten miles or so from Eyford, that was all I knew, but whether north, south, east, or west I had no idea.


sentence:
For that matter, Reading, and possibly other large towns, were within that radius, so the place might not be so secluded, after all.


sentence:
I paced up and down the room, humming a tune under my breath to keep up my spirits, and feeling that I was thoroughly earning my fifty-guinea fee.


sentence:
Suddenly, without any preliminary sound in the midst of the utter stillness, the door of my room swung slowly open.


sentence:
The woman was standing in the aperture, the darkness of the hall behind her, the yellow light from my lamp beating upon her eager and beautiful face.


sentence:
She held up one shaking finger to warn me to be silent, and she shot a few whispered words of broken English at me, her eyes glancing back, like those of a frightened horse, into the gloom behind her.


sentence:
’ And then, seeing that I smiled and shook my head, she suddenly threw aside her constraint and made a step forward, with her hands wrung together.


sentence:
‘For the love of Heaven!’ she whispered, ‘get away from here before it is too late!’  But I am somewhat headstrong by nature, and the more ready to engage in an affair when there is some obstacle in the way.


sentence:
I thought of my fifty-guinea fee, of my wearisome journey, and of the unpleasant night which seemed to be before me.


sentence:
Was it all to go for nothing? Why should I slink away without having carried out my commission, and without the payment which was my due? This woman might, for all I knew, be a monomaniac.


sentence:
With a stout bearing, therefore, though her manner had shaken me more than I cared to confess, I still shook my head, and declared my intention of remaining where I was.


sentence:
She was about to renew her entreaties, when a door slammed overhead, and the sound of several footsteps were heard upon the stairs.


sentence:
She listened for an instant, threw up her hands with a despairing gesture, and vanished as suddenly and as noiselessly as she had come.


sentence:
The new-comers were Colonel Lysander Stark and a short, thick man with a chinchilla beard growing out of the creases of his double chin, who was introduced to me as Mr. Ferguson.


sentence:
’  ‘On the contrary,’ said I, ‘I opened the door myself, because I felt the room to be a little close.


sentence:
It was a labyrinth of an old house, with corridors, passages, narrow winding staircases, and little low doors, the thresholds of which were hollowed out by the generations who had crossed them.


sentence:
There were no carpets and no signs of any furniture above the ground floor, while the plaster was peeling off the walls, and the damp was breaking through in green, unhealthy blotches.


sentence:
I tried to put on as unconcerned an air as possible, but I had not forgotten the warnings of the lady, even though I disregarded them, and I kept a keen eye upon my two companions.


sentence:
Ferguson appeared to be a morose and silent man, but I could see from the little that he said that he was at least a fellow-countryman.


sentence:
‘We are now,’ said he, ‘actually within the hydraulic press, and it would be a particularly unpleasant thing for us if any one were to turn it on.


sentence:
The ceiling of this small chamber is really the end of the descending piston, and it comes down with the force of many tons upon this metal floor.


sentence:
There are small lateral columns of water outside which receive the force, and which transmit and multiply it in the manner which is familiar to you.


sentence:
The machine goes readily enough, but there is some stiffness in the working of it, and it has lost a little of its force.


sentence:
When I passed outside, however, and pressed down the levers which controlled it, I knew at once by the whishing sound that there was a slight leakage, which allowed a regurgitation of water through one of the side cylinders.


sentence:
An examination showed that one of the india-rubber bands which was round the head of a driving-rod had shrunk so as not quite to fill the socket along which it worked.


sentence:
This was clearly the cause of the loss of power, and I pointed it out to my companions, who followed my remarks very carefully, and asked several practical questions as to how they should proceed to set it right.


sentence:
When I had made it clear to them, I returned to the main chamber of the machine and took a good look at it to satisfy my own curiosity.


sentence:
It was obvious at a glance that the story of the fuller’s-earth was the merest fabrication, for it would be absurd to suppose that so powerful an engine could be designed for so inadequate a purpose.


sentence:
The walls were of wood, but the floor consisted of a large iron trough, and when I came to examine it I could see a crust of metallic deposit all over it.


sentence:
I had stooped and was scraping at this to see exactly what it was, when I heard a muttered exclamation in German, and saw the cadaverous face of the colonel looking down at me.


sentence:
‘I was admiring your fuller’s-earth,’ said I; ‘I think that I should be better able to advise you as to your machine if I knew what the exact purpose was for which it was used.


sentence:
I rushed towards it and pulled at the handle, but it was quite secure, and did not give in the least to my kicks and shoves. ‘Hello!’ I yelled.


sentence:
‘Hello! Colonel! Let me out!’  And then suddenly in the silence I heard a sound which sent my heart into my mouth.


sentence:
By its light I saw that the black ceiling was coming down upon me, slowly, jerkily, but, as none knew better than myself, with a force which must within a minute grind me to a shapeless pulp.


sentence:
The ceiling was only a foot or two above my head, and with my hand upraised I could feel its hard, rough surface.


sentence:
Then it flashed through my mind that the pain of my death would depend very much upon the position in which I met it.


sentence:
If I lay on my face the weight would come upon my spine, and I shuddered to think of that dreadful snap.


sentence:
Easier the other way, perhaps; and yet, had I the nerve to lie and look up at that deadly black shadow wavering down upon me? Already I was unable to stand erect, when my eye caught something which brought a gush of hope back to my heart.


sentence:
As I gave a last hurried glance around, I saw a thin line of yellow light between two of the boards, which broadened and broadened as a small panel was pushed backward.


sentence:
The panel had closed again behind me, but the crash of the lamp, and a few moments afterwards the clang of the two slabs of metal, told me how narrow had been my escape.


sentence:
I was recalled to myself by a frantic plucking at my wrist, and I found myself lying upon the stone floor of a narrow corridor, while a woman bent over me and tugged at me with her left hand, while she held a candle in her right.


sentence:
The latter led to another broad passage, and, just as we reached it, we heard the sound of running feet and the shouting of two voices, one answering the other, from the floor on which we were and from the one beneath.


sentence:
Then she threw open a door which led into a bedroom, through the window of which the moon was shining brightly.


sentence:
’  As she spoke a light sprang into view at the further end of the passage, and I saw the lean figure of Colonel Lysander Stark rushing forward with a lantern in one hand and a weapon like a butcher’s cleaver in the other.


sentence:
How quiet and sweet and wholesome the garden looked in the moonlight, and it could not be more than thirty feet down.


sentence:
I clambered out upon the sill, but I hesitated to jump until I should have heard what passed between my savior and the ruffian who pursued me.


sentence:
The thought had hardly flashed through my mind before he was at the door, pushing his way past her; but she threw her arms round him and tried to hold him back.


sentence:
He will be silent! Oh, he will be silent!’  ‘You are mad, Elise!’ he shouted, struggling to break away from her.


sentence:
Let me pass, I say!’ He dashed her to one side, and, rushing to the window, cut at me with his heavy weapon.


sentence:
I was shaken but not hurt by the fall; so I picked myself up and rushed off among the bushes as hard as I could run, for I understood that I was far from being out of danger yet.


sentence:
I glanced down at my hand, which was throbbing painfully, and then, for the first time, saw that my thumb had been cut off and that the blood was pouring from my wound.


sentence:
I endeavored to tie my handkerchief round it, but there came a sudden buzzing in my ears, and next moment I fell in a dead faint among the rose-bushes.


sentence:
It must have been a very long time, for the moon had sunk, and a bright morning was breaking when I came to myself.


sentence:
My clothes were all sodden with dew, and my coat-sleeve was drenched with blood from my wounded thumb.


sentence:
The smarting of it recalled in an instant all the particulars of my night’s adventure, and I sprang to my feet with the feeling that I might hardly yet be safe from my pursuers.


sentence:
I had been lying in an angle of the hedge close by the high-road, and just a little lower down was a long building, which proved, upon my approaching it, to be the very station at which I had arrived upon the previous night.


sentence:
Were it not for the ugly wound upon my hand, all that had passed during those dreadful hours might have been an evil dream.


sentence:
It was a little past six when I arrived, so I went first to have my wound dressed, and then the doctor was kind enough to bring me along here.


sentence:
Then Sherlock Holmes pulled down from the shelf one of the ponderous commonplace books in which he placed his cuttings.


sentence:
It is quite clear that the colonel was a cool and desperate man, who was absolutely determined that nothing should stand in the way of his little game, like those out-and-out pirates who will leave no survivor from a captured ship.


sentence:
Well, every moment now is precious, so if you feel equal to it, we shall go down to Scotland Yard at once as a preliminary to starting for Eyford.


sentence:
Some three hours or so afterwards we were all in the train together, bound from Reading to the little Berkshire village.


sentence:
There were Sherlock Holmes, the hydraulic engineer, Inspector Bradstreet, of Scotland Yard, a plain-clothes man, and myself.


sentence:
Bradstreet had spread an ordnance map of the county out upon the seat, and was busy with his compasses drawing a circle with Eyford for its centre.


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And you think that they brought you back all that way when you were unconscious?  They must have done so.


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What I cannot understand, said I, is why they should have spared you when they found you lying fainting in the garden.


sentence:
Well, I have drawn my circle, and I only wish I knew at what point upon it the folk that we are in search of are to be found.


sentence:
Really, now! cried the inspector, you have formed your opinion! Come, now, we shall see who agrees with you.


sentence:
And I am for north, said I, because there are no hills there, and our friend says that he did not notice the carriage go up any.


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How could it be that if it had gone twelve miles over heavy roads?  Indeed, it is a likely ruse enough, observed Bradstreet, thoughtfully.


sentence:
They are coiners on a large scale, and have used the machine to form the amalgam which has taken the place of silver.


sentence:
We even traced them as far as Reading, but could get no farther, for they had covered their traces in a way that showed that they were very old hands.


sentence:
But the inspector was mistaken, for those criminals were not destined to fall into the hands of justice.


sentence:
As we rolled into Eyford Station we saw a gigantic column of smoke which streamed up from behind a small clump of trees in the neighborhood, and hung like an immense ostrich feather over the landscape.


sentence:
When did it break out?  I hear that it was during the night, sir, but it has got worse, and the whole place is in a blaze.


sentence:
Becher a German, very thin, with a long, sharp nose?  The station-master laughed heartily. No, sir, Dr.


sentence:
But he has a gentleman staying with him, a patient, as I understand, who is a foreigner, and he looks as if a little good Berkshire beef would do him no harm.


sentence:
The station-master had not finished his speech before we were all hastening in the direction of the fire.


sentence:
The road topped a low hill, and there was a great wide-spread whitewashed building in front of us, spouting fire at every chink and window, while in the garden in front three fire-engines were vainly striving to keep the flames under.


sentence:
There can be no question that it was your oil-lamp which, when it was crushed in the press, set fire to the wooden walls, though no doubt they were too excited in the chase after you to observe it at the time.


sentence:
Now keep your eyes open in this crowd for your friends of last night, though I very much fear that they are a good hundred miles off by now.


sentence:
And Holmes’s fears came to be realized, for from that day to this no word has ever been heard either of the beautiful woman, the sinister German, or the morose Englishman.


sentence:
Early that morning a peasant had met a cart containing several people and some very bulky boxes driving rapidly in the direction of Reading, but there all traces of the fugitives disappeared, and even Holmes’s ingenuity failed ever to discover the least clew as to their whereabouts.


sentence:
The firemen had been much perturbed at the strange arrangements which they had found within, and still more so by discovering a newly severed human thumb upon a window-sill of the second floor.


sentence:
About sunset, however, their efforts were at last successful, and they subdued the flames, but not before the roof had fallen in, and the whole place been reduced to such absolute ruin that, save some twisted cylinders and iron piping, not a trace remained of the machinery which had cost our unfortunate acquaintance so dearly.


sentence:
Large masses of nickel and of tin were discovered stored in an out-house, but no coins were to be found, which may have explained the presence of those bulky boxes which have been already referred to.


sentence:
How our hydraulic engineer had been conveyed from the garden to the spot where he recovered his senses might have remained forever a mystery were it not for the soft mould, which told us a very plain tale.


sentence:
He had evidently been carried down by two persons, one of whom had remarkably small feet and the other unusually large ones.


sentence:
On the whole, it was most probable that the silent Englishman, being less bold or less murderous than his companion, had assisted the woman to bear the unconscious man out of the way of danger.


sentence:
Well, said our engineer ruefully, as we took our seats to return once more to London, it has been a pretty business for me! I have lost my thumb and I have lost a fifty-guinea fee, and what have I gained?  Experience, said Holmes, laughing.


sentence:
Indirectly it may be of value, you know; you have only to put it into words to gain the reputation of being excellent company for the remainder of your existence.


sentence:
Simon marriage, and its curious termination, have long ceased to be a subject of interest in those exalted circles in which the unfortunate bridegroom moves.


sentence:
Fresh scandals have eclipsed it, and their more piquant details have drawn the gossips away from this four-year-old drama.


sentence:
As I have reason to believe, however, that the full facts have never been revealed to the general public, and as my friend Sherlock Holmes had a considerable share in clearing the matter up, I feel that no memoir of him would be complete without some little sketch of this remarkable episode.


sentence:
It was a few weeks before my own marriage, during the days when I was still sharing rooms with Holmes in Baker Street, that he came home from an afternoon stroll to find a letter on the table waiting for him.


sentence:
I had remained in-doors all day, for the weather had taken a sudden turn to rain, with high autumnal winds, and the jezail bullet which I had brought back in one of my limbs as a relic of my Afghan campaign, throbbed with dull persistency.


sentence:
With my body in one easy-chair and my legs upon another, I had surrounded myself with a cloud of newspapers, until at last, saturated with the news of the day, I tossed them all aside and lay listless, watching the huge crest and monogram upon the envelope upon the table, and wondering lazily who my friend’s noble correspondent could be.


sentence:
Yes, my correspondence has certainly the charm of variety, he answered, smiling, and the humbler are usually the more interesting.


sentence:
This looks like one of those unwelcome social summonses which call upon a man either to be bored or to lie.


sentence:
I assure you, Watson, without affectation, that the status of my client is a matter of less moment to me than the interest of his case.


sentence:
You have been reading the papers diligently of late, have you not?  It looks like it, said I, ruefully, pointing to a huge bundle in the corner.


sentence:
I will read it to you, and in return you must turn over these papers and let me have whatever bears upon the matter.


sentence:
SHERLOCK HOLMES,—Lord Backwater tells me that I   may place implicit reliance upon your judgment and discretion.


sentence:
I have determined, therefore, to call upon you, and to consult   you in reference to the very painful event which has occurred   in connection with my wedding. Mr.


sentence:
Lestrade, of Scotland Yard,   is acting already in the matter, but he assures me that he sees   no objection to your co-operation, and that he even thinks that   it might be of some assistance.


sentence:
I will call at four o’clock in   the afternoon, and, should you have any other engagement at   that time, I hope that you will postpone it, as this matter is   of paramount importance.


sentence:
’  It is dated from Grosvenor Mansions, written with a quill pen, and the noble lord has had the misfortune to get a smear of ink upon the outer side of his right little finger, remarked Holmes, as he folded up the epistle.


sentence:
Turn over those papers, and arrange the extracts in their order of time, while I take a glance as to who our client is.


sentence:
Simon, second son of the Duke of Balmoral—Hum! Arms: Azure, three caltrops in chief over a fess sable. Born in 1846.


sentence:
I have very little difficulty in finding what I want, said I, for the facts are quite recent, and the matter struck me as remarkable.


sentence:
I feared to refer them to you, however, as I knew that you had an inquiry on hand, and that you disliked the intrusion of other matters.


sentence:
‘A marriage has been arranged,’ it says, ‘and will, if rumor is correct, very shortly take place, between Lord Robert St.


sentence:
Simon, second son of the Duke of Balmoral, and Miss Hatty Doran, the only daughter of Aloysius Doran, Esq.


sentence:
There was a paragraph amplifying this in one of the society papers of the same week. Ah, here it is.


sentence:
‘There will soon be a call for protection in the marriage market, for the present free-trade principle appears to tell heavily against our home product.


sentence:
One by one the management of the noble houses of Great Britain is passing into the hands of our fair cousins from across the Atlantic.


sentence:
An important addition has been made during the last week to the list of the prizes which have been borne away by these charming invaders. Lord St.


sentence:
Simon, who has shown himself for over twenty years proof against the little god’s arrows, has now definitely announced his approaching marriage with Miss Hatty Doran, the fascinating daughter of a California millionaire.


sentence:
Miss Doran, whose graceful figure and striking face attracted much attention at the Westbury House festivities, is an only child, and it is currently reported that her dowry will run to considerably over the six figures, with expectancies for the future.


sentence:
As it is an open secret that the Duke of Balmoral has been compelled to sell his pictures within the last few years, and as Lord St.


sentence:
Simon has no property of his own, save the small estate of Birchmoor, it is obvious that the Californian heiress is not the only gainer by an alliance which will enable her to make the easy and common transition from a Republican lady to a British peeress.


sentence:
Then there is another note in _The Morning Post_ to say that the marriage would be an absolutely quiet one, that it would be at St.


sentence:
George’s, Hanover Square, that only half a dozen intimate friends would be invited, and that the party would return to the furnished house at Lancaster Gate which has been taken by Mr. Aloysius Doran.


sentence:
Two days later—that is, on Wednesday last—there is a curt announcement that the wedding had taken place, and that the honey-moon would be passed at Lord Backwater’s place, near Petersfield.


sentence:
They often vanish before the ceremony, and occasionally during the honey-moon; but I cannot call to mind anything quite so prompt as this.


sentence:
Such as they are, they are set forth in a single article of a morning paper of yesterday, which I will read to you.


sentence:
Simon has been thrown into the greatest consternation by the strange and painful episodes which have taken place in connection with his wedding.


sentence:
The ceremony, as shortly announced in the papers of yesterday, occurred on the previous morning; but it is only now that it has been possible to confirm the strange rumors which have been so persistently floating about.


sentence:
In spite of the attempts of the friends to hush the matter up, so much public attention has now been drawn to it that no good purpose can be served by affecting to disregard what is a common subject for conversation.


sentence:
George’s, Hanover Square, was a very quiet one, no one being present save the father of the bride, Mr.


sentence:
It appears that some little trouble was caused by a woman, whose name has not been ascertained, who endeavored to force her way into the house after the bridal party, alleging that she had some claim upon Lord St. Simon.


sentence:
The bride, who had fortunately entered the house before this unpleasant interruption, had sat down to breakfast with the rest, when she complained of a sudden indisposition, and retired to her room.


sentence:
Her prolonged absence having caused some comment, her father followed her, but learned from her maid that she had only come up to her chamber for an instant, caught up an ulster and bonnet, and hurried down to the passage.


sentence:
One of the footmen declared that he had seen a lady leave the house thus apparelled, but had refused to credit that it was his mistress, believing her to be with the company.


sentence:
Aloysius Doran, in conjunction with the bridegroom, instantly put themselves into communication with the police, and very energetic inquiries are being made, which will probably result in a speedy clearing up of this very singular business.


sentence:
Up to a late hour last night, however, nothing had transpired as to the whereabouts of the missing lady.


sentence:
There are rumors of foul play in the matter, and it is said that the police have caused the arrest of the woman who had caused the original disturbance, in the belief that, from jealousy or some other motive, she may have been concerned in the strange disappearance of the bride.


sentence:
’  And is that all?  Only one little item in another of the morning papers, but it is a suggestive one.


sentence:
And it is—  That Miss Flora Millar, the lady who had caused the disturbance, has actually been arrested.


sentence:
It appears that she was formerly a _danseuse_ at the ‘Allegro,’ and that she has known the bridegroom for some years.


sentence:
There are no further particulars, and the whole case is in your hands now—so far as it has been set forth in the public press.


sentence:
But there is a ring at the bell, Watson, and as the clock makes it a few minutes after four, I have no doubt that this will prove to be our noble client.


sentence:
Do not dream of going, Watson, for I very much prefer having a witness, if only as a check to my own memory.  Lord Robert St.


sentence:
A gentleman entered, with a pleasant, cultured face, high-nosed and pale, with something perhaps of petulance about the mouth, and with the steady, well-opened eye of a man whose pleasant lot it had ever been to command and to be obeyed.


sentence:
His manner was brisk, and yet his general appearance gave an undue impression of age, for he had a slight forward stoop and a little bend of the knees as he walked.


sentence:
His hair, too, as he swept off his very curly-brimmed hat, was grizzled round the edges and thin upon the top.


sentence:
As to his dress, it was careful to the verge of foppishness, with high collar, black frock-coat, white waistcoat, yellow gloves, patent-leather shoes, and light-colored gaiters.


sentence:
He advanced slowly into the room, turning his head from left to right, and swinging in his right hand the cord which held his golden eye-glasses.  Good-day, Lord St.


sentence:
I understand that you have already managed several delicate cases of this sort, sir, though I presume that they were hardly from the same class of society.


sentence:
What! Had he lost his wife?  You can understand, said Holmes, suavely, that I extend to the affairs of my other clients the same secrecy which I promise to you in yours.


sentence:
As to my own case, I am ready to give you any information which may assist you in forming an opinion.  Thank you.


sentence:
I presume that I may take it as correct—this article, for example, as to the disappearance of the bride.  Lord St.


sentence:
But you were on a friendly footing?  I was amused by her society, and she could see that I was amused.


sentence:
Now, what is your own impression as to the young lady’s—your wife’s character?  The nobleman swung his glasses a little faster and stared down into the fire. You see, Mr.


sentence:
During that time she ran free in a mining camp, and wandered through woods or mountains, so that her education has come from Nature rather than from the school-master.


sentence:
She is what we call in England a tomboy, with a strong nature, wild and free, unfettered by any sort of traditions.


sentence:
On the other hand, I would not have given her the name which I have the honor to bear—he gave a little stately cough—had not I thought her to be at bottom a noble woman.


sentence:
I believe that she is capable of heroic self-sacrifice, and that anything dishonorable would be repugnant to her.


sentence:
It was not a photograph, but an ivory miniature, and the artist had brought out the full effect of the lustrous black hair, the large dark eyes, and the exquisite mouth.


sentence:
The young lady came to London, then, and you renewed your acquaintance?  Yes, her father brought her over for this last London season.


sentence:
And this, of course, remains to you, since the marriage is a _fait accompli_?  I really have made no inquiries on the subject.


sentence:
And on the morning of the wedding?  She was as bright as possible—at least, until after the ceremony.


sentence:
And did you observe any change in her then?  Well, to tell the truth, I saw then the first signs that I had ever seen that her temper was just a little sharp.


sentence:
There was a moment’s delay, but the gentleman in the pew handed it up to her again, and it did not appear to be the worse for the fall.


sentence:
Yet, when I spoke to her of the matter, she answered me abruptly; and in the carriage, on our way home, she seemed absurdly agitated over this trifling cause.


sentence:
This gentleman was not one of your wife’s friends?  No, no; I call him a gentleman by courtesy, but he was quite a common-looking person.


sentence:
And what did your wife do when she finished speaking to her maid?  She walked into the breakfast-room.


sentence:
Then, after we had sat down for ten minutes or so, she rose hurriedly, muttered some words of apology, and left the room. She never came back.


sentence:
But this maid, Alice, as I understand, deposes that she went to her room, covered her bride’s dress with a long ulster, put on a bonnet, and went out.  Quite so.


sentence:
And she was afterwards seen walking into Hyde Park in company with Flora Millar, a woman who is now in custody, and who had already made a disturbance at Mr.


sentence:
’ I have not treated her ungenerously, and she has no just cause of complaint against me; but you know what women are, Mr. Holmes.


sentence:
She wrote me dreadful letters when she heard that I was about to be married; and, to tell the truth, the reason why I had the marriage celebrated so quietly was that I feared lest there might be a scandal in the church. She came to Mr.


sentence:
Doran’s door just after we returned, and she endeavored to push her way in, uttering very abusive expressions towards my wife, and even threatening her, but I had foreseen the possibility of something of the sort, and I had two police fellows there in private clothes, who soon pushed her out again.


sentence:
Pray what is your own theory as to what took place?  Well, really, I came to seek a theory, not to propound one.


sentence:
Since you ask me, however, I may say that it has occurred to me as possible that the excitement of this affair, the consciousness that she had made so immense a social stride, had the effect of causing some little nervous disturbance in my wife.


sentence:
In short, that she had become suddenly deranged?  Well, really, when I consider that she has turned her back—I will not say upon me, but upon so much that many have aspired to without success—I can hardly explain it in any other fashion.


sentence:
May I ask whether you were seated at the breakfast-table so that you could see out of the window?  We could see the other side of the road and the Park.  Quite so.


sentence:
I am afraid that it will take wiser heads than yours or mine, he remarked, and bowing in a stately, old-fashioned manner, he departed.


sentence:
My dear Holmes!  I have notes of several similar cases, though none, as I remarked before, which were quite as prompt.


sentence:
Circumstantial evidence is occasionally very convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk, to quote Thoreau’s example.


sentence:
There was a parallel instance in Aberdeen some years back, and something on very much the same lines at Munich the year after the Franco-Prussian war.


sentence:
It is one of these cases—but, hello, here is Lestrade! Good-afternoon, Lestrade! You will find an extra tumbler upon the sideboard, and there are cigars in the box.


sentence:
The official detective was attired in a pea-jacket and cravat, which gave him a decidedly nautical appearance, and he carried a black canvas bag in his hand.


sentence:
And very wet it seems to have made you, said Holmes, laying his hand upon the arm of the pea-jacket.


sentence:
Why? What do you mean?  Because you have just as good a chance of finding this lady in the one as in the other.


sentence:
Oh, indeed! Then you think that the Serpentine plays no part in the matter?  I think it very unlikely.


sentence:
Then perhaps you will kindly explain how it is that we found this in it? He opened his bag as he spoke, and tumbled onto the floor a wedding-dress of watered silk, a pair of white satin shoes, and a bride’s wreath and veil, all discolored and soaked in water.


sentence:
They have been identified as her clothes, and it seemed to me that if the clothes were there the body would not be far off.


sentence:
By the same brilliant reasoning, every man’s body is to be found in the neighborhood of his wardrobe.


sentence:
And pray what did you hope to arrive at through this?  At some evidence implicating Flora Millar in the disappearance.


sentence:
Simon was decoyed away by Flora Millar, and that she, with confederates, no doubt, was responsible for her disappearance.


sentence:
Here, signed with her initials, is the very note which was no doubt quietly slipped into her hand at the door, and which lured her within their reach.


sentence:
He took up the paper in a listless way, but his attention instantly became riveted, and he gave a little cry of satisfaction.


sentence:
I looked at it before, said Lestrade. ‘Oct. 4th, rooms 8_s._, breakfast 2_s._ 6_d._, cocktail 1_s._, lunch 2_s._ 6_d._, glass sherry, 8_d.


sentence:
Just one hint to you, Lestrade, drawled Holmes, before his rival vanished; I will tell you the true solution of the matter. Lady St. Simon is a myth.


sentence:
There is something in what the fellow says about out-door work, he remarked, so I think, Watson, that I must leave you to your papers for a little.


sentence:
It was after five o’clock when Sherlock Holmes left me, but I had no time to be lonely, for within an hour there arrived a confectioner’s man with a very large flat box.


sentence:
This he unpacked with the help of a youth whom he had brought with him, and presently, to my very great astonishment, a quite epicurean little cold supper began to be laid out upon our humble lodging-house mahogany.


sentence:
There were a couple of brace of cold woodcock, a pheasant, a _pâté de foie gras_ pie, with a group of ancient and cobwebby bottles.


sentence:
Having laid out all these luxuries, my two visitors vanished away, like the genii of the Arabian Nights, with no explanation save that the things had been paid for and were ordered to this address.


sentence:
His features were gravely set, but there was a light in his eye which made me think that he had not been disappointed in his conclusions.


sentence:
It was indeed our visitor of the morning who came bustling in, dangling his glasses more vigorously than ever, and with a very perturbed expression upon his aristocratic features.


sentence:
What will the duke say, he murmured, when he hears that one of the family has been subjected to such humiliation?  It is the purest accident.


sentence:
I can hardly see how the lady could have acted otherwise, though her abrupt method of doing it was undoubtedly to be regretted.


sentence:
At the sight of these new-comers our client had sprung from his seat and stood very erect, with his eyes cast down and his hand thrust into the breast of his frock-coat, a picture of offended dignity.


sentence:
The lady had taken a quick step forward and had held out her hand to him, but he still refused to raise his eyes.


sentence:
It was as well for his resolution, perhaps, for her pleading face was one which it was hard to resist.


sentence:
Oh yes, I know that I have treated you real bad, and that I should have spoken to you before I went; but I was kind of rattled, and from the time when I saw Frank here again I just didn’t know what I was doing or saying.


sentence:
Moulton, you would like my friend and me to leave the room while you explain this matter?  If I may give an opinion, remarked the strange gentleman, we’ve had just a little too much secrecy over this business already.


sentence:
We were engaged to each other, Frank and I; but then one day father struck a rich pocket and made a pile, while poor Frank here had a claim that petered out and came to nothing.


sentence:
The richer pa grew, the poorer was Frank; so at last pa wouldn’t hear of our engagement lasting any longer, and he took me away to ’Frisco.


sentence:
Frank wouldn’t throw up his hand, though; so he followed me there, and he saw me without pa knowing anything about it.


sentence:
Frank said that he would go and make his pile, too, and never come back to claim me until he had as much as pa.


sentence:
So then I promised to wait for him to the end of time, and pledged myself not to marry any one else while he lived.


sentence:
‘Why shouldn’t we be married right away, then,’ said he, ‘and then I will feel sure of you; and I won’t claim to be your husband until I come back?’ Well, we talked it over, and he had fixed it all up so nicely, with a clergyman all ready in waiting, that we just did it right there; and then Frank went off to seek his fortune, and I went back to pa.


sentence:
The next I heard of Frank was that he was in Montana, and then he went prospecting in Arizona, and then I heard of him from New Mexico.


sentence:
After that came a long newspaper story about how a miners’ camp had been attacked by Apache Indians, and there was my Frank’s name among the killed.


sentence:
Not a word of news came for a year and more, so that I never doubted that Frank was really dead. Then Lord St.


sentence:
Simon came to ’Frisco, and we came to London, and a marriage was arranged, and pa was very pleased, but I felt all the time that no man on this earth would ever take the place in my heart that had been given to my poor Frank.


sentence:
I went to the altar with him with the intention to make him just as good a wife as it was in me to be.


sentence:
But you may imagine what I felt when, just as I came to the altar rails, I glanced back and saw Frank standing and looking at me out of the first pew.


sentence:
I thought it was his ghost at first; but when I looked again, there he was still, with a kind of question in his eyes as if to ask me whether I were glad or sorry to see him.


sentence:
I know that everything was turning round, and the words of the clergyman were just like the buzz of a bee in my ear.


sentence:
Should I stop the service and make a scene in the church? I glanced at him again, and he seemed to know what I was thinking, for he raised his finger to his lips to tell me to be still.


sentence:
As I passed his pew on the way out I dropped my bouquet over to him, and he slipped the note into my hand when he returned me the flowers.


sentence:
Of course I never doubted for a moment that my first duty was now to him, and I determined to do just whatever he might direct.


sentence:
I hadn’t been at the table ten minutes before I saw Frank out of the window at the other side of the road.


sentence:
Simon to me—seemed to me from the little I heard as if he had a little secret of his own before marriage also—but I managed to get away from her, and soon overtook Frank.


sentence:
We got into a cab together, and away we drove to some lodgings he had taken in Gordon Square, and that was my true wedding after all those years of waiting.


sentence:
Frank had been a prisoner among the Apaches, had escaped, came on to ’Frisco, found that I had given him up for dead and had gone to England, followed me there, and had come upon me at last on the very morning of my second wedding.


sentence:
Then we had a talk as to what we should do, and Frank was all for openness, but I was so ashamed of it all that I felt as if I should like to vanish away and never see any of them again—just sending a line to pa, perhaps, to show him that I was alive.


sentence:
It was awful to me to think of all those lords and ladies sitting round that breakfast-table and waiting for me to come back.


sentence:
So Frank took my wedding-clothes and things and made a bundle of them, so that I should not be traced, and dropped them away somewhere where no one could find them.


sentence:
Holmes, came round to us this evening, though how he found us is more than I can think, and he showed us very clearly and kindly that I was wrong and that Frank was right, and that we should be putting ourselves in the wrong if we were so secret.


sentence:
Now, Robert, you have heard it all, and I am very sorry if I have given you pain, and I hope that you do not think very meanly of me.  Lord St.


sentence:
Simon had by no means relaxed his rigid attitude, but had listened with a frowning brow and a compressed lip to this long narrative.


sentence:
Excuse me, he said, but it is not my custom to discuss my most intimate personal affairs in this public manner.


sentence:
Then you won’t forgive me? You won’t shake hands before I go?  Oh, certainly, if it would give you any pleasure.


sentence:
I may be forced to acquiesce in these recent developments, but I can hardly be expected to make merry over them.


sentence:
Moulton, for I am one of those who believe that the folly of a monarch and the blundering of a minister in far-gone years will not prevent our children from being some day citizens of the same world-wide country under a flag which shall be a quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes.


sentence:
*       *       *       *       *  The case has been an interesting one, remarked Holmes, when our visitors had left us, because it serves to show very clearly how simple the explanation may be of an affair which at first sight seems to be almost inexplicable.


sentence:
Nothing could be more natural than the sequence of events as narrated by this lady, and nothing stranger than the result when viewed, for instance, by Mr.


sentence:
’]  You were not yourself at fault at all, then?  From the first, two facts were very obvious to me, the one that the lady had been quite willing to undergo the wedding ceremony, the other that she had repented of it within a few minutes of returning home.


sentence:
What could that something be? She could not have spoken to any one when she was out, for she had been in the company of the bridegroom.


sentence:
Had she seen some one, then? If she had, it must be some one from America, because she had spent so short a time in this country that she could hardly have allowed any one to acquire so deep an influence over her that the mere sight of him would induce her to change her plans so completely.


sentence:
You see we have already arrived, by a process of exclusion, at the idea that she might have seen an American.


sentence:
Then who could this American be, and why should he possess so much influence over her? It might be a lover; it might be a husband.


sentence:
When he told us of a man in a pew, of the change in the bride’s manner, of so transparent a device for obtaining a note as the dropping of a bouquet, of her resort to her confidential maid, and of her very significant allusion to claim-jumping—which in miners’ parlance means taking possession of that which another person has a prior claim to—the whole situation became absolutely clear.


sentence:
She had gone off with a man, and the man was either a lover or was a previous husband—the chances being in favor of the latter.


sentence:
And how in the world did you find them?  It might have been difficult, but friend Lestrade held information in his hands the value of which he did not himself know.


sentence:
The initials were of course of the highest importance, but more valuable still was it to know that within a week he had settled his bill at one of the most select London hotels.


sentence:
Eight shillings for a bed and eight-pence for a glass of sherry pointed to one of the most expensive hotels.


sentence:
In the second one which I visited in Northumberland Avenue, I learned by an inspection of the book that Francis H.


sentence:
Moulton, an American gentleman, had left only the day before, and on looking over the entries against him, I came upon the very items which I had seen in the duplicate bill.


sentence:
His letters were to be forwarded to 226 Gordon Square; so thither I travelled, and being fortunate enough to find the loving couple at home, I ventured to give them some paternal advice, and to point out to them that it would be better in every way that they should make their position a little clearer both to the general public and to Lord St. Simon in particular.


sentence:
Ah, Watson, said Holmes, smiling, perhaps you would not be very gracious either, if, after all the trouble of wooing and wedding, you found yourself deprived in an instant of wife and of fortune.


sentence:
Simon very mercifully, and thank our stars that we are never likely to find ourselves in the same position.


sentence:
Draw your chair up, and hand me my violin, for the only problem we have still to solve is how to while away these bleak autumnal evenings.


sentence:
Adventure XI  THE ADVENTURE OF THE BERYL CORONET   Holmes, said I, as I stood one morning in our bow-window looking down the street, here is a madman coming along.


sentence:
My friend rose lazily from his arm-chair and stood with his hands in the pockets of his dressing-gown, looking over my shoulder.


sentence:
It was a bright, crisp February morning, and the snow of the day before still lay deep upon the ground, shimmering brightly in the wintry sun.


sentence:
Down the centre of Baker Street it had been ploughed into a brown crumbly band by the traffic, but at either side and on the heaped-up edges of the foot-paths it still lay as white as when it fell.


sentence:
The gray pavement had been cleaned and scraped, but was still dangerously slippery, so that there were fewer passengers than usual.


sentence:
Indeed, from the direction of the Metropolitan Station no one was coming save the single gentleman whose eccentric conduct had drawn my attention.


sentence:
He was a man of about fifty, tall, portly, and imposing, with a massive, strongly marked face and a commanding figure.


sentence:
He was dressed in a sombre yet rich style, in black frock-coat, shining hat, neat brown gaiters, and well-cut pearl-gray trousers.


sentence:
Yet his actions were in absurd contrast to the dignity of his dress and features, for he was running hard, with occasional little springs, such as a weary man gives who is little accustomed to set any tax upon his legs.


sentence:
As he ran he jerked his hands up and down, waggled his head, and writhed his face into the most extraordinary contortions.


sentence:
Ha! did I not tell you? As he spoke, the man, puffing and blowing, rushed at our door and pulled at our bell until the whole house resounded with the clanging.


sentence:
A few moments later he was in our room, still puffing, still gesticulating, but with so fixed a look of grief and despair in his eyes that our smiles were turned in an instant to horror and pity.


sentence:
For a while he could not get his words out, but swayed his body and plucked at his hair like one who has been driven to the extreme limits of his reason.


sentence:
Then, suddenly springing to his feet, he beat his head against the wall with such force that we both rushed upon him and tore him away to the centre of the room.


sentence:
Sherlock Holmes pushed him down into the easy-chair, and, sitting beside him, patted his hand, and chatted with him in the easy, soothing tones which he knew so well how to employ.


sentence:
Pray wait until you have recovered yourself, and then I shall be most happy to look into any little problem which you may submit to me.


sentence:
Public disgrace I might have faced, although I am a man whose character has never yet borne a stain.


sentence:
Private affliction also is the lot of every man; but the two coming together, and in so frightful a form, have been enough to shake my very soul.


sentence:
Pray compose yourself, sir, said Holmes, and let me have a clear account of who you are, and what it is that has befallen you.


sentence:
The name was indeed well known to us as belonging to the senior partner in the second largest private banking concern in the City of London.


sentence:
What could have happened, then, to bring one of the foremost citizens of London to this most pitiable pass? We waited, all curiosity, until with another effort he braced himself to tell his story.


sentence:
I feel that time is of value, said he; that is why I hastened here when the police inspector suggested that I should secure your co-operation.


sentence:
I came to Baker Street by the Underground, and hurried from there on foot, for the cabs go slowly through this snow.


sentence:
It is, of course, well known to you that in a successful banking business as much depends upon our being able to find remunerative investments for our funds as upon our increasing our connection and the number of our depositors.


sentence:
One of our most lucrative means of laying out money is in the shape of loans, where the security is unimpeachable.


sentence:
We have done a good deal in this direction during the last few years, and there are many noble families to whom we have advanced large sums upon the security of their pictures, libraries, or plate.


sentence:
Yesterday morning I was seated in my office at the bank when a card was brought in to me by one of the clerks.


sentence:
I started when I saw the name, for it was that of none other than—well, perhaps even to you I had better say no more than that it was a name which is a household word all over the earth—one of the highest, noblest, most exalted names in England.


sentence:
I was overwhelmed by the honor, and attempted, when he entered, to say so, but he plunged at once into business with the air of a man who wishes to hurry quickly through a disagreeable task.  ‘Mr.


sentence:
I could of course borrow so trifling a sum ten times over from my friends, but I much prefer to make it a matter of business, and to carry out that business myself.


sentence:
‘Next Monday I have a large sum due to me, and I shall then most certainly repay what you advance, with whatever interest you think it right to charge.


sentence:
’  ‘I should be happy to advance it without further parley from my own private purse,’ said I, ‘were it not that the strain would be rather more than it could bear.


sentence:
If, on the other hand, I am to do it in the name of the firm, then in justice to my partner I must insist that, even in your case, every business-like precaution should be taken.


sentence:
’  ‘I should much prefer to have it so,’ said he, raising up a square, black morocco case which he had laid beside his chair.


sentence:
‘You have doubtless heard of the Beryl Coronet?’  ‘One of the most precious public possessions of the empire,’ said I.  ‘Precisely.


sentence:
’ He opened the case, and there, imbedded in soft, flesh-colored velvet, lay the magnificent piece of jewelry which he had named.


sentence:
‘There are thirty-nine enormous beryls,’ said he, ‘and the price of the gold chasing is incalculable.


sentence:
’  I took the precious case into my hands and looked in some perplexity from it to my illustrious client.


sentence:
I should not dream of doing so were it not absolutely certain that I should be able in four days to reclaim it.


sentence:
Holder, that I am giving you a strong proof of the confidence which I have in you, founded upon all that I have heard of you.


sentence:
I rely upon you not only to be discreet and to refrain from all gossip upon the matter, but, above all, to preserve this coronet with every possible precaution, because I need not say that a great public scandal would be caused if any harm were to befall it.


sentence:
Any injury to it would be almost as serious as its complete loss, for there are no beryls in the world to match these, and it would be impossible to replace them.


sentence:
I leave it with you, however, with every confidence, and I shall call for it in person on Monday morning.


sentence:
’  Seeing that my client was anxious to leave, I said no more; but, calling for my cashier, I ordered him to pay over fifty £1000 notes.


sentence:
When I was alone once more, however, with the precious case lying upon the table in front of me, I could not but think with some misgivings of the immense responsibility which it entailed upon me.


sentence:
There could be no doubt that, as it was a national possession, a horrible scandal would ensue if any misfortune should occur to it.


sentence:
However, it was too late to alter the matter now, so I locked it up in my private safe, and turned once more to my work.


sentence:
When evening came I felt that it would be an imprudence to leave so precious a thing in the office behind me.


sentence:
Bankers’ safes had been forced before now, and why should not mine be? If so, how terrible would be the position in which I should find myself! I determined, therefore, that for the next few days I would always carry the case backward and forward with me, so that it might never be really out of my reach.


sentence:
With this intention, I called a cab, and drove out to my house at Streatham, carrying the jewel with me.


sentence:
I did not breathe freely until I had taken it up-stairs and locked it in the bureau of my dressing-room.


sentence:
I have three maid-servants who have been with me a number of years, and whose absolute reliability is quite above suspicion.


sentence:
That is the only drawback which we have found to her, but we believe her to be a thoroughly good girl in every way.


sentence:
It was naturally my intention that he should succeed me in my business, but he was not of a business turn.


sentence:
He was wild, wayward, and, to speak the truth, I could not trust him in the handling of large sums of money.


sentence:
When he was young he became a member of an aristocratic club, and there, having charming manners, he was soon the intimate of a number of men with long purses and expensive habits.


sentence:
He learned to play heavily at cards and to squander money on the turf, until he had again and again to come to me and implore me to give him an advance upon his allowance, that he might settle his debts of honor.


sentence:
He tried more than once to break away from the dangerous company which he was keeping, but each time the influence of his friend Sir George Burnwell was enough to draw him back again.


sentence:
And, indeed, I could not wonder that such a man as Sir George Burnwell should gain an influence over him, for he has frequently brought him to my house, and I have found myself that I could hardly resist the fascination of his manner.


sentence:
He is older than Arthur, a man of the world to his finger-tips, one who had been everywhere, seen everything, a brilliant talker, and a man of great personal beauty.


sentence:
Yet when I think of him in cold blood, far away from the glamour of his presence, I am convinced from his cynical speech, and the look which I have caught in his eyes, that he is one who should be deeply distrusted.


sentence:
She is my niece; but when my brother died five years ago and left her alone in the world I adopted her, and have looked upon her ever since as my daughter.


sentence:
She is a sunbeam in my house—sweet, loving, beautiful, a wonderful manager and house-keeper, yet as tender and quiet and gentle as a woman could be.


sentence:
Twice my boy has asked her to marry him, for he loves her devotedly, but each time she has refused him.


sentence:
I think that if any one could have drawn him into the right path it would have been she, and that his marriage might have changed his whole life; but now, alas! it is too late—for ever too late!  Now, Mr.


sentence:
When we were taking coffee in the drawing-room that night, after dinner, I told Arthur and Mary my experience, and of the precious treasure which we had under our roof, suppressing only the name of my client.


sentence:
Lucy Parr, who had brought in the coffee, had, I am sure, left the room; but I cannot swear that the door was closed.


sentence:
Mary and Arthur were much interested, and wished to see the famous coronet, but I thought it better not to disturb it.


sentence:
‘Look here, dad,’ said he, with his eyes cast down, ‘can you let me have £200?’  ‘No, I cannot!’ I answered, sharply.


sentence:
’  ‘You have been very kind,’ said he: ‘but I must have this money, or else I can never show my face inside the club again.


sentence:
I must raise the money in some way, and if you will not let me have it, then I must try other means.


sentence:
‘You shall not have a farthing from me,’ I cried; on which he bowed and left the room without another word.


sentence:
Then I started to go round the house to see that all was secure—a duty which I usually leave to Mary, but which I thought it well to perform myself that night.


sentence:
As I came down the stairs I saw Mary herself at the side window of the hall, which she closed and fastened as I approached.


sentence:
‘Tell me, dad,’ said she, looking, I thought, a little disturbed, ‘did you give Lucy, the maid, leave to go out to-night?’  ‘Certainly not.


sentence:
I have no doubt that she has only been to the side gate to see some one; but I think that it is hardly safe, and should be stopped.


sentence:
Holmes, which may have any bearing upon the case, but I beg that you will question me upon any point which I do not make clear.


sentence:
I am not a very heavy sleeper, and the anxiety in my mind tended, no doubt, to make me even less so than usual.


sentence:
It had ceased ere I was wide awake, but it had left an impression behind it as though a window had gently closed somewhere.


sentence:
I slipped out of bed, all palpitating with fear, and peeped round the corner of my dressing-room door.


sentence:
‘Arthur!’ I screamed, ‘you villain! you thief! How dare you touch that coronet?’  The gas was half up, as I had left it, and my unhappy boy, dressed only in his shirt and trousers, was standing beside the light, holding the coronet in his hands.


sentence:
‘You have destroyed it! You have dishonored me for ever! Where are the jewels which you have stolen?’  ‘Stolen!’ he cried.


sentence:
Must I call you a liar as well as a thief? Did I not see you trying to tear off another piece?’  ‘You have called me names enough,’ said he; ‘I will not stand it any longer.


sentence:
’  ‘You shall learn nothing from me,’ said he, with a passion such as I should not have thought was in his nature.


sentence:
Mary was the first to rush into my room, and, at the sight of the coronet and of Arthur’s face, she read the whole story, and, with a scream, fell down senseless on the ground.


sentence:
When the inspector and a constable entered the house, Arthur, who had stood sullenly with his arms folded, asked me whether it was my intention to charge him with theft.


sentence:
I answered that it had ceased to be a private matter, but had become a public one, since the ruined coronet was national property.


sentence:
And then realizing the dreadful position in which I was placed, I implored him to remember that not only my honor, but that of one who was far greater than I was at stake; and that he threatened to raise a scandal which would convulse the nation.


sentence:
‘You may as well face the matter,’ said I; ‘you have been caught in the act, and no confession could make your guilt more heinous.


sentence:
If you but make such reparation as is in your power, by telling us where the beryls are, all shall be forgiven and forgotten.


sentence:
’  ‘Keep your forgiveness for those who ask for it,’ he answered, turning away from me, with a sneer.


sentence:
A search was made at once, not only of his person, but of his room, and of every portion of the house where he could possibly have concealed the gems; but no trace of them could be found, nor would the wretched boy open his mouth for all our persuasions and our threats.


sentence:
This morning he was removed to a cell, and I, after going through all the police formalities, have hurried round to you, to implore you to use your skill in unravelling the matter.


sentence:
Oh, what shall I do!  He put a hand on either side of his head, and rocked himself to and fro, droning to himself like a child whose grief has got beyond words.


sentence:
Sherlock Holmes sat silent for some few minutes, with his brows knitted and his eyes fixed upon the fire.


sentence:
You have neither of you any doubt as to your son’s guilt?  How can we have, when I saw him with my own eyes with the coronet in his hands.


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Do you not think, then, that he might have been trying to straighten it?  God bless you! You are doing what you can for him and for me.


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What did the police think of the noise which awoke you from your sleep?  They considered that it might be caused by Arthur’s closing his bedroom door.


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What did they say, then, of the disappearance of these gems?  They are still sounding the planking and probing the furniture in the hope of finding them.


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Now, my dear sir, said Holmes, is it not obvious to you now that this matter really strikes very much deeper than either you or the police were at first inclined to think? It appeared to you to be a simple case; to me it seems exceedingly complex.


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You suppose that your son came down from his bed, went, at great risk, to your dressing-room, opened your bureau, took out your coronet, broke off by main force a small portion of it, went off to some other place, concealed three gems out of the thirty-nine, with such skill that nobody can find them, and then returned with the other thirty-six into the room in which he exposed himself to the greatest danger of being discovered.


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I ask you now, is such a theory tenable?  But what other is there? cried the banker, with a gesture of despair.


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If his motives were innocent, why does he not explain them?  It is our task to find that out, replied Holmes; so now, if you please, Mr.


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Holder, we will set off for Streatham together, and devote an hour to glancing a little more closely into details.


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My friend insisted upon my accompanying them in their expedition, which I was eager enough to do, for my curiosity and sympathy were deeply stirred by the story to which we had listened.


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I confess that the guilt of the banker’s son appeared to me to be as obvious as it did to his unhappy father, but still I had such faith in Holmes’s judgment that I felt that there must be some grounds for hope as long as he was dissatisfied with the accepted explanation.


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He hardly spoke a word the whole way out to the southern suburb, but sat with his chin upon his breast and his hat drawn over his eyes, sunk in the deepest thought.


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Our client appeared to have taken fresh heart at the little glimpse of hope which had been presented to him, and he even broke into a desultory chat with me over his business affairs.


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A short railway journey and a shorter walk brought us to Fairbank, the modest residence of the great financier.


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A double carriage-sweep, with a snow-clad lawn, stretched down in front to two large iron gates which closed the entrance.


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On the right side was a small wooden thicket, which led into a narrow path between two neat hedges stretching from the road to the kitchen door, and forming the tradesmen’s entrance.


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On the left ran a lane which led to the stables, and was not itself within the grounds at all, being a public, though little used, thoroughfare.


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Holmes left us standing at the door, and walked slowly all round the house, across the front, down the tradesmen’s path, and so round by the garden behind into the stable lane.


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She was rather above the middle height, slim, with dark hair and eyes, which seemed the darker against the absolute pallor of her skin.


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As she swept silently into the room she impressed me with a greater sense of grief than the banker had done in the morning, and it was the more striking in her as she was evidently a woman of strong character, with immense capacity for self-restraint.


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Disregarding my presence, she went straight to her uncle, and passed her hand over his head with a sweet womanly caress.


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Why is he silent, then, if he is innocent?  Who knows? Perhaps because he was so angry that you should suspect him.


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How could I help suspecting him, when I actually saw him with the coronet in his hand?  Oh, but he had only picked it up to look at it.


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It is so dreadful to think of our dear Arthur in prison!  I shall never let it drop until the gems are found—never, Mary! Your affection for Arthur blinds you as to the awful consequences to me.


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Far from hushing the thing up, I have brought a gentleman down from London to inquire more deeply into it.


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I trust, sir, that you will succeed in proving, what I feel sure is the truth, that my cousin Arthur is innocent of this crime.


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I fully share your opinion, and I trust, with you, that we may prove it, returned Holmes, going back to the mat to knock the snow from his shoes.


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You have a maid who has a sweetheart? I think that you remarked to your uncle last night that she had been out to see him?  Yes, and she was the girl who waited in the drawing-room, and who may have heard uncle’s remarks about the coronet.  I see.


sentence:
You infer that she may have gone out to tell her sweetheart, and that the two may have planned the robbery.


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But what is the good of all these vague theories, cried the banker, impatiently, when I have told you that I saw Arthur with the coronet in his hands?  Wait a little, Mr. Holder.


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You saw her return by the kitchen door, I presume?  Yes; when I went to see if the door was fastened for the night I met her slipping in.


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He stood, said Holmes, to the left of the door—that is to say, farther up the path than is necessary to reach the door?  Yes, he did.


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And he is a man with a wooden leg?  Something like fear sprang up in the young lady’s expressive black eyes.


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He walked swiftly round from one to the other, pausing only at the large one which looked from the hall onto the stable lane.


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The banker’s dressing-room was a plainly furnished little chamber, with a gray carpet, a large bureau, and a long mirror.


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It was a magnificent specimen of the jeweller’s art, and the thirty-six stones were the finest that I have ever seen.


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At one side of the coronet was a cracked edge, where a corner holding three gems had been torn away.  Now, Mr.


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Holder, said Holmes, here is the corner which corresponds to that which has been so unfortunately lost.


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I feel it give a little, said he; but, though I am exceptionally strong in the fingers, it would take me all my time to break it.


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Do you tell me that all this happened within a few yards of your bed, and that you heard nothing of it?  I do not know what to think.


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Your son had no shoes or slippers on when you saw him?  He had nothing on save only his trousers and shirt.  Thank you.


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We have certainly been favored with extraordinary luck during this inquiry, and it will be entirely our own fault if we do not succeed in clearing the matter up.


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He went alone, at his own request, for he explained that any unnecessary footmarks might make his task more difficult.


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For an hour or more he was at work, returning at last with his feet heavy with snow and his features as inscrutable as ever.


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Then, for God’s sake, what was this dark business which was acted in my house last night?  If you can call upon me at my Baker Street rooms to-morrow morning between nine and ten I shall be happy to do what I can to make it clearer.


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I understand that you give me _carte blanche_ to act for you, provided only that I get back the gems, and that you place no limit on the sum I may draw.


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It was obvious to me that my companion’s mind was now made up about the case, although what his conclusions were was more than I could even dimly imagine.


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Several times during our homeward journey I endeavored to sound him upon the point, but he always glided away to some other topic, until at last I gave it over in despair.


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With his collar turned up, his shiny, seedy coat, his red cravat, and his worn boots, he was a perfect sample of the class.


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I may be on the trail in this matter, or I may be following a will-of-the-wisp, but I shall soon know which it is.


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He cut a slice of beef from the joint upon the sideboard, sandwiched it between two rounds of bread, and, thrusting this rude meal into his pocket, he started off upon his expedition.


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I had just finished my tea when he returned, evidently in excellent spirits, swinging an old elastic-sided boot in his hand.


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However, I must not sit gossiping here, but must get these disreputable clothes off and return to my highly respectable self.


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I could see by his manner that he had stronger reasons for satisfaction than his words alone would imply.


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He hastened up-stairs, and a few minutes later I heard the slam of the hall door, which told me that he was off once more upon his congenial hunt.


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It was no uncommon thing for him to be away for days and nights on end when he was hot upon a scent, so that his lateness caused me no surprise.


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I do not know at what hour he came in, but when I came down to breakfast in the morning, there he was with a cup of coffee in one hand and the paper in the other, as fresh and trim as possible.


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You will excuse my beginning without you, Watson, said he; but you remember that our client has rather an early appointment this morning.


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I was shocked by the change which had come over him, for his face, which was naturally of a broad and massive mould, was now pinched and fallen in, while his hair seemed to me at least a shade whiter.


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He entered with a weariness and lethargy which was even more painful than his violence of the morning before, and he dropped heavily into the arm-chair which I pushed forward for him.


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Her bed this morning had not been slept in, her room was empty, and a note for me lay upon the hall table.


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I had said to her last night, in sorrow and not in anger, that if she had married my boy all might have been well with him.


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It is to that remark that she refers in this note:    ‘MY DEAREST UNCLE,—I feel that I have brought trouble   upon you, and that if I had acted differently this terrible   misfortune might never have occurred.


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I cannot, with this   thought in my mind, ever again be happy under your roof, and   I feel that I must leave you for ever.


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Do not worry about my   future, for that is provided for; and, above all, do not search   for me, for it will be fruitless labor and an ill-service to   me.


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Holmes; you have learned something! Where are the gems?  You would not think £1000 apiece an excessive sum for them?  I would pay ten.


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Holmes walked over to his desk, took out a little triangular piece of gold with three gems in it, and threw it down upon the table.


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I am saved! I am saved!  The reaction of joy was as passionate as his grief had been, and he hugged his recovered gems to his bosom.


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You owe a very humble apology to that noble lad, your son, who has carried himself in this matter as I should be proud to see my own son do, should I ever chance to have one.


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When I had cleared it all up I had an interview with him, and, finding that he would not tell me the story, I told it to him, on which he had to confess that I was right, and to add the very few details which were not yet quite clear to me.


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For Heaven’s sake, tell me, then, what is this extraordinary mystery!  I will do so, and I will show you the steps by which I reached it.


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And let me say to you, first, that which it is hardest for me to say and for you to hear: there has been an understanding between Sir George Burnwell and your niece Mary.


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Neither you nor your son knew the true character of this man when you admitted him into your family circle.


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He is one of the most dangerous men in England—a ruined gambler, an absolutely desperate villain, a man without heart or conscience.


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When he breathed his vows to her, as he had done to a hundred before her, she flattered herself that she alone had touched his heart.


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The devil knows best what he said, but at least she became his tool, and was in the habit of seeing him nearly every evening.


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Your niece, when you had, as she thought, gone to your room, slipped down and talked to her lover through the window which leads into the stable lane.


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I have no doubt that she loved you, but there are women in whom the love of a lover extinguishes all other loves, and I think that she must have been one.


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She had hardly listened to his instructions when she saw you coming down-stairs, on which she closed the window rapidly, and told you about one of the servants’ escapade with her wooden-legged lover, which was all perfectly true.


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Your boy, Arthur, went to bed after his interview with you, but he slept badly on account of his uneasiness about his club debts.


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In the middle of the night he heard a soft tread pass his door, so he rose, and looking out, was surprised to see his cousin walking very stealthily along the passage, until she disappeared into your dressing-room.


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Petrified with astonishment, the lad slipped on some clothes, and waited there in the dark to see what would come of this strange affair.


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Presently she emerged from the room again, and in the light of the passage-lamp your son saw that she carried the precious coronet in her hands.


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She passed down the stairs, and he, thrilling with horror, ran along and slipped behind the curtain near your door, whence he could see what passed in the hall beneath.


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He saw her stealthily open the window, hand out the coronet to some one in the gloom, and then closing it once more hurry back to her room, passing quite close to where he stood hid behind the curtain.


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As long as she was on the scene he could not take any action without a horrible exposure of the woman whom he loved.


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But the instant that she was gone he realized how crushing a misfortune this would be for you, and how all-important it was to set it right.


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He rushed down, just as he was, in his bare feet, opened the window, sprang out into the snow, and ran down the lane, where he could see a dark figure in the moonlight.


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Sir George Burnwell tried to get away, but Arthur caught him, and there was a struggle between them, your lad tugging at one side of the coronet, and his opponent at the other.


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Then something suddenly snapped, and your son, finding that he had the coronet in his hands, rushed back, closed the window, ascended to your room, and had just observed that the coronet had been twisted in the struggle, and was endeavoring to straighten it when you appeared upon the scene.


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You then roused his anger by calling him names at a moment when he felt that he had deserved your warmest thanks.


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He could not explain the true state of affairs without betraying one who certainly deserved little enough consideration at his hands.


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Oh, my God! what a blind fool I have been! And his asking to be allowed to go out for five minutes! The dear fellow wanted to see if the missing piece were at the scene of the struggle.


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How cruelly I have misjudged him!  When I arrived at the house, continued Holmes, I at once went very carefully round it to observe if there were any traces in the snow which might help me.


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I knew that none had fallen since the evening before, and also that there had been a strong frost to preserve impressions.


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Just beyond it, however, at the far side of the kitchen door, a woman had stood and talked with a man, whose round impressions on one side showed that he had a wooden leg.


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I could even tell that they had been disturbed, for the woman had run back swiftly to the door, as was shown by the deep toe and light heel marks, while Wooden-leg had waited a little, and then had gone away.


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I thought at the time that this might be the maid and her sweetheart, of whom you had already spoken to me, and inquiry showed it was so.


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I passed round the garden without seeing anything more than random tracks, which I took to be the police; but when I got into the stable lane a very long and complex story was written in the snow in front of me.


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There was a double line of tracks of a booted man, and a second double line which I saw with delight belonged to a man with naked feet.


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The first had walked both ways, but the other had run swiftly, and, as his tread was marked in places over the depression of the boot, it was obvious that he had passed after the other.


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I followed them up, and found that they led to the hall window, where Boots had worn all the snow away while waiting.


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I saw where Boots had faced round, where the snow was cut up as though there had been a struggle, and, finally, where a few drops of blood had fallen, to show me that I was not mistaken.


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Boots had then run down the lane, and another little smudge of blood showed that it was he who had been hurt.


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When he came to the high-road at the other end, I found that the pavement had been cleared, so there was an end to that clew.


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On entering the house, however, I examined, as you remember, the sill and framework of the hall window with my lens, and I could at once see that some one had passed out.


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A man had waited outside the window, some one had brought the gems; the deed had been overseen by your son, he had pursued the thief, had struggled with him, they had each tugged at the coronet, their united strength causing injuries which neither alone could have effected.


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He had returned with the prize, but had left a fragment in the grasp of his opponent. So far I was clear.


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The question now was, who was the man, and who was it brought him the coronet?  It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.


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Now, I knew that it was not you who had brought it down, so there only remained your niece and the maids.


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But if it were the maids, why should your son allow himself to be accused in their place? There could be no possible reason.


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As he loved his cousin, however, there was an excellent explanation why he should retain her secret—the more so as the secret was a disgraceful one.


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When I remembered that you had seen her at that window, and how she had fainted on seeing the coronet again, my conjecture became a certainty.


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And who could it be who was her confederate? A lover evidently, for who else could outweigh the love and gratitude which she must feel to you? I knew that you went out little, and that your circle of friends was a very limited one.


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Even though he knew that Arthur had discovered him, he might still flatter himself that he was safe, for the lad could not say a word without compromising his own family.


sentence:
I went in the shape of a loafer to Sir George’s house, managed to pick up an acquaintance with his valet, learned that his master had cut his head the night before, and, finally, at the expense of six shillings, made all sure by buying a pair of his cast-off shoes.


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[Illustration: I CLAPPED A PISTOL TO HIS HEAD]  I saw an ill-dressed vagabond in the lane yesterday evening, said Mr. Holder.  Precisely. It was I.


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It was a delicate part which I had to play then, for I saw that a prosecution must be avoided to avert scandal, and I knew that so astute a villain would see that our hands were tied in the matter. I went and saw him.


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But when I gave him every particular that had occurred, he tried to bluster, and took down a life-preserver from the wall.


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‘Why, dash it all!’ said he, ‘I’ve let them go at six hundred for the three!’ I soon managed to get the address of the receiver who had them, on promising him that there would be no prosecution.


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Then I looked in upon your son, told him that all was right, and eventually got to my bed about two o’clock, after what I may call a really hard day’s work.


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It is equally certain, too, that whatever her sins are, they will soon receive a more than sufficient punishment.


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Adventure XII  THE ADVENTURE OF THE COPPER BEECHES   To the man who loves art for its own sake, remarked Sherlock Holmes, tossing aside the advertisement sheet of _The Daily Telegraph_, it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived.


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It is pleasant to me to observe, Watson, that you have so far grasped this truth that in these little records of our cases which you have been good enough to draw up, and, I am bound to say, occasionally to embellish, you have given prominence not so much to the many _causes célèbres_ and sensational trials in which I have figured, but rather to those incidents which may have been trivial in themselves, but which have given room for those faculties of deduction and of logical synthesis which I have made my special province.


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And yet, said I, smiling, I cannot quite hold myself absolved from the charge of sensationalism which has been urged against my records.


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You have erred, perhaps, he observed, taking up a glowing cinder with the tongs, and lighting with it the long cherry-wood pipe which was wont to replace his clay when he was in a disputatious, rather than a meditative mood—you have erred perhaps in attempting to put color and life into each of your statements, instead of confining yourself to the task of placing upon record that severe reasoning from cause to effect which is really the only notable feature about the thing.


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It seems to me that I have done you full justice in the matter, I remarked, with some coldness, for I was repelled by the egotism which I had more than once observed to be a strong factor in my friend’s singular character.


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No, it is not selfishness or conceit, said he, answering, as was his wont, my thoughts rather than my words.


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If I claim full justice for my art, it is because it is an impersonal thing—a thing beyond myself. Crime is common. Logic is rare.


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It was a cold morning of the early spring, and we sat after breakfast on either side of a cheery fire in the old room at Baker Street.


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A thick fog rolled down between the lines of dun-colored houses, and the opposing windows loomed like dark, shapeless blurs through the heavy yellow wreaths.


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Our gas was lit, and shone on the white cloth and glimmer of china and metal, for the table had not been cleared yet.


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Sherlock Holmes had been silent all the morning, dipping continuously into the advertisement columns of a succession of papers, until at last, having apparently given up his search, he had emerged in no very sweet temper to lecture me upon my literary shortcomings.


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At the same time, he remarked, after a pause, during which he had sat puffing at his long pipe and gazing down into the fire, you can hardly be open to a charge of sensationalism, for out of these cases which you have been so kind as to interest yourself in, a fair proportion do not treat of crime, in its legal sense, at all.


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The small matter in which I endeavored to help the King of Bohemia, the singular experience of Miss Mary Sutherland, the problem connected with the man with the twisted lip, and the incident of the noble bachelor, were all matters which are outside the pale of the law.


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Pshaw, my dear fellow, what do the public, the great unobservant public, who could hardly tell a weaver by his tooth or a compositor by his left thumb, care about the finer shades of analysis and deduction! But, indeed, if you are trivial, I cannot blame you, for the days of the great cases are past.


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As to my own little practice, it seems to be degenerating into an agency for recovering lost lead pencils and giving advice to young ladies from boarding-schools.


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HOLMES,—I am very anxious to consult you as   to whether I should or should not accept a situation which has   been offered to me as governess.


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You remember that the affair of the blue carbuncle, which appeared to be a mere whim at first, developed into a serious investigation.


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But our doubts will very soon be solved, for here, unless I am much mistaken, is the person in question.


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She was plainly but neatly dressed, with a bright, quick face, freckled like a plover’s egg, and with the brisk manner of a woman who has had her own way to make in the world.


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You will excuse my troubling you, I am sure, said she, as my companion rose to greet her; but I have had a very strange experience, and as I have no parents or relations of any sort from whom I could ask advice, I thought that perhaps you would be kind enough to tell me what I should do.


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He looked her over in his searching fashion, and then composed himself, with his lids drooping and his finger tips together, to listen to her story.


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I have been a governess for five years, said she, in the family of Colonel Spence Munro, but two months ago the colonel received an appointment at Halifax, in Nova Scotia, and took his children over to America with him, so that I found myself without a situation.


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At last the little money which I had saved began to run short, and I was at my wits’ end as to what I should do.


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There is a well-known agency for governesses in the West End called Westaway’s, and there I used to call about once a week in order to see whether anything had turned up which might suit me.


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She sits in her own little office, and the ladies who are seeking employment wait in an ante-room, and are then shown in one by one, when she consults her ledgers, and sees whether she has anything which would suit them.


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Well, when I called last week I was shown into the little office as usual, but I found that Miss Stoper was not alone.


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A prodigiously stout man with a very smiling face, and a great heavy chin which rolled down in fold upon fold over his throat, sat at her elbow with a pair of glasses on his nose, looking very earnestly at the ladies who entered.


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As I came in he gave quite a jump in his chair, and turned quickly to Miss Stoper:  ‘That will do,’ said he; ‘I could not ask for anything better.


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Capital! capital!’ He seemed quite enthusiastic, and rubbed his hands together in the most genial fashion.


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’  ‘Oh, tut, tut! sweating—rank sweating!’ he cried, throwing his fat hands out into the air like a man who is in a boiling passion.


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‘How could any one offer so pitiful a sum to a lady with such attractions and accomplishments?’  ‘My accomplishments, sir, may be less than you imagine,’ said I.


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The point is, have you or have you not the bearing and deportment of a lady? There it is in a nutshell.


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If you have not, you are not fitted for the rearing of a child who may some day play a considerable part in the history of the country.


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But if you have, why, then, how could any gentleman ask you to condescend to accept anything under the three figures? Your salary with me, madam, would commence at £100 a year.


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The gentleman, however, seeing perhaps the look of incredulity upon my face, opened a pocket-book and took out a note.


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‘It is also my custom,’ said he, smiling in the most pleasant fashion until his eyes were just two little shining slits amid the white creases of his face, ‘to advance to my young ladies half their salary beforehand, so that they may meet any little expenses of their journey and their wardrobe.


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As I was already in debt to my tradesmen, the advance was a great convenience, and yet there was something unnatural about the whole transaction which made me wish to know a little more before I quite committed myself.


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Oh, if you could see him killing cockroaches with a slipper! Smack! smack! smack! Three gone before you could wink!’ He leaned back in his chair and laughed his eyes into his head again.


sentence:
I was a little startled at the nature of the child’s amusement, but the father’s laughter made me think that perhaps he was joking.


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‘My sole duties, then,’ I asked, ‘are to take charge of a single child?’  ‘No, no, not the sole, not the sole, my dear young lady,’ he cried.


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‘Your duty would be, as I am sure your good sense would suggest, to obey any little commands my wife might give, provided always that they were such commands as a lady might with propriety obey.


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If you were asked to wear any dress which we might give you, you would not object to our little whim.


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He had been watching me eagerly out of his small eyes, and I could see a shadow pass over his face as I spoke.


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‘It is a little fancy of my wife’s, and ladies’ fancies, you know, madam, ladies’ fancies must be consulted.


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’  The manageress had sat all this while busy with her papers without a word to either of us, but she glanced at me now with so much annoyance upon her face that I could not help suspecting that she had lost a handsome commission through my refusal.


sentence:
’  ‘Well, really, it seems rather useless, since you refuse the most excellent offers in this fashion,’ said she, sharply.


sentence:
Holmes, when I got back to my lodgings and found little enough in the cupboard, and two or three bills upon the table, I began to ask myself whether I had not done a very foolish thing.


sentence:
After all, if these people had strange fads, and expected obedience on the most extraordinary matters, they were at least ready to pay for their eccentricity.


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Besides, what use was my hair to me? Many people are improved by wearing it short, and perhaps I should be among the number.


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I had almost overcome my pride, so far as to go back to the agency and inquire whether the place was still open, when I received this letter from the gentleman himself.


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‘DEAR MISS HUNTER,—Miss Stoper has very kindly given me your     address, and I write from here to ask you whether you have     reconsidered your decision.


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My wife is very anxious that you     should come, for she has been much attracted by my description     of you.


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We are willing to give £30 a quarter, or £120 a year, so     as to recompense you for any little inconvenience which our fads     may cause you.


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My wife     is fond of a particular shade of electric blue, and would like     you to wear such a dress in-doors in the morning.


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You need not,     however, go to the expense of purchasing one, as we have one     belonging to my dear daughter Alice (now in Philadelphia), which     would, I should think, fit you very well.


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Then, as to sitting     here or there, or amusing yourself in any manner indicated, that     need cause you no inconvenience.


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As regards your hair, it is     no doubt a pity, especially as I could not help remarking its     beauty during our short interview, but I am afraid that I must     remain firm upon this point, and I only hope that the increased     salary may recompense you for the loss.


sentence:
I thought, however, that before taking the final step I should like to submit the whole matter to your consideration.


sentence:
But you would not advise me to refuse?  I confess that it is not the situation which I should like to see a sister of mine apply for.


sentence:
Perhaps you have yourself formed some opinion?  Well, there seems to me to be only one possible solution. Mr.


sentence:
Is it not possible that his wife is a lunatic, that he desires to keep the matter quiet for fear she should be taken to an asylum, and that he humors her fancies in every way in order to prevent an outbreak.


sentence:
Why should they give you £120 a year, when they could have their pick for £40? There must be some strong reason behind.


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I thought that if I told you the circumstances you would understand afterwards if I wanted your help.


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I assure you that your little problem promises to be the most interesting which has come my way for some months.


sentence:
If you should find yourself in doubt or in danger—  Danger! What danger do you foresee?  Holmes shook his head gravely.


sentence:
At least, said I, as we heard her quick, firm step descending the stairs, she seems to be a young lady who is very well able to take care of herself.


sentence:
And she would need to be, said Holmes, gravely; I am much mistaken if we do not hear from her before many days are past.


sentence:
A fortnight went by, during which I frequently found my thoughts turning in her direction, and wondering what strange side-alley of human experience this lonely woman had strayed into.


sentence:
The unusual salary, the curious conditions, the light duties, all pointed to something abnormal, though whether a fad or a plot, or whether the man were a philanthropist or a villain, it was quite beyond my powers to determine.


sentence:
As to Holmes, I observed that he sat frequently for half an hour on end, with knitted brows and an abstracted air, but he swept the matter away with a wave of his hand when I mentioned it.


sentence:
And yet he would always wind up by muttering that no sister of his should ever have accepted such a situation.


sentence:
The telegram which we eventually received came late one night, just as I was thinking of turning in, and Holmes was settling down to one of those all-night chemical researches which he frequently indulged in, when I would leave him stooping over a retort and a test-tube at night, and find him in the same position when I came down to breakfast in the morning.


sentence:
Then perhaps I had better postpone my analysis of the acetones, as we may need to be at our best in the morning.


sentence:
*       *       *       *       *  By eleven o’clock the next day we were well upon our way to the old English capital.


sentence:
Holmes had been buried in the morning papers all the way down, but after we had passed the Hampshire border he threw them down, and began to admire the scenery.


sentence:
It was an ideal spring day, a light blue sky, flecked with little fleecy white clouds drifting across from west to east.


sentence:
The sun was shining very brightly, and yet there was an exhilarating nip in the air, which set an edge to a man’s energy.


sentence:
All over the country-side, away to the rolling hills around Aldershot, the little red and gray roofs of the farm-steadings peeped out from amid the light green of the new foliage.


sentence:
Are they not fresh and beautiful? I cried, with all the enthusiasm of a man fresh from the fogs of Baker Street.


sentence:
Do you know, Watson, said he, that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject.


sentence:
I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.


sentence:
Who would associate crime with these dear old homesteads?  They always fill me with a certain horror.


sentence:
It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful country-side.


sentence:
There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbors, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock.


sentence:
But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law.


sentence:
Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.


sentence:
Had this lady who appeals to us for help gone to live in Winchester, I should never have had a fear for her.


sentence:
What _can_ be the matter, then? Can you suggest no explanation?  I have devised seven separate explanations, each of which would cover the facts as far as we know them.


sentence:
But which of these is correct can only be determined by the fresh information which we shall no doubt find waiting for us.


sentence:
Well, there is the tower of the cathedral, and we shall soon learn all that Miss Hunter has to tell.


sentence:
The Black Swan is an inn of repute in the High Street, at no distance from the station, and there we found the young lady waiting for us.


sentence:
In the first place, I may say that I have met, on the whole, with no actual ill-treatment from Mr. and Mrs. Rucastle.


sentence:
It is, as he said, beautifully situated, but it is not beautiful in itself, for it is a large square block of a house, whitewashed, but all stained and streaked with damp and bad weather.


sentence:
There are grounds round it, woods on three sides, and on the fourth a field which slopes down to the Southampton high-road, which curves past about a hundred yards from the front door.


sentence:
This ground in front belongs to the house, but the woods all round are part of Lord Southerton’s preserves.


sentence:
[Illustration: ‘I AM SO DELIGHTED THAT YOU HAVE COME’]  I was driven over by my employer, who was as amiable as ever, and was introduced by him that evening to his wife and the child.


sentence:
Holmes, in the conjecture which seemed to us to be probable in your rooms at Baker Street. Mrs. Rucastle is not mad.


sentence:
I found her to be a silent, pale-faced woman, much younger than her husband, not more than thirty, I should think, while he can hardly be less than forty-five.


sentence:
From their conversation I have gathered that they have been married about seven years, that he was a widower, and that his only child by the first wife was the daughter who has gone to Philadelphia. Mr.


sentence:
Rucastle told me in private that the reason why she had left them was that she had an unreasoning aversion to her step-mother.


sentence:
As the daughter could not have been less than twenty, I can quite imagine that her position must have been uncomfortable with her father’s young wife.  Mrs.


sentence:
Her light gray eyes wandered continually from one to the other, noting every little want and forestalling it if possible.


sentence:
He was kind to her also in his bluff, boisterous fashion, and on the whole they seemed to be a happy couple.


sentence:
I have thought sometimes that it was the disposition of her child which weighed upon her mind, for I have never met so utterly spoilt and so ill-natured a little creature.


sentence:
His whole life appears to be spent in an alternation between savage fits of passion and gloomy intervals of sulking.


sentence:
Giving pain to any creature weaker than himself seems to be his one idea of amusement, and he shows quite remarkable talent in planning the capture of mice, little birds, and insects.


sentence:
The one unpleasant thing about the house, which struck me at once, was the appearance and conduct of the servants.


sentence:
Toller, for that is his name, is a rough, uncouth man, with grizzled hair and whiskers, and a perpetual smell of drink.


sentence:
They are a most unpleasant couple, but fortunately I spend most of my time in the nursery and my own room, which are next to each other in one corner of the building.


sentence:
‘Oh yes,’ said he, turning to me; ‘we are very much obliged to you, Miss Hunter, for falling in with our whims so far as to cut your hair.


sentence:
You will find it laid out upon the bed in your room, and if you would be so good as to put it on we should both be extremely obliged.


sentence:
It was of excellent material, a sort of beige, but it bore unmistakable signs of having been worn before.


sentence:
They were waiting for me in the drawing-room, which is a very large room, stretching along the entire front of the house, with three long windows reaching down to the floor.


sentence:
Rucastle, walking up and down on the other side of the room, began to tell me a series of the funniest stories that I have ever listened to.


sentence:
Rucastle, however, who has evidently no sense of humor, never so much as smiled, but sat with her hands in her lap, and a sad, anxious look upon her face.


sentence:
Rucastle suddenly remarked that it was time to commence the duties of the day, and that I might change my dress and go to little Edward in the nursery.


sentence:
Again I changed my dress, again I sat in the window, and again I laughed very heartily at the funny stories of which my employer had an immense _répertoire_, and which he told inimitably.


sentence:
Then he handed me a yellow-backed novel, and, moving my chair a little sideways, that my own shadow might not fall upon the page, he begged me to read aloud to him.


sentence:
I read for about ten minutes, beginning in the heart of a chapter, and then suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, he ordered me to cease and to change my dress.


sentence:
Holmes, how curious I became as to what the meaning of this extraordinary performance could possibly be.


sentence:
They were always very careful, I observed, to turn my face away from the window, so that I became consumed with the desire to see what was going on behind my back.


sentence:
My hand-mirror had been broken, so a happy thought seized me, and I concealed a piece of the glass in my handkerchief.


sentence:
On the next occasion, in the midst of my laughter, I put my handkerchief up to my eyes, and was able with a little management to see all that there was behind me.


sentence:
At the second glance, however, I perceived that there was a man standing in the Southampton Road, a small bearded man in a gray suit, who seemed to be looking in my direction.


sentence:
This man, however, was leaning against the railings which bordered our field, and was looking earnestly up.


sentence:
She said nothing, but I am convinced that she had divined that I had a mirror in my hand, and had seen what was behind me. She rose at once.


sentence:
‘Jephro,’ said she, ‘there is an impertinent fellow upon the road there who stares up at Miss Hunter.


sentence:
That was a week ago, and from that time I have not sat again in the window, nor have I worn the blue dress, nor seen the man in the road.


sentence:
You will find it rather disconnected, I fear, and there may prove to be little relation between the different incidents of which I speak.


sentence:
As we approached it I heard the sharp rattling of a chain, and the sound as of a large animal moving about.


sentence:
‘Is he not a beauty?’  I looked through, and was conscious of two glowing eyes, and of a vague figure huddled up in the darkness.


sentence:
For goodness’ sake don’t you ever on any pretext set your foot over the threshold at night, for it is as much as your life is worth.


sentence:
’  The warning was no idle one, for two nights later I happened to look out of my bedroom window about two o’clock in the morning.


sentence:
It was a beautiful moonlight night, and the lawn in front of the house was silvered over and almost as bright as day.


sentence:
I was standing, rapt in the peaceful beauty of the scene, when I was aware that something was moving under the shadow of the copper beeches.


sentence:
It was a giant dog, as large as a calf, tawny tinted, with hanging jowl, black muzzle, and huge projecting bones.


sentence:
That dreadful silent sentinel sent a chill to my heart which I do not think that any burglar could have done.


sentence:
I had, as you know, cut off my hair in London, and I had placed it in a great coil at the bottom of my trunk.


sentence:
One evening, after the child was in bed, I began to amuse myself by examining the furniture of my room and by rearranging my own little things.


sentence:
There was an old chest of drawers in the room, the two upper ones empty and open, the lower one locked.


sentence:
I had filled the first two with my linen, and, as I had still much to pack away, I was naturally annoyed at not having the use of the third drawer.


sentence:
It struck me that it might have been fastened by a mere oversight, so I took out my bunch of keys and tried to open it.


sentence:
How _could_ my hair have been locked in the drawer? With trembling hands I undid my trunk, turned out the contents, and drew from the bottom my own hair.


sentence:
I returned the strange hair to the drawer, and I said nothing of the matter to the Rucastles, as I felt that I had put myself in the wrong by opening a drawer which they had locked.


sentence:
A door which faced that which led into the quarters of the Tollers opened into this suite, but it was invariably locked.


sentence:
Rucastle coming out through this door, his keys in his hand, and a look on his face which made him a very different person to the round, jovial man to whom I was accustomed.


sentence:
His cheeks were red, his brow was all crinkled with anger, and the veins stood out at his temples with passion.


sentence:
This aroused my curiosity; so when I went out for a walk in the grounds with my charge, I strolled round to the side from which I could see the windows of this part of the house.


sentence:
There were four of them in a row, three of which were simply dirty, while the fourth was shuttered up.


sentence:
‘By-the-way,’ said I, ‘you seem to have quite a suite of spare rooms up there, and one of them has the shutters up.


sentence:
Who would have believed it? Who would have ever believed it?’ He spoke in a jesting tone, but there was no jest in his eyes as he looked at me.


sentence:
Holmes, from the moment that I understood that there was something about that suite of rooms which I was not to know, I was all on fire to go over them.


sentence:
It was more a feeling of duty—a feeling that some good might come from my penetrating to this place.


sentence:
At any rate, it was there, and I was keenly on the lookout for any chance to pass the forbidden door.


sentence:
Rucastle, both Toller and his wife find something to do in these deserted rooms, and I once saw him carrying a large black linen bag with him through the door.


sentence:
Recently he has been drinking hard, and yesterday evening he was very drunk; and, when I came up-stairs, there was the key in the door.


sentence:
Rucastle were both down-stairs, and the child was with them, so that I had an admirable opportunity.


sentence:
There was a little passage in front of me, unpapered and uncarpeted, which turned at a right angle at the farther end.


sentence:
They each led into an empty room, dusty and cheerless, with two windows in the one and one in the other, so thick with dirt that the evening light glimmered dimly through them.


sentence:
The centre door was closed, and across the outside of it had been fastened one of the broad bars of an iron bed, padlocked at one end to a ring in the wall, and fastened at the other with stout cord.


sentence:
This barricaded door corresponded clearly with the shuttered window outside, and yet I could see by the glimmer from beneath it that the room was not in darkness.


sentence:
As I stood in the passage gazing at the sinister door, and wondering what secret it might veil, I suddenly heard the sound of steps within the room, and saw a shadow pass backward and forward against the little slit of dim light which shone out from under the door.


sentence:
My overstrung nerves failed me suddenly, and I turned and ran—ran as though some dreadful hand were behind me clutching at the skirt of my dress.


sentence:
‘My dear young lady! my dear young lady!’—you cannot think how caressing and soothing his manner was—‘and what has frightened you, my dear young lady?’  But his voice was just a little too coaxing. He overdid it.


sentence:
And if you ever put your foot over that threshold again—’ here in an instant the smile hardened into a grin of rage, and he glared down at me with the face of a demon—‘I’ll throw you to the mastiff.


sentence:
I put on my hat and cloak, went down to the office, which is about half a mile from the house, and then returned, feeling very much easier.


sentence:
A horrible doubt came into my mind as I approached the door lest the dog might be loose, but I remembered that Toller had drunk himself into a state of insensibility that evening, and I knew that he was the only one in the household who had any influence with the savage creature, or who would venture to set him free.


sentence:
I had no difficulty in getting leave to come into Winchester this morning, but I must be back before three o’clock, for Mr. and Mrs.


sentence:
Rucastle are going on a visit, and will be away all the evening, so that I must look after the child.


sentence:
Holmes, and I should be very glad if you could tell me what it all means, and, above all, what I should do.


sentence:
My friend rose now and paced up and down the room, his hands in his pockets, and an expression of the most profound gravity upon his face.


sentence:
You seem to me to have acted all through this matter like a very brave and sensible girl, Miss Hunter.


sentence:
Do you think that you could perform one more feat? I should not ask it of you if I did not think you a quite exceptional woman.  I will try.


sentence:
If you could send her into the cellar on some errand, and then turn the key upon her, you would facilitate matters immensely.  I will do it.


sentence:
You have been brought there to personate some one, and the real person is imprisoned in this chamber. That is obvious.


sentence:
As to who this prisoner is, I have no doubt that it is the daughter, Miss Alice Rucastle, if I remember right, who was said to have gone to America.


sentence:
Hers had been cut off, very possibly in some illness through which she has passed, and so, of course, yours had to be sacrificed also.


sentence:
The man in the road was, undoubtedly, some friend of hers—possibly her _fiancé_—and no doubt, as you wore the girl’s dress and were so like her, he was convinced from your laughter, whenever he saw you, and afterwards from your gesture, that Miss Rucastle was perfectly happy, and that she no longer desired his attentions.


sentence:
My dear Watson, you as a medical man are continually gaining light as to the tendencies of a child by the study of the parents.


sentence:
I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children.


sentence:
This child’s disposition is abnormally cruel, merely for cruelty’s sake, and whether he derives this from his smiling father, as I should suspect, or from his mother, it bodes evil for the poor girl who is in their power.


sentence:
We were as good as our word, for it was just seven when we reached the Copper Beeches, having put up our trap at a way-side public-house.


sentence:
The group of trees, with their dark leaves shining like burnished metal in the light of the setting sun, were sufficient to mark the house even had Miss Hunter not been standing smiling on the door-step.


sentence:
We passed up the stair, unlocked the door, followed on down a passage, and found ourselves in front of the barricade which Miss Hunter had described.


sentence:
There has been some villainy here, said Holmes; this beauty has guessed Miss Hunter’s intentions, and has carried his victim off.


sentence:
The words were hardly out of his mouth before a man appeared at the door of the room, a very fat and burly man, with a heavy stick in his hand.


sentence:
Miss Hunter screamed and shrunk against the wall at the sight of him, but Sherlock Holmes sprang forward and confronted him.


sentence:
You villain! said he, where’s your daughter?  The fat man cast his eyes round, and then up at the open skylight.


sentence:
It is for me to ask you that, he shrieked, you thieves! Spies and thieves! I have caught you, have I? You are in my power.


sentence:
We had hardly reached the hall when we heard the baying of a hound, and then a scream of agony, with a horrible worrying sound which it was dreadful to listen to.


sentence:
An elderly man with a red face and shaking limbs came staggering out at a side door.  My God! he cried.


sentence:
Quick, quick, or it’ll be too late!  Holmes and I rushed out and round the angle of the house, with Toller hurrying behind us.


sentence:
There was the huge famished brute, its black muzzle buried in Rucastle’s throat, while he writhed and screamed upon the ground.


sentence:
Running up, I blew its brains out, and it fell over with its keen white teeth still meeting in the great creases of his neck.


sentence:
We laid him upon the drawing-room sofa, and, having despatched the sobered Toller to bear the news to his wife, I did what I could to relieve his pain.


sentence:
We were all assembled round him when the door opened, and a tall, gaunt woman entered the room.  Mrs.


sentence:
Ah, miss, it is a pity you didn’t let me know what you were planning, for I would have told you that your pains were wasted.


sentence:
Then, pray, sit down, and let us hear it, for there are several points on which I must confess that I am still in the dark.


sentence:
I will soon make it clear to you, said she; and I’d have done so before now if I could ha’ got out from the cellar.


sentence:
If there’s police-court business over this, you’ll remember that I was the one that stood your friend, and that I was Miss Alice’s friend too.


sentence:
She was slighted like, and had no say in anything; but it never really became bad for her until after she met Mr.


sentence:
As well as I could learn, Miss Alice had rights of her own by will, but she was so quiet and patient, she was, that she never said a word about them, but just left everything in Mr. Rucastle’s hands.


sentence:
He knew he was safe with her; but when there was a chance of a husband coming forward, who would ask for all that the law would give him, then her father thought it time to put a stop on it.


sentence:
When she wouldn’t do it, he kept on worrying her until she got brain-fever, and for six weeks was at death’s door.


sentence:
Then she got better at last, all worn to a shadow, and with her beautiful hair cut off; but that didn’t make no change in her young man, and he stuck to her as true as man could be.


sentence:
Ah, said Holmes, I think that what you have been good enough to tell us makes the matter fairly clear, and that I can deduce all that remains. Mr.


sentence:
And brought Miss Hunter down from London in order to get rid of the disagreeable persistence of Mr. Fowler.  That was it, sir.  But Mr.


sentence:
Fowler being a persevering man, as a good seaman should be, blockaded the house, and, having met you, succeeded by certain arguments, metallic or otherwise, in convincing you that your interests were the same as his.  Mr.


sentence:
And in this way he managed that your good man should have no want of drink, and that a ladder should be ready at the moment when your master had gone out.


sentence:
Rucastle, so I think, Watson, that we had best escort Miss Hunter back to Winchester, as it seems to me that our _locus standi_ now is rather a questionable one.


sentence:
And thus was solved the mystery of the sinister house with the copper beeches in front of the door. Mr.


sentence:
Rucastle survived, but was always a broken man, kept alive solely through the care of his devoted wife.


sentence:
They still live with their old servants, who probably know so much of Rucastle’s past life that he finds it difficult to part from them. Mr.


sentence:
Fowler and Miss Rucastle were married, by special license, in Southampton the day after their flight, and he is now the holder of a Government appointment in the Island of Mauritius.


sentence:
As to Miss Violet Hunter, my friend Holmes, rather to my disappointment, manifested no further interest in her when once she had ceased to be the centre of one of his problems, and she is now the head of a private school at Walsall, where I believe that she has met with considerable success.


