The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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Title: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Release Date: March, 1999 [EBook #1661]
[Most recently updated: November 29, 2002]
Edition: 12
Language: English
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES ***
(Additional editing by Jose Menendez)
THE ADVENTURES OF
SHERLOCK HOLMES
BY
SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
CONTENTS
I. A Scandal in Bohemia
II. The Red-Headed League
III. A Case of Identity
IV. The Boscombe Valley Mystery
V. The Five Orange Pips
VI. The Man with the Twisted Lip
VII. The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
VIII. The Adventure of the Speckled Band
IX. The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb
X. The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor
XI. The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet
XII. The Adventure of the Copper Beeches
ADVENTURE I. A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA
I.
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and
predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly,
were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. 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. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a
gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer—excellent for drawing the veil from men’s motives and actions. 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. 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. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene
Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.
I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away from each other. 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. 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. 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. 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.
One night—it was on the twentieth 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. 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. 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. He was pacing the room swiftly, eagerly, with his head sunk upon his chest and his hands clasped behind him.
To me, who knew his every mood and habit, his attitude and manner told their own story. He was at work again. He had risen out of his
drug-created dreams and was hot upon the scent of some new problem. I rang the bell and was shown up to the chamber which had
formerly been in part my own.
His manner was not effusive. It seldom was; but he was glad, I think, to see me. With hardly a word spoken, but with a kindly eye, he
waved me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars, and indicated a spirit case and a gasogene in the corner. Then he stood before
the fire and looked me over in his singular introspective fashion.
“Wedlock suits you,” he remarked. “I think, Watson, that you have put on seven and a half pounds since I saw you.”
“Seven!” I answered.
“Indeed, I should have thought a little more. Just a trifle more, I fancy, Watson. And in practice again, I observe. You did not tell me that
you intended to go into harness.”
“Then, how do you know?”
“I see it, I deduce it. 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. You would certainly have been burned, had you lived a few centuries ago. 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.
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.”
He chuckled to himself and rubbed his long, nervous hands together.
“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. Obviously they have been caused by someone who has very carelessly scraped round the edges of the sole in
order to remove crusted mud from it. 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. 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 right 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.”
I could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his process of deduction. “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. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours.”
“Quite so,” he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself down into an armchair. “You see, but you do not observe. The
distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this room.”
“Frequently.”
“How often?”
“Well, some hundreds of times.”
“Then how many are there?”
“How many? I don’t know.”
“Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I
have both seen and observed. 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.” He threw over a sheet of thick, pink-tinted notepaper which had been
lying open upon the table. “It came by the last post,” said he. “Read it aloud.”
The note was undated, and without either signature or address.
“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. 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. This account of you we have from all quarters received. Be in
your chamber then at that hour, and do not take it amiss if your visitor wear a mask.”
“This is indeed a mystery,” I remarked. “What do you imagine that it means?”
“I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead
of theories to suit facts. But the note itself. What do you deduce from it?”
I carefully examined the writing, and the paper upon which it was written.
“The man who wrote it was presumably well to do,” I remarked, endeavouring to imitate my companion’s processes. “Such paper
could not be bought under half a crown a packet. It is peculiarly strong and stiff.”
“Peculiar—that is the very word,” said Holmes. “It is not an English paper at all. Hold it up to the light.”
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.
“What do you make of that?” asked Holmes.
“The name of the maker, no doubt; or his monogram, rather.”
“Not at all. The ‘G’ with the small ‘t’ stands for ‘Gesellschaft,’ which is the German for ‘Company.’ It is a customary contraction like our
‘Co.’ ‘P,’ of course, stands for ‘Papier.’ Now for the ‘Eg.’ Let us glance at our Continental Gazetteer.” He took down a heavy brown volume
from his shelves. “Eglow, Eglonitz—here we are, Egria. It is in a German-speaking country—in Bohemia, not far from Carlsbad.
‘Remarkable as being the scene of the death of Wallenstein, and for its numerous glass-factories and paper-mills.’ 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.
“The paper was made in Bohemia,” I said.
“Precisely. And the man who wrote the note is a German. Do you note the peculiar construction of the sentence—‘This account of you
we have from all quarters received.’ A Frenchman or Russian could not have written that. It is the German who is so uncourteous to his
verbs. 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. And here he comes, if I am not mistaken, to resolve all our doubts.”
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.
“A pair, by the sound,” said he. “Yes,” he continued, glancing out of the window. “A nice little brougham and a pair of beauties. A
hundred and fifty guineas apiece. There’s money in this case, Watson, if there is nothing else.”
“I think that I had better go, Holmes.”
“Not a bit, Doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell. And this promises to be interesting. It would be a pity to miss it.”
“But your client—”
“Never mind him. I may want your help, and so may he. Here he comes. Sit down in that armchair, Doctor, and give us your best
attention.”
A slow and heavy step, which had been heard upon the stairs and in the passage, paused immediately outside the door. Then there
was a loud and authoritative tap.
“Come in!” said Holmes.
A man entered who could hardly have been less than six feet six inches in height, with the chest and limbs of a Hercules. His dress
was rich with a richness which would, in England, be looked upon as akin to bad taste. 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-coloured
silk and secured at the neck with a brooch which consisted of a single flaming beryl. Boots which extended halfway 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. 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.
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.
“You had my note?” he asked with a deep harsh voice and a strongly marked German accent. “I told you that I would call.” He looked
from one to the other of us, as if uncertain which to address.
“Pray take a seat,” said Holmes. “This is my friend and colleague, Dr. Watson, who is occasionally good enough to help me in my
cases. Whom have I the honour to address?”
“You may address me as the Count Von Kramm, a Bohemian nobleman. I understand that this gentleman, your friend, is a man of
honour and discretion, whom I may trust with a matter of the most extreme importance. If not, I should much prefer to communicate with you
alone.”
I rose to go, but Holmes caught me by the wrist and pushed me back into my chair. “It is both, or none,” said he. “You may say before
this gentleman anything which you may say to me.”
The Count shrugged his broad shoulders. “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. At present it is not too much to say that it is of such weight it may have an influence
upon European history.”
“I promise,” said Holmes.
“And I.”
“You will excuse this mask,” continued our strange visitor. “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.”
“I was aware of it,” said Holmes dryly.
“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. To speak plainly, the matter implicates the great House of Ormstein,
hereditary kings of Bohemia.”
“I was also aware of that,” murmured Holmes, settling himself down in his armchair and closing his eyes.
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. Holmes slowly reopened his eyes and looked impatiently at his gigantic
client.
“If your Majesty would condescend to state your case,” he remarked, “I should be better able to advise you.”
The man sprang from his chair and paced up and down the room in uncontrollable agitation. Then, with a gesture of desperation, he
tore the mask from his face and hurled it upon the ground. “You are right,” he cried; “I am the King. Why should I attempt to conceal it?”
“Why, indeed?” murmured Holmes. “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.”
“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. Yet the matter was so delicate that I could not confide
it to an agent without putting myself in his power. I have come incognito from Prague for the purpose of consulting you.”
“Then, pray consult,” said Holmes, shutting his eyes once more.
“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. The name is no doubt familiar to you.”
“Kindly look her up in my index, Doctor,” murmured Holmes without opening his eyes. 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. 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.
“Let me see!” said Holmes. “Hum! Born in New Jersey in the year 1858. 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. But how—”
“Was there a secret marriage?”
“None.”
“No legal papers or certificates?”
“None.”
“Then I fail to follow your Majesty. If this young person should produce her letters for blackmailing or other purposes, how is she to
prove their authenticity?”
“There is the writing.”
“Pooh, pooh! Forgery.”
“My private note-paper.”
“Stolen.”
“My own seal.”
“Imitated.”
“My photograph.”
“Bought.”
“We were both in the photograph.”
“Oh, dear! That is very bad! Your Majesty has indeed committed an indiscretion.”
“I was mad—insane.”
“You have compromised yourself seriously.”
“I was only Crown Prince then. I was young. I am but thirty now.”
“It must be recovered.”
“We have tried and failed.”
“Your Majesty must pay. It must be bought.”
“She will not sell.”
“Stolen, then.”
“Five attempts have been made. Twice burglars in my pay ransacked her house. Once we diverted her luggage when she travelled.
Twice she has been waylaid. There has been no result.”
“No sign of it?”
“Absolutely none.”
Holmes laughed. “It is quite a pretty little problem,” said he.
“But a very serious one to me,” returned the King reproachfully.
“Very, indeed. And what does she propose to do with the photograph?”
“To ruin me.”
“But how?”
“I am about to be married.”
“So I have heard.”
“To Clotilde Lothman von Saxe-Meningen, second daughter of the King of Scandinavia. You may know the strict principles of her
family. She is herself the very soul of delicacy. A shadow of a doubt as to my conduct would bring the matter to an end.”
“And Irene Adler?”
“Threatens to send them the photograph. And she will do it. I know that she will do it. You do not know her, but she has a soul of steel.
She has the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most resolute of men. Rather than I should marry another woman,
there are no lengths to which she would not go—none.”
“You are sure that she has not sent it yet?”
“I am sure.”
“And why?”
“Because she has said that she would send it on the day when the betrothal was publicly proclaimed. That will be next Monday.”
“Oh, then we have three days yet,” said Holmes with a yawn. “That is very fortunate, as I have one or two matters of importance to look
into just at present. Your Majesty will, of course, stay in London for the present?”
“Certainly. You will find me at the Langham under the name of the Count Von Kramm.”
“Then I shall drop you a line to let you know how we progress.”
“Pray do so. I shall be all anxiety.”
“Then, as to money?”
“You have carte blanche.”
“Absolutely?”
“I tell you that I would give one of the provinces of my kingdom to have that photograph.”
“And for present expenses?”
The King took a heavy chamois leather bag from under his cloak and laid it on the table.
“There are three hundred pounds in gold and seven hundred in notes,” he said.
Holmes scribbled a receipt upon a sheet of his note-book and handed it to him.
“And Mademoiselle’s address?” he asked.
“Is Briony Lodge, Serpentine Avenue, St. John’s Wood.”
Holmes took a note of it. “One other question,” said he. “Was the photograph a cabinet?”
“It was.”
“Then, good-night, your Majesty, and I trust that we shall soon have some good news for you. And good-night, Watson,” he added, as
the wheels of the royal brougham rolled down the street. “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.”
II.
At three o’clock precisely I was at Baker Street, but Holmes had not yet returned. The landlady informed me that he had left the house
shortly after eight o’clock in the morning. I sat down beside the fire, however, with the intention of awaiting him, however long he might be. 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. 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. So accustomed was I to his invariable success that the very possibility
of his failing had ceased to enter into my head.
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. 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. With a nod he vanished into the bedroom, whence he emerged in five minutes tweed-suited
and respectable, as of old. Putting his hands into his pockets, he stretched out his legs in front of the fire and laughed heartily for
some minutes.
“Well, really!” he cried, and then he choked and laughed again until he was obliged to lie back, limp and helpless, in the chair.
“What is it?”
“It’s quite too funny. I am sure you could never guess how I employed my morning, or what I ended by doing.”
“I can’t imagine. I suppose that you have been watching the habits, and perhaps the house, of Miss Irene Adler.”
“Quite so; but the sequel was rather unusual. I will tell you, however. I left the house a little after eight o’clock this morning in the
character of a groom out of work. There is a wonderful sympathy and freemasonry among horsey men. Be one of them, and you will know
all that there is to know. I soon found Briony Lodge. It is a bijou villa, with a garden at the back, but built out in front right up to the road, two
stories. Chubb lock to the door. 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. Behind there was nothing remarkable, save that the passage window
could be reached from the top of the coach-house. I walked round it and examined it closely from every point of view, but without noting
anything else of interest.
“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. I
lent the ostlers a hand in rubbing down their horses, and 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 neighbourhood in whom I
was not in the least interested, but whose biographies I was compelled to listen to.”
“And what of Irene Adler?” I asked.
“Oh, she has turned all the men’s heads down in that part. She is the daintiest thing under a bonnet on this planet. So say the
Serpentine-mews, to a man. She lives quietly, sings at concerts, drives out at five every day, and returns at seven sharp for dinner. Seldom
goes out at other times, except when she sings. Has only one male visitor, but a good deal of him. He is dark, handsome, and dashing,
never calls less than once a day, and often twice. He is a Mr. Godfrey Norton, of the Inner Temple. See the advantages of a cabman as a
confidant. They had driven him home a dozen times from Serpentine-mews, and knew all about him. When I had listened to all they had to
tell, I began to walk up and down near Briony Lodge once more, and to think over my plan of campaign.
“This Godfrey Norton was evidently an important factor in the matter. He was a lawyer. That sounded ominous. 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. If the latter, it was less likely. 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. It was a delicate point, and it widened the field
of my inquiry. 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.”
“I am following you closely,” I answered.
“I was still balancing the matter in my mind when a hansom cab drove up to Briony Lodge, and a gentleman sprang out. He was a
remarkably handsome man, dark, aquiline, and moustached—evidently the man of whom I had heard. 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.
“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. Of her I could see nothing. Presently he emerged, looking even more flurried than before. As he
stepped up to the cab, he pulled a gold watch from his pocket and looked at it earnestly, ‘Drive like the devil,’ he shouted, ‘first to Gross &
Hankey’s in Regent Street, and then to the Church of St. Monica in the Edgeware Road. 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. It
hadn’t pulled up before she shot out of the hall door and into it. 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. Monica, John,’ she cried, ‘and half a sovereign if you reach it in twenty minutes.’
“This was quite too good to lose, Watson. 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. The driver looked twice at such a shabby fare, but I jumped in before he could object. ‘The Church of
St. Monica,’ said I, ‘and half a sovereign if you reach it in twenty minutes.’ It was twenty-five minutes to twelve, and of course it was clear
enough what was in the wind.
“My cabby drove fast. I don’t think I ever drove faster, but the others were there before us. The cab and the landau with their steaming
horses were in front of the door when I arrived. I paid the man and hurried into the church. There was not a soul there save the two whom I
had followed and a surpliced clergyman, who seemed to be expostulating with them. They were all three standing in a knot in front of the
altar. I lounged up the side aisle like any other idler who has dropped into a church. 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.
“ ‘Thank God,’ he cried. ‘You’ll do. Come! Come!’
“ ‘What then?’ I asked.
“ ‘Come, man, come, only three minutes, or it won’t be legal.’
“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. 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. 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. 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. The bride gave me a sovereign, and I mean to wear it on my watch chain in memory of the occasion.”
“This is a very unexpected turn of affairs,” said I; “and what then?”
“Well, I found my plans very seriously menaced. It looked as if the pair might take an immediate departure, and so necessitate very
prompt and energetic measures on my part. At the church door, however, they separated, he driving back to the Temple, and she to her
own house. ‘I shall drive out in the park at five as usual,’ she said as she left him. I heard no more. They drove away in different directions,
and I went off to make my own arrangements.”
“Which are?”
“Some cold beef and a glass of beer,” he answered, ringing the bell. “I have been too busy to think of food, and I am likely to be busier
still this evening. By the way, Doctor, I shall want your co-operation.”
“I shall be delighted.”
“You don’t mind breaking the law?”
“Not in the least.”
“Nor running a chance of arrest?”
“Not in a good cause.”
“Oh, the cause is excellent!”
“Then I am your man.”
“I was sure that I might rely on you.”
“But what is it you wish?”
“When Mrs. Turner has brought in the tray I will make it clear to you. 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. It is nearly five now. In two hours we must be on the scene of
action. Miss Irene, or Madame, rather, returns from her drive at seven. We must be at Briony Lodge to meet her.”
“And what then?”
“You must leave that to me. I have already arranged what is to occur. There is only one point on which I must insist. You must not
interfere, come what may. You understand?”
“I am to be neutral?”
“To do nothing whatever. There will probably be some small unpleasantness. Do not join in it. It will end in my being conveyed into the
house. Four or five minutes afterwards the sitting-room window will open. You are to station yourself close to that open window.”
“Yes.”
“You are to watch me, for I will be visible to you.”
“Yes.”
“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.
You quite follow me?”
“Entirely.”
“It is nothing very formidable,” he said, taking a long cigar-shaped roll from his pocket. “It is an ordinary plumber’s smoke-rocket, fitted
with a cap at either end to make it self-lighting. Your task is confined to that. When you raise your cry of fire, it will be taken up by quite a
number of people. You may then walk to the end of the street, and I will rejoin you in ten minutes. 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.”
“Then you may entirely rely on me.”
“That is excellent. I think, perhaps, it is almost time that I prepare for the new role I have to play.”
He disappeared into his bedroom and returned in a few minutes in the character of an amiable and simple-minded Nonconformist
clergyman. 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. John Hare alone could have equalled. It was not merely that Holmes changed his costume. His expression, his
manner, his very soul seemed to vary with every fresh part that he assumed. The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute
reasoner, when he became a specialist in crime.
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. 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. The house was just such as I had pictured it from Sherlock Holmes’ succinct description, but the locality appeared
to be less private than I expected. On the contrary, for a small street in a quiet neighbourhood, it was remarkably animated. 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.
“You see,” remarked Holmes, as we paced to and fro in front of the house, “this marriage rather simplifies matters. The photograph
becomes a double-edged weapon now. The chances are that she would be as averse to its being seen by Mr. Godfrey Norton, as our
client is to its coming to the eyes of his princess. 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. Too large for easy concealment about a woman’s dress. She
knows that the King is capable of having her waylaid and searched. Two attempts of the sort have already been made. We may take it,
then, that she does not carry it about with her.”
“Where, then?”
“Her banker or her lawyer. There is that double possibility. But I am inclined to think neither. Women are naturally secretive, and they
like to do their own secreting. Why should she hand it over to anyone 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. Besides, remember that she had resolved to use it
within a few days. It must be where she can lay her hands upon it. It must be in her own house.”
“But it has twice been burgled.”
“Pshaw! They did not know how to look.”
“But how will you look?”
“I will not look.”
“What then?”
“I will get her to show me.”
“But she will refuse.”
“She will not be able to. But I hear the rumble of wheels. It is her carriage. Now carry out my orders to the letter.”
As he spoke the gleam of the sidelights of a carriage came round the curve of the avenue. It was a smart little landau which rattled up
to the door of Briony Lodge. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
“Is the poor gentleman much hurt?” she asked.
“He is dead,” cried several voices.
“No, no, there’s life in him!” shouted another. “But he’ll be gone before you can get him to hospital.”
“He’s a brave fellow,” said a woman. “They would have had the lady’s purse and watch if it hadn’t been for him. They were a gang, and
a rough one, too. Ah, he’s breathing now.”
“He can’t lie in the street. May we bring him in, marm?”
“Surely. Bring him into the sitting-room. There is a comfortable sofa. 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. The lamps had been lit, but the blinds had not been drawn, so that I could see Holmes as he lay upon the couch. 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. And yet it would be the blackest treachery to Holmes to draw back now from the part which he had
intrusted to me. I hardened my heart, and took the smoke-rocket from under my ulster. After all, I thought, we are not injuring her. We are but
preventing her from injuring another.
Holmes had sat up upon the couch, and I saw him motion like a man who is in need of air. A maid rushed across and threw open the
window. 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. 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. 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.
He walked swiftly and in silence for some few minutes until we had turned down one of the quiet streets which lead towards the Edgeware
Road.
“You did it very nicely, Doctor,” he remarked. “Nothing could have been better. It is all right.”
“You have the photograph?”
“I know where it is.”
“And how did you find out?”
“She showed me, as I told you she would.”
“I am still in the dark.”
“I do not wish to make a mystery,” said he, laughing. “The matter was perfectly simple. You, of course, saw that everyone in the street
was an accomplice. They were all engaged for the evening.”
“I guessed as much.”
“Then, when the row broke out, I had a little moist red paint in the palm of my hand. I rushed forward, fell down, clapped my hand to my
face, and became a piteous spectacle. It is an old trick.”
“That also I could fathom.”
“Then they carried me in. She was bound to have me in. What else could she do? And into her sitting-room, which was the very room
which I suspected. It lay between that and her bedroom, and I was determined to see which. They laid me on a couch, I motioned for air,
they were compelled to open the window, and you had your chance.”
“How did that help you?”
“It was all-important. When a woman thinks that her house is on fire, her instinct is at once to rush to the thing which she values most. It
is a perfectly overpowering impulse, and I have more than once taken advantage of it. In the case of the Darlington Substitution Scandal it
was of use to me, and also in the Arnsworth Castle business. A married woman grabs at her baby; an unmarried one reaches for her
jewel-box. 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. She
would rush to secure it. The alarm of fire was admirably done. The smoke and shouting were enough to shake nerves of steel. She
responded beautifully. The photograph is in a recess behind a sliding panel just above the right bell-pull. She was there in an instant, and I
caught a glimpse of it as she half drew it out. 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. I rose, and, making my excuses, escaped from the house. 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. A little over-precipitance
may ruin all.”
“And now?” I asked.
“Our quest is practically finished. I shall call with the King to-morrow, and with you, if you care to come with us. 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. It might be a
satisfaction to his Majesty to regain it with his own hands.”
“And when will you call?”
“At eight in the morning. She will not be up, so that we shall have a clear field. Besides, we must be prompt, for this marriage may
mean a complete change in her life and habits. I must wire to the King without delay.”
We had reached Baker Street and had stopped at the door. He was searching his pockets for the key when someone passing said:
“Good-night, Mister Sherlock Holmes.”
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.
“I’ve heard that voice before,” said Holmes, staring down the dimly lit street. “Now, I wonder who the deuce that could have been.”
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.
“You have really got it!” he cried, grasping Sherlock Holmes by either shoulder and looking eagerly into his face.
“Not yet.”
“But you have hopes?”
“I have hopes.”
“Then, come. I am all impatience to be gone.”
“We must have a cab.”
“No, my brougham is waiting.”
“Then that will simplify matters.” We descended and started off once more for Briony Lodge.
“Irene Adler is married,” remarked Holmes.
“Married! When?”
“Yesterday.”
“But to whom?”
“To an English lawyer named Norton.”
“But she could not love him.”
“I am in hopes that she does.”
“And why in hopes?”
“Because it would spare your Majesty all fear of future annoyance. If the lady loves her husband, she does not love your Majesty. If she
does not love your Majesty, there is no reason why she should interfere with your Majesty’s plan.”
“It is true. 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.
The door of Briony Lodge was open, and an elderly woman stood upon the steps. She watched us with a sardonic eye as we stepped
from the brougham.
“Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I believe?” said she.
“I am Mr. Holmes,” answered my companion, looking at her with a questioning and rather startled gaze.
“Indeed! My mistress told me that you were likely to call. She left this morning with her husband by the 5:15 train from Charing Cross
for the Continent.”
“What!” Sherlock Holmes staggered back, white with chagrin and surprise. “Do you mean that she has left England?”
“Never to return.”
“And the papers?” asked the King hoarsely. “All is lost.”
“We shall see.” He pushed past the servant and rushed into the drawing-room, followed by the King and myself. 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.
Holmes rushed at the bell-pull, tore back a small sliding shutter, and, plunging in his hand, pulled out a photograph and a letter. The
photograph was of Irene Adler herself in evening dress, the letter was superscribed to “Sherlock Holmes, Esq. To be left till called for.” My
friend tore it open, and we all three read it together. It was dated at midnight of the preceding night and ran in this way:
“MY DEAR MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES,—You really did it very well. You took me in completely. Until after the alarm of fire, I had not a
suspicion. But then, when I found how I had betrayed myself, I began to think. I had been warned against you months ago. I had been told
that, if the King employed an agent, it would certainly be you. And your address had been given me. Yet, with all this, you made me reveal
what you wanted to know. Even after I became suspicious, I found it hard to think evil of such a dear, kind old clergyman. But, you know, I
have been trained as an actress myself. Male costume is nothing new to me. I often take advantage of the freedom which it gives. I sent
John, the coachman, to watch you, ran upstairs, got into my walking clothes, as I call them, and came down just as you departed.
“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. Then
I, rather imprudently, wished you good-night, and started for the Temple to see my husband.
“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. As to the photograph, your client may rest in peace. I love and am loved by a better man than he. The King may do what he
will without hindrance from one whom he has cruelly wronged. 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. I leave a photograph which he might care to possess; and I remain,
dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes,
“Very truly yours,
“IRENE NORTON, née ADLER.”
“What a woman—oh, what a woman!” cried the King of Bohemia, when we had all three read this epistle. “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. “I am sorry
that I have not been able to bring your Majesty’s business to a more successful conclusion.”
“On the contrary, my dear sir,” cried the King; “nothing could be more successful. I know that her word is inviolate. The photograph is
now as safe as if it were in the fire.”
“I am glad to hear your Majesty say so.”
“I am immensely indebted to you. Pray tell me in what way I can reward you. This ring—” He slipped an emerald snake ring from his
finger and held it out upon the palm of his hand.
“Your Majesty has something which I should value even more highly,” said Holmes.
“You have but to name it.”
“This photograph!”
The King stared at him in amazement.
“Irene’s photograph!” he cried. “Certainly, if you wish it.”
“I thank your Majesty. Then there is no more to be done in the matter. I have the honour to wish you a very good morning.” 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.
And that was how a great scandal threatened to affect the kingdom of Bohemia, and how the best plans of Mr. Sherlock Holmes were
beaten by a woman’s wit. He used to make merry over the cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of late. And when he
speaks of Irene Adler, or when he refers to her photograph, it is always under the honourable title of the woman.
ADVENTURE II. THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE
I had called upon my friend, Mr. 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. 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.
“You could not possibly have come at a better time, my dear Watson,” he said cordially.
“I was afraid that you were engaged.”
“So I am. Very much so.”
“Then I can wait in the next room.”
“Not at all. This gentleman, Mr. 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.”
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.
“Try the settee,” said Holmes, relapsing into his armchair and putting his fingertips together, as was his custom when in judicial
moods. “I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of everyday
life. 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.”
“Your cases have indeed been of the greatest interest to me,” I observed.
“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.”
“A proposition which I took the liberty of doubting.”
“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. 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. 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. 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. Wilson, you would have the great kindness to recommence your narrative. I ask you not
merely because my friend Dr. 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. 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. In the present instance I am forced to admit that the facts are, to
the best of my belief, unique.”
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 greatcoat. 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 endeavoured, after the fashion of my companion, to read the indications which might be
presented by his dress or appearance.
I did not gain very much, however, by my inspection. Our visitor bore every mark of being an average commonplace British
tradesman, obese, pompous, and slow. He wore rather baggy grey 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. A frayed top-hat and a faded brown overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a chair beside him. 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.
Sherlock Holmes’ quick eye took in my occupation, and he shook his head with a smile as he noticed my questioning glances.
“Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, 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. Jabez Wilson started up in his chair, with his forefinger upon the paper, but his eyes upon my companion.
“How, in the name of good-fortune, did you know all that, Mr. Holmes?” he asked. “How did you know, for example, that I did manual
labour. It’s as true as gospel, for I began as a ship’s carpenter.”
“Your hands, my dear sir. Your right hand is quite a size larger than your left. You have worked with it, and the muscles are more
developed.”
“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.”
“Ah, of course, I forgot that. 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?”
“Well, but China?”
“The fish that you have tattooed immediately above your right wrist could only have been done in China. I have made a small study of
tattoo marks and have even contributed to the literature of the subject. That trick of staining the fishes’ scales of a delicate pink is quite
peculiar to China. When, in addition, I see a Chinese coin hanging from your watch-chain, the matter becomes even more simple.”
Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. “Well, I never!” said he. “I thought at first that you had done something clever, but I see that there
was nothing in it after all.”
“I begin to think, Watson,” said Holmes, “that I make a mistake in explaining. ‘Omne ignotum pro magnifico,’ you know, and my poor
little reputation, such as it is, will suffer shipwreck if I am so candid. Can you not find the advertisement, Mr. Wilson?”
“Yes, I have got it now,” he answered with his thick red finger planted halfway down the column. “Here it is. This is what began it all. You
just read it for yourself, sir.”
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, Pennsylvania, U. S. A., there
is now another vacancy open which entitles a member of the League to a salary of £4 a week for purely nominal services. All red-headed
men who are sound in body and mind and above the age of twenty-one years, are eligible. Apply in person on Monday, at eleven o’clock,
to Duncan Ross, at the offices of the League, 7 Pope’s Court, Fleet Street.”
“What on earth does this mean?” I ejaculated after I had twice read over the extraordinary announcement.
Holmes chuckled and wriggled in his chair, as was his habit when in high spirits. “It is a little off the beaten track, isn’t it?” said he.
“And now, Mr. Wilson, off you go at scratch and tell us all about yourself, your household, and the effect which this advertisement had upon
your fortunes. You will first make a note, Doctor, of the paper and the date.”
“It is The Morning Chronicle of April 27, 1890. Just two months ago.”
“Very good. Now, Mr. Wilson?”
“Well, it is just as I have been telling you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said Jabez Wilson, mopping his forehead; “I have a small
pawnbroker’s business at Coburg Square, near the City. It’s not a very large affair, and of late years it has not done more than just give me
a living. 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.”
“What is the name of this obliging youth?” asked Sherlock Holmes.
“His name is Vincent Spaulding, and he’s not such a youth, either. It’s hard to say his age. I should not wish a smarter assistant, Mr.
Holmes; and I know very well that he could better himself and earn twice what I am able to give him. 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. It is not a common experience
among employers in this age. I don’t know that your assistant is not as remarkable as your advertisement.”
“Oh, he has his faults, too,” said Mr. Wilson. “Never was such a fellow for photography. 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 develop his pictures. That is his main fault, but on
the whole he’s a good worker. There’s no vice in him.”
“He is still with you, I presume?”
“Yes, sir. 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. 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.
“The first thing that put us out was that advertisement. 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. Wilson, that I was a red-headed man.’
“ ‘Why that?’ I asks.
“ ‘Why,’ says he, ‘here’s another vacancy on the League of the Red-headed Men. 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. If
my hair would only change colour, here’s a nice little crib all ready for me to step into.’
“ ‘Why, what is it, then?’ I asked. You see, Mr. 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. In that way I didn’t know much of what was going on
outside, and I was always glad of a bit of news.
“ ‘Have you never heard of the League of the Red-headed Men?’ he asked with his eyes open.
“ ‘Never.’
“ ‘Why, I wonder at that, for you are eligible yourself for one of the vacancies.’
“ ‘And what are they worth?’ I asked.
“ ‘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.’
“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.
“ ‘Tell me all about it,’ said I.
“ ‘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. As far as I can make out, the League was founded by an American millionaire, Ezekiah Hopkins,
who was very peculiar in his ways. 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 colour. From all I hear it is splendid pay and very little to do.’
“ ‘But,’ said I, ‘there would be millions of red-headed men who would apply.’
“ ‘Not so many as you might think,’ he answered. ‘You see it is really confined to Londoners, and to grown men. This American had
started from London when he was young, and he wanted to do the old town a good turn. 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. Now, if you cared to apply, Mr. 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.’
“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. 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. 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.
“I never hope to see such a sight as that again, Mr. Holmes. 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. Fleet Street was choked with red-headed folk, and Pope’s Court looked
like a coster’s orange barrow. I should not have thought there were so many in the whole country as were brought together by that single
advertisement. Every shade of colour they were—straw, lemon, orange, brick, Irish-setter, liver, clay; but, as Spaulding said, there were not
many who had the real vivid flame-coloured tint. When I saw how many were waiting, I would have given it up in despair; but Spaulding
would not hear of it. 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. 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.”
“Your experience has been a most entertaining one,” remarked Holmes as his client paused and refreshed his memory with a huge
pinch of snuff. “Pray continue your very interesting statement.”
“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. 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. Getting a vacancy did not seem to be such a very easy matter, after all. However, when our turn came the little
man was much more favourable 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. Jabez Wilson,’ said my assistant, ‘and he is willing to fill a vacancy in the League.’
“ ‘And he is admirably suited for it,’ the other answered. ‘He has every requirement. I cannot recall when I have seen anything so fine.’
He took a step backward, cocked his head on one side, and gazed at my hair until I felt quite bashful. Then suddenly he plunged forward,
wrung my hand, and congratulated me warmly on my success.
“ ‘It would be injustice to hesitate,’ said he. ‘You will, however, I am sure, excuse me for taking an obvious precaution.’ With that he
seized my hair in both his hands, and tugged until I yelled with the pain. ‘There is water in your eyes,’ said he as he released me. ‘I
perceive that all is as it should be. But we have to be careful, for we have twice been deceived by wigs and once by paint. I could tell you
tales of cobbler’s wax which would disgust you with human nature.’ He stepped over to the window and shouted through it at the top of his
voice that the vacancy was filled. 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.
“ ‘My name,’ said he, ‘is Mr. Duncan Ross, and I am myself one of the pensioners upon the fund left by our noble benefactor. Are you a
married man, Mr. Wilson? Have you a family?’
“I answered that I had not.
“His face fell immediately.
“ ‘Dear me!’ he said gravely, ‘that is very serious indeed! I am sorry to hear you say that. The fund was, of course, for the propagation
and spread of the red-heads as well as for their maintenance. It is exceedingly unfortunate that you should be a bachelor.’
“My face lengthened at this, Mr. 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.
“ ‘In the case of another,’ said he, ‘the objection might be fatal, but we must stretch a point in favour of a man with such a head of hair
as yours. 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.
“ ‘Oh, never mind about that, Mr. Wilson!’ said Vincent Spaulding. ‘I should be able to look after that for you.’
“ ‘What would be the hours?’ I asked.
“ ‘Ten to two.’
“Now a pawnbroker’s business is mostly done of an evening, Mr. 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. Besides, I knew that my assistant was a good man, and that he
would see to anything that turned up.
“ ‘That would suit me very well,’ said I. ‘And the pay?’
“ ‘Is £4 a week.’
“ ‘And the work?’
“ ‘Is purely nominal.’
“ ‘What do you call purely nominal?’
“ ‘Well, you have to be in the office, or at least in the building, the whole time. If you leave, you forfeit your whole position forever. The
will is very clear upon that point. You don’t comply with the conditions if you budge from the office during that time.’
“ ‘It’s only four hours a day, and I should not think of leaving,’ said I.
“ ‘No excuse will avail,’ said Mr. Duncan Ross; ‘neither sickness nor business nor anything else. There you must stay, or you lose your
billet.’
“ ‘And the work?’
“ ‘Is to copy out the Encyclopaedia Britannica. There is the first volume of it in that press. You must find your own ink, pens, and
blotting-paper, but we provide this table and chair. Will you be ready to-morrow?’
“ ‘Certainly,’ I answered.
“ ‘Then, good-bye, Mr. Jabez Wilson, and let me congratulate you once more on the important position which you have been fortunate
enough to gain.’ 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.
“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. It seemed altogether past belief that anyone could
make such a will, or that they would pay such a sum for doing anything so simple as copying out the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Vincent
Spaulding did what he could to cheer me up, but by bedtime I had reasoned myself out of the whole thing. 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.
“Well, to my surprise and delight, everything was as right as possible. The table was set out ready for me, and Mr. Duncan Ross was
there to see that I got fairly to work. 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. 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.
“This went on day after day, Mr. Holmes, and on Saturday the manager came in and planked down four golden sovereigns for my
week’s work. It was the same next week, and the same the week after. Every morning I was there at ten, and every afternoon I left at two.
By degrees Mr. Duncan Ross took to coming in only once of a morning, and then, after a time, he did not come in at all. 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.
“Eight weeks passed away like this, and I had written about Abbots and Archery and Armour and Architecture and Attica, and hoped
with diligence that I might get on to the B’s before very long. It cost me something in foolscap, and I had pretty nearly filled a shelf with my
writings. And then suddenly the whole business came to an end.”
“To an end?”
“Yes, sir. And no later than this morning. I went to my work as usual at ten o’clock, but the door was shut and locked, with a little square
of cardboard hammered on to the middle of the panel with a tack. Here it is, and you can read for yourself.”
He held up a piece of white cardboard about the size of a sheet of note-paper. It read in this fashion:
THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE
IS
DISSOLVED.
October 9, 1890.
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.
“I cannot see that there is anything very funny,” cried our client, flushing up to the roots of his flaming head. “If you can do nothing better
than laugh at me, I can go elsewhere.”
“No, no,” cried Holmes, shoving him back into the chair from which he had half risen. “I really wouldn’t miss your case for the world. It is
most refreshingly unusual. But there is, if you will excuse my saying so, something just a little funny about it. Pray what steps did you take
when you found the card upon the door?”
“I was staggered, sir. I did not know what to do. Then I called at the offices round, but none of them seemed to know anything about it.
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. He said that he had never heard of any such body. Then I asked him who Mr. Duncan Ross was. He answered that
the name was new to him.
“ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘the gentleman at No. 4.’
“ ‘What, the red-headed man?’
“ ‘Yes.’
“ ‘Oh,’ said he, ‘his name was William Morris. He was a solicitor and was using my room as a temporary convenience until his new
premises were ready. He moved out yesterday.’
“ ‘Where could I find him?’
“ ‘Oh, at his new offices. He did tell me the address. Yes, 17 King Edward Street, near St. Paul’s.’
“I started off, Mr. 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. William Morris or Mr. Duncan Ross.”
“And what did you do then?” asked Holmes.
“I went home to Saxe-Coburg Square, and I took the advice of my assistant. But he could not help me in any way. He could only say
that if I waited I should hear by post. But that was not quite good enough, Mr. Holmes. 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.”
“And you did very wisely,” said Holmes. “Your case is an exceedingly remarkable one, and I shall be happy to look into it. From what
you have told me I think that it is possible that graver issues hang from it than might at first sight appear.”
“Grave enough!” said Mr. Jabez Wilson. “Why, I have lost four pound a week.”
“As far as you are personally concerned,” remarked Holmes, “I do not see that you have any grievance against this extraordinary
league. 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. You have lost nothing by them.”
“No, sir. 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. It was a pretty expensive joke for them, for it cost them two and thirty pounds.”
“We shall endeavour to clear up these points for you. And, first, one or two questions, Mr. Wilson. This assistant of yours who first
called your attention to the advertisement—how long had he been with you?”
“About a month then.”
“How did he come?”
“In answer to an advertisement.”
“Was he the only applicant?”
“No, I had a dozen.”
“Why did you pick him?”
“Because he was handy and would come cheap.”
“At half wages, in fact.”
“Yes.”
“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. Has a white splash of acid upon his
forehead.”
Holmes sat up in his chair in considerable excitement. “I thought as much,” said he. “Have you ever observed that his ears are pierced
for earrings?”
“Yes, sir. He told me that a gipsy had done it for him when he was a lad.”
“Hum!” said Holmes, sinking back in deep thought. “He is still with you?”
“Oh, yes, sir; I have only just left him.”
“And has your business been attended to in your absence?”
“Nothing to complain of, sir. There’s never very much to do of a morning.”
“That will do, Mr. Wilson. I shall be happy to give you an opinion upon the subject in the course of a day or two. To-day is Saturday, and
I hope that by Monday we may come to a conclusion.”
“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. “It is a most mysterious business.”
“As a rule,” said Holmes, “the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes
which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify. But I must be prompt over this matter.”
“What are you going to do, then?” I asked.
“To smoke,” he answered. “It is quite a three pipe problem, and I beg that you won’t speak to me for fifty minutes.” 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. 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 mantelpiece.
“Sarasate plays at the St. James’s Hall this afternoon,” he remarked. “What do you think, Watson? Could your patients spare you for a
few hours?”
“I have nothing to do to-day. My practice is never very absorbing.”
“Then put on your hat and come. I am going through the City first, and we can have some lunch on the way. 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. It is introspective, and I want to
introspect. 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. It was a poky, 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. 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. 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. Then he walked slowly up the street, and then
down again to the corner, still looking keenly at the houses. 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. It was instantly opened by a bright-looking, clean-shaven
young fellow, who asked him to step in.
“Thank you,” said Holmes, “I only wished to ask you how you would go from here to the Strand.”
“Third right, fourth left,” answered the assistant promptly, closing the door.
“Smart fellow, that,” observed Holmes as we walked away. “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. I have known something of him before.”
“Evidently,” said I, “Mr. Wilson’s assistant counts for a good deal in this mystery of the Red-headed League. I am sure that you
inquired your way merely in order that you might see him.”
“Not him.”
“What then?”
“The knees of his trousers.”
“And what did you see?”
“What I expected to see.”
“Why did you beat the pavement?”
“My dear doctor, this is a time for observation, not for talk. We are spies in an enemy’s country. We know something of Saxe-Coburg
Square. Let us now explore the parts which lie behind it.”
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. It was one of the main arteries which conveyed the traffic of the City to the north and
west. The roadway was blocked with the immense stream of commerce flowing in a double tide inward and outward, while the footpaths
were black with the hurrying swarm of pedestrians. It was difficult to realise 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.
“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. It is a hobby of mine to have an exact knowledge of London. 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. That carries us right
on to the other block. And now, Doctor, we’ve done our work, so it’s time we had some play. 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.”
My friend was an enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a very capable performer but a composer of no ordinary merit. 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. 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. 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 armchair amid his improvisations and his black-letter
editions. 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. When I saw him that afternoon so enwrapped in the music at St. James’s Hall I felt that an evil time might be coming upon
those whom he had set himself to hunt down.
“You want to go home, no doubt, Doctor,” he remarked as we emerged.
“Yes, it would be as well.”
“And I have some business to do which will take some hours. This business at Coburg Square is serious.”
“Why serious?”
“A considerable crime is in contemplation. I have every reason to believe that we shall be in time to stop it. But to-day being Saturday
rather complicates matters. I shall want your help to-night.”
“At what time?”
“Ten will be early enough.”
“I shall be at Baker Street at ten.”
“Very well. And, I say, Doctor, there may be some little danger, so kindly put your army revolver in your pocket.” He waved his hand,
turned on his heel, and disappeared in an instant among the crowd.
I trust that I am not more dense than my neighbours, but I was always oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings with
Sherlock Holmes. 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. 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 Encyclopaedia
down to the visit to Saxe-Coburg Square, and the ominous words with which he had parted from me. 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. I tried to puzzle it out, but gave it up in despair and
set the matter aside until night should bring an explanation.
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.
Two hansoms were standing at the door, and as I entered the passage I heard the sound of voices from above. On entering his room, I
found Holmes in animated conversation with two men, one of whom I recognised 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.
“Ha! Our party is complete,” said Holmes, buttoning up his pea-jacket and taking his heavy hunting crop from the rack. “Watson, I think
you know Mr. Jones, of Scotland Yard? Let me introduce you to Mr. Merryweather, who is to be our companion in to-night’s adventure.”
“We’re hunting in couples again, Doctor, you see,” said Jones in his consequential way. “Our friend here is a wonderful man for
starting a chase. All he wants is an old dog to help him to do the running down.”
“I hope a wild goose may not prove to be the end of our chase,” observed Mr. Merryweather gloomily.
“You may place considerable confidence in Mr. Holmes, sir,” said the police agent loftily. “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. 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.”
“Oh, if you say so, Mr. Jones, it is all right,” said the stranger with deference. “Still, I confess that I miss my rubber. It is the first Saturday
night for seven-and-twenty years that I have not had my rubber.”
“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. 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.”
“John Clay, the murderer, thief, smasher, and forger. He’s a young man, Mr. 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. He’s a remarkable man, is young John Clay. His grandfather was a
royal duke, and he himself has been to Eton and Oxford. 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. He’ll crack a crib in Scotland one week, and be raising money to build an orphanage in
Cornwall the next. I’ve been on his track for years and have never set eyes on him yet.”
“I hope that I may have the pleasure of introducing you to-night. I’ve had one or two little turns also with Mr. John Clay, and I agree with
you that he is at the head of his profession. It is past ten, however, and quite time that we started. If you two will take the first hansom,
Watson and I will follow in the second.”
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. We rattled through an endless labyrinth of gas-lit streets until we emerged into Farrington Street.
“We are close there now,” my friend remarked. “This fellow Merryweather is a bank director, and personally interested in the matter. I
thought it as well to have Jones with us also. He is not a bad fellow, though an absolute imbecile in his profession. He has one positive
virtue. He is as brave as a bulldog and as tenacious as a lobster if he gets his claws upon anyone. Here we are, and they are waiting for
us.”
We had reached the same crowded thoroughfare in which we had found ourselves in the morning. Our cabs were dismissed, and,
following the guidance of Mr. Merryweather, we passed down a narrow passage and through a side door, which he opened for us. Within
there was a small corridor, which ended in a very massive iron gate. This also was opened, and led down a flight of winding stone steps,
which terminated at another formidable gate. Mr. 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.
“You are not very vulnerable from above,” Holmes remarked as he held up the lantern and gazed about him.
“Nor from below,” said Mr. Merryweather, striking his stick upon the flags which lined the floor. “Why, dear me, it sounds quite hollow!”
he remarked, looking up in surprise.
“I must really ask you to be a little more quiet!” said Holmes severely. “You have already imperilled the whole success of our
expedition. Might I beg that you would have the goodness to sit down upon one of those boxes, and not to interfere?”
The solemn Mr. 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. A few seconds
sufficed to satisfy him, for he sprang to his feet again and put his glass in his pocket.
“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.
Then they will not lose a minute, for the sooner they do their work the longer time they will have for their escape. 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. 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.”
“It is our French gold,” whispered the director. “We have had several warnings that an attempt might be made upon it.”
“Your French gold?”
“Yes. We had occasion some months ago to strengthen our resources and borrowed for that purpose 30,000 napoleons from the
Bank of France. It has become known that we have never had occasion to unpack the money, and that it is still lying in our cellar. The crate
upon which I sit contains 2,000 napoleons packed between layers of lead foil. 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.”
“Which were very well justified,” observed Holmes. “And now it is time that we arranged our little plans. I expect that within an hour
matters will come to a head. In the meantime Mr. Merryweather, we must put the screen over that dark lantern.”
“And sit in the dark?”
“I am afraid so. 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. But I see that the enemy’s preparations have gone so far that we cannot risk the presence of a light. And, first of all, we must
choose our positions. These are daring men, and though we shall take them at a disadvantage, they may do us some harm unless we are
careful. I shall stand behind this crate, and do you conceal yourselves behind those. Then, when I flash a light upon them, close in swiftly. If
they fire, Watson, have no compunction about shooting them down.”
I placed my revolver, cocked, upon the top of the wooden case behind which I crouched. 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. The smell of hot metal remained to
assure us that the light was still there, ready to flash out at a moment’s notice. 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.
“They have but one retreat,” whispered Holmes. “That is back through the house into Saxe-Coburg Square. I hope that you have done
what I asked you, Jones?”
“I have an inspector and two officers waiting at the front door.”
“Then we have stopped all the holes. And now we must be silent and wait.”
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. 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. From
my position I could look over the case in the direction of the floor. Suddenly my eyes caught the glint of a light.
At first it was but a lurid spark upon the stone pavement. 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. For a minute or more the hand, with its writhing fingers, protruded out of the floor. 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.
Its disappearance, however, was but momentary. 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. 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. 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.
“It’s all clear,” he whispered. “Have you the chisel and the bags? Great Scott! Jump, Archie, jump, and I’ll swing for it!”
Sherlock Holmes had sprung out and seized the intruder by the collar. The other dived down the hole, and I heard the sound of rending
cloth as Jones clutched at his skirts. The light flashed upon the barrel of a revolver, but Holmes’ hunting crop came down on the man’s
wrist, and the pistol clinked upon the stone floor.
“It’s no use, John Clay,” said Holmes blandly. “You have no chance at all.”
“So I see,” the other answered with the utmost coolness. “I fancy that my pal is all right, though I see you have got his coat-tails.”
“There are three men waiting for him at the door,” said Holmes.
“Oh, indeed! You seem to have done the thing very completely. I must compliment you.”
“And I you,” Holmes answered. “Your red-headed idea was very new and effective.”
“You’ll see your pal again presently,” said Jones. “He’s quicker at climbing down holes than I am. Just hold out while I fix the derbies.”
“I beg that you will not touch me with your filthy hands,” remarked our prisoner as the handcuffs clattered upon his wrists. “You may not
be aware that I have royal blood in my veins. Have the goodness, also, when you address me always to say ‘sir’ and ‘please.’ ”
“All right,” said Jones with a stare and a snigger. “Well, would you please, sir, march upstairs, where we can get a cab to carry your
Highness to the police-station?”
“That is better,” said John Clay serenely. 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. Merryweather as we followed them from the cellar, “I do not know how the bank can thank you or repay
you. 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.”
“I have had one or two little scores of my own to settle with Mr. John Clay,” said Holmes. “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.”
“You see, Watson,” he explained in the early hours of the morning as we sat over a glass of whisky 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 Encyclopaedia, must be to get this not over-bright pawnbroker out of the way for a number of hours every day. It was a
curious way of managing it, but, really, it would be difficult to suggest a better. The method was no doubt suggested to Clay’s ingenious
mind by the colour of his accomplice’s hair. 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. 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.”
“But how could you guess what the motive was?”
“Had there been women in the house, I should have suspected a mere vulgar intrigue. That, however, was out of the question. 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. It must, then, be something out of the house. What could it be? I thought of the assistant’s fondness for
photography, and his trick of vanishing into the cellar. The cellar! There was the end of this tangled clue. 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. He was doing something in
the cellar—something which took many hours a day for months on end. What could it be, once more? I could think of nothing save that he
was running a tunnel to some other building.
“So far I had got when we went to visit the scene of action. I surprised you by beating upon the pavement with my stick. I was
ascertaining whether the cellar stretched out in front or behind. It was not in front. Then I rang the bell, and, as I hoped, the assistant
answered it. We have had some skirmishes, but we had never set eyes upon each other before. I hardly looked at his face. His knees
were what I wished to see. You must yourself have remarked how worn, wrinkled, and stained they were. They spoke of those hours of
burrowing. The only remaining point was what they were burrowing for. I walked round the corner, saw the City and Suburban Bank abutted
on our friend’s premises, and felt that I had solved my problem. 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.”
“And how could you tell that they would make their attempt to-night?” I asked.
“Well, when they closed their League offices that was a sign that they cared no longer about Mr. Jabez Wilson’s presence—in other
words, that they had completed their tunnel. But it was essential that they should use it soon, as it might be discovered, or the bullion might
be removed. Saturday would suit them better than any other day, as it would give them two days for their escape. For all these reasons I
expected them to come to-night.”
“You reasoned it out beautifully,” I exclaimed in unfeigned admiration. “It is so long a chain, and yet every link rings true.”
“It saved me from ennui,” he answered, yawning. “Alas! I already feel it closing in upon me. My life is spent in one long effort to escape
from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to do so.”
“And you are a benefactor of the race,” said I.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, perhaps, after all, it is of some little use,” he remarked. “ ‘L’homme c’est rien—l’oeuvre c’est tout,’
as Gustave Flaubert wrote to George Sand.”
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. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence.
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.”
“And yet I am not convinced of it,” I answered. “The cases which come to light in the papers are, as a rule, bald enough, and vulgar
enough. 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.”
“A certain selection and discretion must be used in producing a realistic effect,” remarked Holmes. “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. Depend upon it, there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace.”
I smiled and shook my head. “I can quite understand your thinking so.” I said. “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.
But here”—I picked up the morning paper from the ground—“let us put it to a practical test. Here is the first heading upon which I come. ‘A
husband’s cruelty to his wife.’ There is half a column of print, but I know without reading it that it is all perfectly familiar to me. There is, of
course, the other woman, the drink, the push, the blow, the bruise, the sympathetic sister or landlady. The crudest of writers could invent
nothing more crude.”
“Indeed, your example is an unfortunate one for your argument,” said Holmes, taking the paper and glancing his eye down it. “This is
the Dundas separation case, and, as it happens, I was engaged in clearing up some small points in connection with it. 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. Take a pinch of snuff, Doctor, and acknowledge that I have scored over you in your example.”
He held out his snuffbox of old gold, with a great amethyst in the centre of the lid. Its splendour was in such contrast to his homely ways
and simple life that I could not help commenting upon it.
“Ah,” said he, “I forgot that I had not seen you for some weeks. It is a little souvenir from the King of Bohemia in return for my
assistance in the case of the Irene Adler papers.”
“And the ring?” I asked, glancing at a remarkable brilliant which sparkled upon his finger.
“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.”
“And have you any on hand just now?” I asked with interest.
“Some ten or twelve, but none which present any feature of interest. They are important, you understand, without being interesting.
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. The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime the more obvious, as
a rule, is the motive. 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. 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.”
He had risen from his chair and was standing between the parted blinds gazing down into the dull neutral-tinted London street.
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. 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 fidgeted with her glove buttons. 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.
“I have seen those symptoms before,” said Holmes, throwing his cigarette into the fire. “Oscillation upon the pavement always means
an affaire de coeur. She would like advice, but is not sure that the matter is not too delicate for communication. And yet even here we may
discriminate. When a woman has been seriously wronged by a man she no longer oscillates, and the usual symptom is a broken bell wire.
Here we may take it that there is a love matter, but that the maiden is not so much angry as perplexed, or grieved. But here she comes in
person to resolve our doubts.”
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. Sherlock Holmes welcomed her with the easy
courtesy for which he was remarkable, and, having closed the door and bowed her into an armchair, he looked her over in the minute and
yet abstracted fashion which was peculiar to him.
“Do you not find,” he said, “that with your short sight it is a little trying to do so much typewriting?”
“I did at first,” she answered, “but now I know where the letters are without looking.” Then, suddenly realising the full purport of his
words, she gave a violent start and looked up, with fear and astonishment upon her broad, good-humoured face. “You’ve heard about me,
Mr. Holmes,” she cried, “else how could you know all that?”
“Never mind,” said Holmes, laughing; “it is my business to know things. Perhaps I have trained myself to see what others overlook. If
not, why should you come to consult me?”
“I came to you, sir, because I heard of you from Mrs. Etherege, whose husband you found so easy when the police and everyone had
given him up for dead. Oh, Mr. Holmes, I wish you would do as much for me. 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.”
“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.
Again a startled look came over the somewhat vacuous face of Miss Mary Sutherland. “Yes, I did bang out of the house,” she said, “for
it made me angry to see the easy way in which Mr. Windibank—that is, my father—took it all. 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.”
“Your father,” said Holmes, “your stepfather, surely, since the name is different.”
“Yes, my stepfather. I call him father, though it sounds funny, too, for he is only five years and two months older than myself.”
“And your mother is alive?”
“Oh, yes, mother is alive and well. I wasn’t best pleased, Mr. Holmes, when she married again so soon after father’s death, and a man
who was nearly fifteen years younger than herself. Father was a plumber in the Tottenham Court Road, and he left a tidy business behind
him, which mother carried on with Mr. Hardy, the foreman; but when Mr. Windibank came he made her sell the business, for he was very
superior, being a traveller in wines. They got £4700 for the goodwill and interest, which wasn’t near as much as father could have got if he
had been alive.”
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.
“Your own little income,” he asked, “does it come out of the business?”
“Oh, no, sir. It is quite separate and was left me by my uncle Ned in Auckland. It is in New Zealand stock, paying 4½ per cent. Two
thousand five hundred pounds was the amount, but I can only touch the interest.”
“You interest me extremely,” said Holmes. “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. I believe that a single lady can get on very nicely upon an income of
about £60.”
“I could do with much less than that, Mr. 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. Of course, that is only just for the time. Mr. 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 typewriting. It brings me twopence a
sheet, and I can often do from fifteen to twenty sheets in a day.”
“You have made your position very clear to me,” said Holmes. “This is my friend, Dr. Watson, before whom you can speak as freely as
before myself. Kindly tell us now all about your connection with Mr. Hosmer Angel.”
A flush stole over Miss Sutherland’s face, and she picked nervously at the fringe of her jacket. “I met him first at the gasfitters’ ball,”
she said. “They used to send father tickets when he was alive, and then afterwards they remembered us, and sent them to mother. Mr.
Windibank did not wish us to go. He never did wish us to go anywhere. He would get quite mad if I wanted so much as to join a Sunday-school
treat. 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. 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. 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. Hardy, who used to be our foreman, and it was there I met Mr. Hosmer Angel.”
“I suppose,” said Holmes, “that when Mr. Windibank came back from France he was very annoyed at your having gone to the ball.”
“Oh, well, he was very good about it. 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. Then at the gasfitters’ ball you met, as I understand, a gentleman called Mr. Hosmer Angel.”
“Yes, sir. 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.
Holmes, I met him twice for walks, but after that father came back again, and Mr. Hosmer Angel could not come to the house any more.”
“No?”
“Well, you know father didn’t like anything of the sort. 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. 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. 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. We could write in the meantime, and he used to write every day. I took the letters in in the morning, so there was no
need for father to know.”
“Were you engaged to the gentleman at this time?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Holmes. We were engaged after the first walk that we took. Hosmer—Mr. Angel—was a cashier in an office in
Leadenhall Street—and—”
“What office?”
“That’s the worst of it, Mr. Holmes, I don’t know.”
“Where did he live, then?”
“He slept on the premises.”
“And you don’t know his address?”
“No—except that it was Leadenhall Street.”
“Where did you address your letters, then?”
“To the Leadenhall Street Post Office, to be left till called for. 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 typewrite 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 typewritten he always felt that the machine had come between us. That will
just show you how fond he was of me, Mr. Holmes, and the little things that he would think of.”
“It was most suggestive,” said Holmes. “It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important. Can
you remember any other little things about Mr. Hosmer Angel?”
“He was a very shy man, Mr. Holmes. He would rather walk with me in the evening than in the daylight, for he said that he hated to be
conspicuous. Very retiring and gentlemanly he was. Even his voice was gentle. 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. 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.”
“Well, and what happened when Mr. Windibank, your stepfather, returned to France?”
“Mr. Hosmer Angel came to the house again and proposed that we should marry before father came back. 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. Mother said he was quite
right to make me swear, and that it was a sign of his passion. Mother was all in his favour from the first and was even fonder of him than I
was. 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. I didn’t quite like that, Mr. Holmes. 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.”
“It missed him, then?”
“Yes, sir; for he had started to England just before it arrived.”
“Ha! that was unfortunate. Your wedding was arranged, then, for the Friday. Was it to be in church?”
“Yes, sir, but very quietly. It was to be at St. Saviour’s, near King’s Cross, and we were to have breakfast afterwards at the St. Pancras
Hotel. 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. 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. That was last Friday, Mr. Holmes, and I have never seen or
heard anything since then to throw any light upon what became of him.”
“It seems to me that you have been very shamefully treated,” said Holmes.
“Oh, no, sir! He was too good and kind to leave me so. 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. It seemed strange talk for a wedding-morning, but what has happened since gives a meaning to it.”
“Most certainly it does. Your own opinion is, then, that some unforeseen catastrophe has occurred to him?”
“Yes, sir. I believe that he foresaw some danger, or else he would not have talked so. And then I think that what he foresaw happened.”
“But you have no notion as to what it could have been?”
“None.”
“One more question. How did your mother take the matter?”
“She was angry, and said that I was never to speak of the matter again.”
“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. As he said, what
interest could anyone 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. And yet, what could have happened? And why could he not write? Oh, it drives me half-mad to think of it,
and I can’t sleep a wink at night.” She pulled a little handkerchief out of her muff and began to sob heavily into it.
“I shall glance into the case for you,” said Holmes, rising, “and I have no doubt that we shall reach some definite result. Let the weight
of the matter rest upon me now, and do not let your mind dwell upon it further. Above all, try to let Mr. Hosmer Angel vanish from your
memory, as he has done from your life.”
“Then you don’t think I’ll see him again?”
“I fear not.”
“Then what has happened to him?”
“You will leave that question in my hands. I should like an accurate description of him and any letters of his which you can spare.”
“I advertised for him in last Saturday’s Chronicle,” said she. “Here is the slip and here are four letters from him.”
“Thank you. And your address?”
“No. 31 Lyon Place, Camberwell.”
“Mr. Angel’s address you never had, I understand. Where is your father’s place of business?”
“He travels for Westhouse & Marbank, the great claret importers of Fenchurch Street.”
“Thank you. You have made your statement very clearly. You will leave the papers here, and remember the advice which I have given
you. Let the whole incident be a sealed book, and do not allow it to affect your life.”
“You are very kind, Mr. Holmes, but I cannot do that. I shall be true to Hosmer. He shall find me ready when he comes back.”
For all the preposterous hat and the vacuous face, there was something noble in the simple faith of our visitor which compelled our
respect. 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.
Sherlock Holmes sat silent for a few minutes with his fingertips still pressed together, his legs stretched out in front of him, and his
gaze directed upward to the ceiling. 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.
“Quite an interesting study, that maiden,” he observed. “I found her more interesting than her little problem, which, by the way, is rather
a trite one. 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. Old as is the idea, however, there were one or two details which were new to me. But the maiden herself was most instructive.”
“You appeared to read a good deal upon her which was quite invisible to me,” I remarked.
“Not invisible but unnoticed, Watson. You did not know where to look, and so you missed all that was important. I can never bring you
to realise the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumb-nails, or the great issues that may hang from a boot-lace. Now, what did
you gather from that woman’s appearance? Describe it.”
“Well, she had a slate-coloured, broad-brimmed straw hat, with a feather of a brickish red. Her jacket was black, with black beads
sewn upon it, and a fringe of little black jet ornaments. Her dress was brown, rather darker than coffee colour, with a little purple plush at the
neck and sleeves. Her gloves were greyish and were worn through at the right forefinger. Her boots I didn’t observe. She had small round,
hanging gold earrings, and a general air of being fairly well-to-do in a vulgar, comfortable, easy-going way.”
Sherlock Holmes clapped his hands softly together and chuckled.
“ ’Pon my word, Watson, you are coming along wonderfully. You have really done very well indeed. It is true that you have missed
everything of importance, but you have hit upon the method, and you have a quick eye for colour. Never trust to general impressions, my
boy, but concentrate yourself upon details. My first glance is always at a woman’s sleeve. In a man it is perhaps better first to take the knee
of the trouser. As you observe, this woman had plush upon her sleeves, which is a most useful material for showing traces. The double line
a little above the wrist, where the typewritist presses against the table, was beautifully defined. 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. 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 typewriting, which seemed to surprise her.”
“It surprised me.”
“But, surely, it was obvious. 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.
One was buttoned only in the two lower buttons out of five, and the other at the first, third, and fifth. 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.”
“And what else?” I asked, keenly interested, as I always was, by my friend’s incisive reasoning.
“I noted, in passing, that she had written a note before leaving home but after being fully dressed. 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. She had written in a hurry
and dipped her pen too deep. It must have been this morning, or the mark would not remain clear upon the finger. All this is amusing,
though rather elementary, but I must go back to business, Watson. Would you mind reading me the advertised description of Mr. Hosmer
Angel?”
I held the little printed slip to the light.
“Missing,” it said, “on the morning of the fourteenth, a gentleman named Hosmer Angel. About five ft. seven in. in height; strongly built,
sallow complexion, black hair, a little bald in the centre, bushy, black side-whiskers and moustache; tinted glasses, slight infirmity of
speech. Was dressed, when last seen, in black frock-coat faced with silk, black waistcoat, gold Albert chain, and grey Harris tweed
trousers, with brown gaiters over elastic-sided boots. Known to have been employed in an office in Leadenhall Street. Anybody bringing—
”
“That will do,” said Holmes. “As to the letters,” he continued, glancing over them, “they are very commonplace. Absolutely no clue in
them to Mr. Angel, save that he quotes Balzac once. There is one remarkable point, however, which will no doubt strike you.”
“They are typewritten,” I remarked.
“Not only that, but the signature is typewritten. Look at the neat little ‘Hosmer Angel’ at the bottom. There is a date, you see, but no
superscription except Leadenhall Street, which is rather vague. The point about the signature is very suggestive—in fact, we may call it
conclusive.”
“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.”
“No, that was not the point. However, I shall write two letters, which should settle the matter. One is to a firm in the City, the other is to
the young lady’s stepfather, Mr. Windibank, asking him whether he could meet us here at six o’clock to-morrow evening. It is just as well
that we should do business with the male relatives. 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.”
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 demeanour with which he treated the singular mystery which he had been called
upon to fathom. 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.
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 clues which would lead up to the identity of the disappearing bridegroom of Miss Mary Sutherland.
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. 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. I found Sherlock Holmes alone, however, half
asleep, with his long, thin form curled up in the recesses of his armchair. 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.
“Well, have you solved it?” I asked as I entered.
“Yes. It was the bisulphate of baryta.”
“No, no, the mystery!” I cried.
“Oh, that! I thought of the salt that I have been working upon. There was never any mystery in the matter, though, as I said yesterday,
some of the details are of interest. The only drawback is that there is no law, I fear, that can touch the scoundrel.”
“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.
“This is the girl’s stepfather, Mr. James Windibank,” said Holmes. “He has written to me to say that he would be here at six. 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 grey eyes. 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. James Windibank,” said Holmes. “I think that this typewritten letter is from you, in which you made an appointment
with me for six o’clock?”
“Yes, sir. I am afraid that I am a little late, but I am not quite my own master, you know. 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. 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. 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. 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. Windibank gave a violent start and dropped his gloves. “I am delighted to hear it,” he said.
“It is a curious thing,” remarked Holmes, “that a typewriter has really quite as much individuality as a man’s handwriting. Unless they
are quite new, no two of them write exactly alike. Some letters get more worn than others, and some wear only on one side. Now, you
remark in this note of yours, Mr. Windibank, that in every case there is some little slurring over of the ‘e,’ and a slight defect in the tail of the
‘r.’ There are fourteen other characteristics, but those are the more obvious.”
“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.
“And now I will show you what is really a very interesting study, Mr. Windibank,” Holmes continued. “I think of writing another little
monograph some of these days on the typewriter and its relation to crime. It is a subject to which I have devoted some little attention. I have
here four letters which purport to come from the missing man. They are all typewritten. 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 magnif