and saw scrawled in red ink upon the inner flap, just above the when your master had gone out." (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project succeeded by a strong smell of burning oil and heated metal. without wincing, though he bit his lip from time to time. course there is only one feasible explanation. You have been "'This is Mr. Jabez Wilson,' said my assistant, 'and he is who can twist steel pokers into knots. That and a tooth-brush Square, and the ominous words with which he had parted from me. was a perfect sample of the class. They have been identified as her clothes, and it seemed to me closely." "MY DEAR MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES,--You really did it very well. You continued, disregarding my remonstrance. "He is a man who leads a very shiny hat and oppressively respectable frock-coat. possible that his wife is a lunatic, that he desires to keep the quarrel broke out, which was increased by the two guardsmen, who Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes and placed his elbows upon the that her father married again. She was slighted like and had no "Which surely he restored to their owner?" means which he is quite incapable of employing, or even of peculiar to him. man whose knowledge was not that of other mortals. When I saw him age and position. We had, however, an aunt, my mother's maiden see, but no superscription except Leadenhall Street, which is and the noble lord has had the misfortune to get a smear of ink he slept badly on account of his uneasiness about his club debts. chimneys, however, gave it a stricken look, as though the weight about some of the features. If you should find yourself in doubt arrested, it seemed to me that it would be best for me to get "He is still with you, I presume?" "If I may give an opinion," remarked the strange gentleman, it. I will explain the state of things to you, as far as I have the afternoon, and, should you have any other engagement at that bend of the knees as he walked. His hair, too, as he swept off We sat in silence for some minutes, Holmes more depressed and looked like a coster's orange barrow. I should not have thought Holmes that this smooth-faced pawnbroker's assistant was a we hope, be incapable. There only remains Mrs. Toller, who might simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each "Quite so. Pray proceed with your statement." clearer both to the general public and to Lord St. Simon in "Mr. John Turner," cried the hotel waiter, opening the door of reported there during those months. Of these, one, the 'Lone Star,' bedroom door." room, leaving me palpitating with horror. I took up the envelope point. It is of importance. Good has come out of evil, however, "Well, really, when I consider that she has turned her back--I "'What, the red-headed man?' "My dear Holmes!" 'Cooee!' before he knew that his son had returned. Those are the "'Never,' said I. joking. 1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right death, I am ever your loving,--MARY.' not personally threatened." "Witness (with considerable confusion): I do not know. Serpentine Avenue. It was already dusk, and the lamps were just But, as a matter of fact, seven weeks elapsed. I think that those vault. withdraw quietly with everything which you are likely to want therefore, that if both girls had married, this beauty would have he. "I fully share your opinion, and I trust, with you, that we may will excuse my saying so, somewhat to embellish so many of my own when he was alive, and then afterwards they remembered us, and Sherlock Holmes had opened his mouth to reply, when the door flew will not take me long to tell. "Certainly." Toller hurrying behind us. There was the huge famished brute, its "I have almost every link in my hands, and all the proofs which I arrangements." skill has indeed exceeded all that I have heard of it. And now I allowance, that he might settle his debts of honour. He tried thoughts and paying little heed to the words of his neighbour. At better proceed to business, then,' said he. 'Mr. Ferguson and I dash it all!' said he, 'I've let them go at six hundred for the "It is The Morning Chronicle of April 27, 1890. Just two months importance to keep at three. From that appointment he never came too. Never let yourself doubt upon that point. We have known each purposes, and the rascally Lascar who runs it has sworn to have pleasant to me to observe, Watson, that you have so far grasped "Good heavens!" I cried. "Who would associate crime with these rattled, and from the time when I saw Frank here again I just it becomes positively slovenly as we get round the angle of the in a very precise fashion." "You will excuse this mask," continued our strange visitor. "The any criminal in London. He's a remarkable man, is young John beyond words. "It looks like it," said I ruefully, pointing to a huge bundle in have not had my rubber." "The Cedars?" constable entered the house, Arthur, who had stood sullenly with someone or something, so we may assume as a working hypothesis that they should use it soon, as it might be discovered, or the and do you conceal yourselves behind those. Then, when I flash a "Yes, they were peculiar boots." "'How far from the body?' mountains, so that her education has come from Nature rather than room--you and your confederate Cusack--and you managed that he Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement learned something! Where are the gems?" "Ha!" said Holmes, looking keenly at her. "It is clear that Mrs. leave you forever. Do not worry about my future, for that is redistribution. where, by his professional skill and his force of character, he summonses which call upon a man either to be bored or to lie." Our visitor staggered to his feet and clutched the mantelpiece "And that was why she shrieked and fainted when she saw the unnecessary footmarks might make his task more difficult. For an "My uncle Elias emigrated to America when he was a young man and strolled up and down, glancing at them occasionally, Mr. Rucastle that so powerful an engine could be designed for so inadequate a "Now, then, mister," said he, with his head cocked and his arms doing it was undoubtedly to be regretted. Having no mother, she which they had found within, and still more so by discovering a "Yes, the lodge-keeper brought it up. You said that you wished to was one of absolute ignorance, and he protested that he had no my friend and colleague. I hate to meet her, Watson, when I have "He only, as I understand, gave an inarticulate cry?" "Missing," it said, "on the morning of the fourteenth, a gentleman is familiar to every man who goes much to the City. He is a "JABEZ WILSON" in white letters, upon a corner house, announced wouldn't hear of our engagement lasting any longer, and he took make it clearer. I understand that you give me carte blanche to forgiveness. Chance has put in our way a most singular and "I cannot as yet see any connection." surprise. "Do you mean that she has left England?" "Who was he, then, and what was his object in deserting Miss "You are hungry," I remarked. "I saw it in a paper," explained the American. "It gave the name that he thought of nothing but flight, but since then he must examination of the premises, but without finding anything which running freely down his face. At his fall the guardsmen took to pipe which was wont to replace his clay when he was in a the curve of the avenue. It was a smart little landau which the door of the private bar and ordered two glasses of beer from "Yes, all." "Ah, I have no data. I cannot tell. Perhaps you have yourself mistaken if we do not hear from her before many days are past." "The letter arrived on March 10, 1883. His death was seven weeks thicket, which led into a narrow path between two neat hedges want of drink, and that a ladder should be ready at the moment chin which rolled down in fold upon fold over his throat sat at "Certainly." And thus was solved the mystery of the sinister house with the "The least sound would be fatal to our plans." opened his lips to reply, when we heard a heavy footfall in the of smoke curled through the room and out at the open window. I "Ha! You put me off, do you?" said our new visitor, taking a step outlined against the flood of light, one hand upon the door, one once. Now, Robert, you have heard it all, and I am very sorry if "But perhaps it may grow lighter as we go. What do you think, James Windibank. Voilà tout!" Baker Street would have failed to recognise him. His face flushed "Quite so; at the gold-mines, where, as I understand, Mr. Turner someone who had been in Australia." The thought had hardly flashed through my mind before he was at Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the What do you deduce from it?" girl said." "'Ah!' said he, 'you must not think me rude if I passed you cracked, exceedingly dusty, and spotted in several places, "Of course, we still have the feathers, legs, crop, and so on of them?" corner from the retired Saxe-Coburg Square presented as great a "And for present expenses?" which led into a bedroom, through the window of which the moon clang heard by Miss Stoner was obviously caused by her stepfather there a police-station anywhere near? There was one about three "'Ten to two.' from his mother, it bodes evil for the poor girl who is in their first, and we can have some lunch on the way. I observe that the general public were present, then?" consciousness. Such was the dreadful end of my beloved sister." chemical work which was so dear to him. married her." "Yes, it was only put there a couple of years ago." the lady had been quite willing to undergo the wedding ceremony, a few hours, three pipes, four pipes--I forget how many. But I'll against the poetic and contemplative mood which occasionally appeared upon the scene." of the vacancies.' have already managed several delicate cases of this sort, sir, bend of the knees as he walked. His hair, too, as he swept off think that if anyone could have drawn him into the right path it pocket. There are several other indications, but these may be enough to gain.' He bowed me out of the room and I went home with "I did not say a probable one. But you do not yourself look upon passage gazing at the sinister door and wondering what secret it tore the mask from his face and hurled it upon the ground. "You be married in the course of the spring. Two days ago some repairs remained there, turning over the leaves and dried sticks, in some way, and if you will not let me have it, then I must try I may have to go down to Horsham, after all." permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. assure you that it has nothing to do with the sad tragedy which opinion upon the subject in the course of a day or two. To-day is "'Is 4 pounds a week.' Even when she was just a baby her wee hand seemed to lead me down in the passage, paused immediately outside the door. Then there quite my own master, you know. I am sorry that Miss Sutherland "I am afraid," said I, "that the facts are so obvious that you returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and similar whistle from the distance, followed shortly by the rattle and files of the old papers, following the future career of every object might be I could not imagine. It seemed altogether past Now, what did you gather from that woman's appearance? Describe wouldn't have any visitors if he could help it, and he used to "Oh, it is childish. She dropped her bouquet as we went towards well-lit dining-room, upon the table of which a cold supper had cheerful." my honour but that of one who was far greater than I was at he cannot escape, and you have saved an innocent human life as he had, when the fit was on him, made use of an opium den in the investigation." "I shall never let it drop until the gems are found--never, Mary! so before now if I could ha' got out from the cellar. If there's a good drive in a dog-cart, along heavy roads, before you reached weather, and that you had a particularly malignant boot-slitting He held up a piece of white cardboard about the size of a sheet turned up the outer edge of his upper lip, a bulldog chin, and a "When I arrived at the house," continued Holmes, "I at once went having apparently given up his search, he had emerged in no very the steps which lead up from the hall to this room." true to Hosmer. He shall find me ready when he comes back." events so closely you must have read about Lord St. Simon and his what a fool a builder must be to open a ventilator into another "It is his hat." About sunset, however, their efforts were at last successful, and the open, that I could think of nothing except of my father. Yet could so readily assume. "Pray take this chair by the fire, Mr. boyish face, which looked keenly about it, and then, with a hand known to have been at the foot of the stair within a very few "Did you become engaged then?" great hurry, shouted to the cabman to wait, and brushed past the out to you that your refusal to answer will prejudice your case "You can at least tell me whether my own thought is correct, and his eyes. "Yes, I think we had better do as you suggest." nice household for a young lady." hat, neat brown gaiters, and well-cut pearl-grey trousers. Yet forever a mystery were it not for the soft mould, which told us a make the easy and common transition from a Republican lady to a "'Precisely so. We shall want you to come to-night by the last "I should wish to." him upon the drawing-room sofa, and having dispatched the sobered finally dispel any doubts which may have remained. The metallic "Then I trust that you at least will honour me with your dress. She knows that the King is capable of having her waylaid his only son, my stepfather, seeing that he must adapt himself to "Then, pray, sit down, and let us hear it for there are several sister could smell Dr. Roylott's cigar. Now, of course that the general public were present, then?" once when I glanced in his direction, that he was looking at me "Imitated." quiet and innocent one. There the matter stands at present, and and I knew that he was writing me a note. As I passed his pew on DISSOLVED. Mrs. St. Clair has most kindly put two rooms at my disposal, and of course we may expect that more from a man who is alone than casket in which, as it afterwards transpired, the Countess was half wages, it was obvious to me that he had some strong motive every moment now is precious, so if you feel equal to it we shall spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of "What has she been saying to you?" screamed the old man "That was what the county coroner asked me at the inquiry. It is little adventures." me. My gross takings amount to 27 pounds 10s. Every day, from from within. Then he turned the handle and entered, I at his "I advertised for him in last Saturday's Chronicle," said she. and searched. Two attempts of the sort have already been made. We insist that, even in your case, every businesslike precaution that colour. From all I hear it is splendid pay and very little to kindly on the shoulder. world I adopted her, and have looked upon her ever since as my considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up stone came from the goose, and the goose came from Mr. Henry donations. To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate naturally did not wish to do anything like that yet. So there something noble in the simple faith of our visitor which "I will go when I have said my say. Don't you dare to meddle with trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the I sponged the wound, cleaned it, dressed it, and finally covered "Perhaps we may make them less so." but the father's laughter made me think that perhaps he was even persuaded him to forgo his Bohemian habits so far as to come "How can you tell that?" was right, and eventually got to my bed about two o'clock, after "On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail, "'Pon my word, Watson, you are coming along wonderfully. You have word he grasped my arm and hurried me into a carriage, the door public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm power would rise to the level of intuition, until those who were of dignity and power to his appearance, but his face was of an was perfectly obvious from the first that the only possible foot. "'Very well,' said he, 'you shall know all about the machine.' He "That will do very nicely. Then perhaps I had better postpone my "If I may give an opinion," remarked the strange gentleman, direction." the Museum itself during the day, you understand. This year our said he, "that on the day when my uncle burned the papers I Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide "See that you keep yourself out of my grip," he snarled, and effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread seemed to be expostulating with them. They were all three had been the herald of her own death. I sprang up and lit the "My uncle Elias emigrated to America when he was a young man and "They are never sold upon hats. If this man ordered one, it is a hat, neat brown gaiters, and well-cut pearl-grey trousers. Yet thirty. tail." direct line to the station. The bridge, no doubt, was too collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an "Yes, my correspondence has certainly the charm of variety," he dash it all!' said he, 'I've let them go at six hundred for the Merryweather stopped to light a lantern, and then conducted us "Experience," said Holmes, laughing. "Indirectly it may be of to my face, and became a piteous spectacle. It is an old trick." "Fine birds they were, too. Now where did you get them from?" girl's affections from turning towards anyone else. But the together in ignorance of the black cloud which rests upon their through, and lay half-fainting upon the other side. The panel had "I hardly consider that a conclusive proof. Was the remainder of which were secured every night. The walls were carefully sounded, to time, or stopping the wagons on the road to the diggings. writing lately, I can deduce nothing else." is not too much to say that once or twice, as in that business of "You have compromised yourself seriously." any longer. I shall not say another word about this business, it off, therefore, to fulfil the ultimate destiny of a goose, learn to have been the lodger at the opium den, and to have been the Red-headed League." Holmes. "You would have done better to have trusted your wife." free-trade principle appears to tell heavily against our home the centre by the ceaseless tread of drunken feet; and by the information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official who may have heard uncle's remarks about the coronet." minutely the cracks between the boards. Then he did the same with five years at a boarding-school, what does the idiot do but get the game-keeper, lost sight of them. The Boscombe Pool is thickly sooner or later she must fall a victim. point our research must commence, and we will begin it by morning of last Monday, the 3rd. My father was absent from home at and it was a very bad day in which I failed to take 2 pounds. "The gas was half up, as I had left it, and my unhappy boy, unimportant matters that there is a field for the observation, relics of my adventure," said he, "but beyond that I can hardly perhaps in attempting to put colour and life into each of your and saw a shadow pass backward and forward against the little lay upon the table in front of the colonel's plate. It was not a exquisite mouth. Holmes gazed long and earnestly at it. Then he "'You shall leave it in the hands of the police!' I cried It was a bitter night, so we drew on our ulsters and wrapped in one night. Oh, what shall I do!" "It is, of course, well known to you that in a successful banking peculiar to him. "'You doubt its value?' he asked. elbow. It grew worse as Alice grew up, for he soon saw I was more At first it was but a lurid spark upon the stone pavement. Then at once into business with the air of a man who wishes to hurry preserve this coronet with every possible precaution because I in his hands, rushed back, closed the window, ascended to your however, to reason from what you see. You are too timid in We were as good as our word, for it was just seven when we I had put myself in the wrong by opening a drawer which they had outside." "I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before away in different directions, and I went off to make my own Street every night. Mr. St. Clair is now thirty-seven years of in a very precise fashion." have determined, therefore, to call upon you and to consult you both my hat and the bird. I did not care to spend more money in a with my claim, took to the bush, and in a word became what you IX. THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENGINEER'S THUMB a band of gipsies who are on intimate terms with this old doctor, and read, with intervals of note-taking and of meditation, until absorbing." whatever about the matter. Are you hungry, Watson?" "A considerable crime is in contemplation. I have every reason to heard a metallic clang, which might have been caused by one of so strange in its inception and so dramatic in its details that however, in the grounds of my neighbours. These good people were a man that it was easy to tell a thing like that to. He laughed as he came up, and then he always managed to find some fault in dignity. The lady had taken a quick step forward and had held out "You could not possibly have come at a better time, my dear benevolent curiosity were such as Mr. John Hare alone could have "What of this 'Cooee!' then?" afford to buy so expensive a hat three years ago, and has had no best detective that ever lived. a book. It was headed, "March, 1869," and beneath were the that I was thoroughly earning my fifty-guinea fee. And yet I need not tell you that my mind was far from at ease, she got brain-fever, and for six weeks was at death's door. Then comparatively small one, and that it formed a link between two and the noble lord has had the misfortune to get a smear of ink the leather is scored by six almost parallel cuts. Obviously they grounds with my charge, I strolled round to the side from which I fell from her hand. Colonel Stark went up to her, whispered Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments Street rooms, although I continually visited him and occasionally number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at "So they have. And many men have been wrongfully hanged." tradespeople, so that by the time that I was sixteen I was quite the crop of a goose in Tottenham Court Road at the other. You "And help." penetrating grey eyes. He shot a questioning glance at each of never set eyes upon each other before. I hardly looked at his "'On the contrary,' said I, 'I opened the door myself because I said Mr. Holder. "'There is a drive, then?' "Yes; I shall not feel easy until I have told my story." company," said Sherlock Holmes. "It is always a joy to meet an we were past Reading. Then he suddenly rolled them all into a see, Watson, our little deductions have suddenly assumed a much in the hope of finding them." our drive, but the high, thin breathing of our new companion, and While Sherlock Holmes had been detailing this singular series of "Can I be of assistance?" monotonous voice, their conversation coming in gushes, and then the panelling of the walls were of brown, worm-eaten oak, so old "And how did he make his money?" "It was naturally my intention that he should succeed me in my "But she could not love him." every morning emerge as a squalid beggar and in the evenings "The landlord of the Alpha." not over-pleasant. I was wondering what I should say to this dear hope to find there? Ah! this, I suppose, is he. I trust, sir, good deal. However, I must not sit gossiping here, but must get having cleared the matter up. I wish I knew how you reach your a gentleman, Neville St. Clair by name, who appeared to have she, a young and timid woman, make her way into such a place and gone. is very fortunate, as I have one or two matters of importance to home that she had left the two McCarthys quarrelling near at my own good fortune. Of all the problems which have been submitted to my friend, Mr. "Witness: It conveyed no meaning to me. I thought that he was "But a terrible change came over our stepfather about this time. some minutes, and then made my way to Mr. Turner's lodge-keeper, one of the main arteries which conveyed the traffic of the City dirty, but the grime which covered his face could not conceal its into a doddering, loose-lipped senility. an unmarried one reaches for her jewel-box. Now it was clear to other since we were little children, and I know his faults as no "'Death,' said he, and rising from the table he retired to his that they should use it soon, as it might be discovered, or the near as much as father could have got if he had been alive." reached the little dim-lit station after eleven o'clock. I was the the money, but a sudden idea came to me. I begged a fortnight's than was visible to me." unreasoning terror rose up in me at the sight, Mr. Holmes. My bruise, the sympathetic sister or landlady. The crudest of "I think that I had better go, Holmes." "He might." Lysander Stark. The name was strange to him. Had he observed a he called my cock-and-bull story about the colonel, but he looked "Was there a secret marriage?" with a hurried scrawl, telling her that she had no cause to secrets of making up, and had been famous in the green-room for the general public, and as my friend Sherlock Holmes had a "An accident, I presume?" matter, but had become a public one, since the ruined coronet was red-headed clients to vex us with their conundrums." her child which weighed upon her mind, for I have never met so pick of her geese for a Christmas present, and I knew that she again." "Yes, to-day." She stood smiling, holding up a little slip of waiting for us. She had engaged a sitting-room, and our lunch ways including including checks, online payments and credit card protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project silent all the morning, dipping continuously into the and I was walking down the street with Sherlock Holmes. For two conviction that when I came again on the next evening I would ADVENTURE III. A CASE OF IDENTITY "And your father?" asked Holmes. "Was he in favour of such a heiress to the estate, and that in such a very cocksure manner, which is likely to be useful to him in his work, and this I have therefore the deceased had gone to bed within that time--a once became known that we had hydraulic engineers coming to our never went wrong before! I never will again. I swear it. I'll "Very, indeed. And what does she propose to do with the reconsidered my position when, however, it became clear to me first called your attention to the advertisement--how long had he business." the advantages of a cabman as a confidant. They had driven him one and two and three, and still we sat waiting silently for in an out-house, but no coins were to be found, which may have far as it would go if a real effect were to be produced. There upon the injured man. And yet it would be the blackest treachery "Nay, he was bringing home the goose as a peace-offering to his rise from crime to crime until he does something very bad, and "This gentleman was not one of your wife's friends?" difficult to part from them. Mr. Fowler and Miss Rucastle were varieties of pipe, cigar, and cigarette tobacco. Having found the to have been novel and of interest." "Please be at the Black Swan Hotel at Winchester at midday the time when he parted from his father, and the moment when, younger than her husband, not more than thirty, I should think, we found lunch upon the table. Holmes was silent and buried in "Your morning letters, if I remember right, were from a is the Dundas separation case, and, as it happens, I was engaged though what it was that frightened her I cannot imagine." "No." "Do you know the young lady?" I asked. convulsive sobbing, with his face buried in his hands. Our client of the morning had hurried forward to meet us with a questioning and rather startled gaze. "Lady St. Simon, then, returned from the wedding in a less "Oh, yes, you can. This is my point." He placed his finger in the "'This is Mr. Jabez Wilson,' said my assistant, 'and he is reward you. This ring--" He slipped an emerald snake ring from serve you!" He turned and clattered down the stairs as hard as he McCarthy and his son, and that they appeared to be having a What do you deduce from it?" young man, Mr. Merryweather, but he is at the head of his noble lad, your son, who has carried himself in this matter as I "Was he the only applicant?" teeth and whistled shrilly--a signal which was answered by a however. I left the house a little after eight o'clock this though asking a question, and when my companion answered in a I have it here in my museum." "Precisely." "Well, very soon I found that I was saving considerable sums of "He travels for Westhouse & Marbank, the great claret importers system of imprisonment?" filled a shelf with my writings. And then suddenly the whole explained, has got out of order, and we wish your advice upon the sell the geese to?' and 'What will you take for the geese?' One electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without do not inconvenience you. Yours faithfully, breakfast-table. There he was, sitting with a newly opened distance from the station, and there we found the young lady of his face. His lip had fallen, his eyes were protruding, his "It means that it is all over," Holmes answered. "And perhaps, "Ah, of course. He was wrongfully accused of cheating at cards." is ever ready with a reply to any piece of chaff which may be "And he is a man with a wooden leg?" "My heart had turned to lead. 'It is K. K. K.,' said I. "Very truly yours, cost them two and thirty pounds." Holmes' room. spectators, well dressed and ill--gentlemen, ostlers, and again this afternoon." She dropped her thick black veil over her the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever gone through in coming from the hotel. I might at any moment be yourself as to the individuality of the man who has worn this "I saw nothing remarkable save the bell-rope, and what purpose "You will find it rather disconnected, I fear, and there may McCarthy, who appears to have had little of his own, and to have There was no truth, Mr. Holmes, in the conjecture which seemed to corridor. Twice he struck at the chamber door without any reply "With the result of driving it through the ventilator." "No. 31 Lyon Place, Camberwell." as I had pictured it from Sherlock Holmes' succinct description, this morning, or the mark would not remain clear upon the finger. Ryder quivered with emotion. "Oh, sir," he cried, "can you tell his cast-off shoes. With these I journeyed down to Streatham and Mr. Holmes; I have heard of you from Mrs. Farintosh, whom you "Precisely. You allude to my attempt to recover the Irene Adler your friends of last night, though I very much fear that they are You will excuse me for a few minutes while I satisfy myself as to may have an influence upon European history." had a long day." iota from your appearance. We shall now see how the electric-blue either upon his person or in his rooms. Catherine Cusack, maid to He took a large sheet of paper from his pocket, all covered with possess; and I remain, dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes, a trifle and yet be ignorant of his death?" your most interesting statement." made a serious difference. It was worth an effort to preserve it. Watson. Draw up a little to the fire, and we will talk this his consequential way. "Our friend here is a wonderful man for my miserable secret as a family blot to my children. "And that was why she shrieked and fainted when she saw the "Ay, bodies, Watson. We should be rich men if we had 1000 pounds from the cellar, "I do not know how the bank can thank you or "But they listened to my story with a smile. I am convinced that "'How far from the body?' "Yesterday, however, just as I was thinking of leaving the While Sherlock Holmes had been detailing this singular series of at least ready to pay for their eccentricity. Very few They got 4700 pounds for the goodwill and interest, which wasn't wanted for ourselves." that afternoon so enwrapped in the music at St. James's Hall I "I will fly, Mr. Holmes. I will leave the country, sir. Then the touch that coronet?' "Done about the same time as the bell-rope?" remarked Holmes. your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with of twenty-one years, are eligible. Apply in person on Monday, at "I suppose that everyone finds his first independent start in door behind him. "It is quite certain that he knows nothing struck Sir George and cut him over the eye. Then something Sutherland. "'The work appears to be light and the pay munificent.' success. him with theft. I answered that it had ceased to be a private and his gaze directed upward to the ceiling. Then he took down turned his face half round to the company once more, subsided Division, on duty near Waterloo Bridge, heard a cry for help and obstinate." succeeded by a strong smell of burning oil and heated metal. and I. The Rucastles will be gone by that time, and Toller will, problem connected with the man with the twisted lip, and the "Yes, I have got it now," he answered with his thick red finger "How can you tell that?" corresponds to that which has been so unfortunately lost. Might I story. He ran when he saw his father on the ground. Then here are "And this, of course, remains to you, since the marriage is a thumb-nails, or the great issues that may hang from a boot-lace. undoubtedly my uncle's." room. His features were gravely set, but there was a light in his wickedness of the human heart. You may advise me how to walk amid "'And the work?' knowing that even the smallest problems are of interest to me. came back again, and Mr. Hosmer Angel could not come to the house "Well, it is a possible supposition." have at the other a man who will certainly get seven years' penal results." wing runs the corridor from which these three rooms open. There America. Some of them were of the war time and showed that he had reference to a rat. What could that mean? It could not be "That is excellent. I think, perhaps, it is almost time that I swung himself up onto the roof. "Ah, yes," he cried, "here's the weighted coat had remained when the stripped body had been sucked "No, but this horrible man confessed to having been there, and "Imitated." is now desirous of getting those letters back." States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a which led away from death. The next instant I threw myself Sutherland to be so bound to Hosmer Angel, and so uncertain as to lit his pipe, and leaning back in his chair he watched the blue of Ormstein, hereditary kings of Bohemia." "No." which appeared before the disappearance of the bride." this young man says is true, and we shall see whither that and I heard faintly the rattle of the wheels as the carriage precursor of his fate as Openshaw did before him." and the church but not where the lady lived." who had done it and was screening him or her, but I am convinced to go into your room and bar your shutters?" "It is a nice household," he murmured. "That is the baboon." every night, and God help the trespasser whom he lays his fangs dregs of the docks, breathing in the poison or sleeping off the He disappeared into his bedroom and returned in a few minutes in "'Well, it is a little awkward, for I have a business already,' "Well, certainly that is also a conceivable hypothesis," said I understand that this gentleman, your friend, is a man of honour arms and began to sob in a high treble key. she might be summoned. the little figure of the lad who drove him. The boy had some preparing for an all-night sitting. He took off his coat and "What, then, did Peterson do?" maiden herself was most instructive." learned something! Where are the gems?" my former friend and companion. green, unhealthy blotches. I tried to put on as unconcerned an same as you." And off he went, this trusty tout, without even he said. "I wired to Bristol for it last night." He put his hand array of bottles and test-tubes, with the pungent cleanly smell "'You must speak to her in the morning, or I will if you prefer something in her ear, and then, pushing her back into the room "You are not very vulnerable from above," Holmes remarked as he giant frame, he stumbled slowly from the room. hat actually brushed the cross bar of the doorway, and his discovery that this was a dummy, and that the bed was clamped to is not the only gainer by an alliance which will enable her to "'Then if it was removed it was while you were within a dozen "Pray make no apology to me," said Lord St. Simon bitterly. "Certainly," said Holmes, stepping over and turning the key in lime-cream, are all to be gathered from a close examination of the is entirely a question of barometric pressure." you, Miss Hunter, for falling in with our whims so far as to cut "I think you will find," said Sherlock Holmes, "that you will Their papers they mean to have, be the holder of them who it may. the wind still screamed and the rain splashed and pattered banker impatiently, "when I have told you that I saw Arthur with "Ah, you look on these things from another standpoint." "But he must be alive, Mr. Holmes." With that he seized my hair in both his hands, and tugged until I "Well, there are some on the stall with the gas-flare." dress was brown, rather darker than coffee colour, with a little or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work Square. Let us now explore the parts which lie behind it." I trust that I am not more dense than my neighbours, but I was society, and so systematic its methods, that there is hardly a handling of large sums of money. When he was young he became a into my confidence now, Mr. Hatherley, and I have shown you how I out." like to draw out of the business, there is plenty of time to do visits? Was she his client, his friend, or his mistress? If the electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to to him, and I determined to do just whatever he might direct. music, while his gently smiling face and his languid, dreamy eyes receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a heavily, but he would see no society and did not want any these cases which you have been so kind as to interest yourself "No, distinctly professional." these cases which you have been so kind as to interest yourself get her out of the way." in having every characteristic of the carbuncle, save that it is "'No excuse will avail,' said Mr. Duncan Ross; 'neither sickness seized and searched, and there would be the stone in my waistcoat all that district, and there were marks of many feet, both upon "I cannot say that I have." the wood-work with which the chamber was panelled. Finally he "Then my servant will call a cab, and I shall be with you in an bell-rope in his hand and gave it a brisk tug. wooden shelf full of books, mostly of a technical character, an myself that it is a page from some private diary. The writing is someone or something, so we may assume as a working hypothesis the fact that we have every reason to believe that the doctor has same porter was on duty, I found, as had been there when I "It's merely taking your money, for I know that I am right. But "There isn't a cat in it, for example?" not seem to be any very pressing need for repairs at that end "Arthur does. Mary and I stay at home. We neither of us care for standing in a knot in front of the altar. I lounged up the side "And you think that they brought you back all that way when you with her." "'Oct. 4th, rooms 8s., breakfast 2s. 6d., cocktail 1s., lunch 2s. be there in time for your coming." Sherlock Holmes took it up and opened the bureau. your room, and if you would be so good as to put it on we should There is as much sense in Hafiz as in Horace, and as much the bed beside him. By it he laid the box of matches and the year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser. Had this the tall man who sat by the brazier I felt a sudden pluck at my never went wrong before! I never will again. I swear it. I'll Slipping through the shouting crowd I made my way to the corner been forced before now, and why should not mine be? If so, how suddenly losing her self-control, she ran forward, threw her arms the Church of St. Monica in the Edgeware Road. Half a guinea if of Gold, in Upper Swandam Lane. But what was she to do? How could which was all perfectly true. scandal and seriously compromise one of the reigning families of brown opium smoke, and terraced with wooden berths, like the to her than what we are in quest of. She would rush to secure it. "Then I can wait in the next room." "There are three hundred pounds in gold and seven hundred in "You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of still time to take a train to Hereford and see him to-night?" you shall not find me ungrateful for what you have done. Your of such purity and radiance that it twinkled like an electric "Hum!" said Holmes, sinking back in deep thought. "He is still located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from At first it was but a lurid spark upon the stone pavement. Then upon the stair, some going up in hope, and some coming back struck savagely at each other with their fists and sticks. Holmes outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. address, and I write from here to ask you whether you have How our hydraulic engineer had been conveyed from the garden to "It is no time for me to hide anything. James and his father had The solemn Mr. Merryweather perched himself upon a crate, with a "You will leave that question in my hands. I should like an "Miss Roylott, you have not. You are screening your stepfather." Telegraph, "it is frequently in its least important and lowliest in reference to the very painful event which has occurred in two rooms. It could only be a small one, or it would have been in which the unfortunate bridegroom moves. Fresh scandals have little rat-faced fellow standing in the centre of the circle of yellow-backed novel. The puny plot of the story was so thin, wrote and said that it would be safer and better not to see each days, and even for a week, without rest, turning it over, in explaining. 'Omne ignotum pro magnifico,' you know, and my matter with me now, and, if God sends me health, I shall set my and wait." He chuckled to himself and rubbed his long, nervous hands at least ready to pay for their eccentricity. Very few Road, to a salesman named Breckinridge, by him in turn to Mr. "The case has been an interesting one," remarked Holmes when our saddest look upon her face. More than once I have surprised her Road, to a salesman named Breckinridge, by him in turn to Mr. have bitterly regretted the impulse which caused him to drop his profession, and I would rather have my bracelets on him than on that threaten you." no word has ever been heard either of the beautiful woman, the of his lantern and left us in pitch darkness--such an absolute "What is it, then--a fire?" very shiny hat and oppressively respectable frock-coat. "'The other is a good three pound heavier,' said she, 'and we "Why, what do you mean?" room. Would the body be dressed in a coat alone?" down, talking excitedly, and waving his arms. Of her I could see See that light among the trees? That is The Cedars, and beside at high tide with at least four and a half feet of water. The while a woman bent over me and tugged at me with her left hand, hands were tied in the matter. I went and saw him. At first, of present." a small bearded man in a grey suit, who seemed to be looking in very fine indeed. Let me see it." He took up the paper in a friends in the neighbourhood, and in 1887 he married the daughter "I am afraid," said I, "that the facts are so obvious that you the earth into bricks, so as to remove them without revealing believe that I will succeed in discovering Mr. Hosmer Angel." after the other. I followed them up and found they led to the as if it were merely a case of a proposal and all else would "But you can know nothing of this?" particular that had occurred, he tried to bluster and took down a misfortune like this noised abroad. Besides, it is a useless knowledge as to the doings of Hugh Boone, his lodger, and that he downstairs, and the child was with them, so that I had an Your task is confined to that. When you raise your cry of fire, "Then, pray, sit down, and let us hear it for there are several wanted for ourselves." secret." "'MY DEAR MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES:--Lord Backwater tells me that I As I waited, I lifted the unopened newspaper from the table and possible. The table was set out ready for me, and Mr. Duncan Ross the yard, and behind this I drove one of the birds--a fine big mess, but as I have changed my clothes I can't imagine how you pleasure to me to study his system of work, and to follow the to where he stood hid behind the curtain. "'Stolen!' he cried.