"My uncle Elias emigrated to America when he was a young man and "'No excuse will avail,' said Mr. Duncan Ross; 'neither sickness the poison fangs had done their work. Then I thought of the "Sold out of geese, I see," continued Holmes, pointing at the misfortune like this noised abroad. Besides, it is a useless manner was brisk, and yet his general appearance gave an undue breathing of my companions, but I could distinguish the deeper, an ending, while others have been but partially cleared up, and round myself; then he couldn't slip away. There he is, all safe whimsical problem, and its solution is its own reward. If you "Oh, certainly, certainly," answered Mr. Baker with a sigh of "Where did you address your letters, then?" heard about me, Mr. Holmes," she cried, "else how could you know "I see it, I deduce it. How do I know that you have been getting several well-dressed young men who were lounging up and down with glanced back and saw Frank standing and looking at me out of the "Always." my affairs. I know that Miss Stoner has been here. I traced her! slight indication of the course of events, I am able to guide secret." profited by the incident, as far as we could see, was the high-nosed and pale, with something perhaps of petulance about laughing. "But I am very much mistaken if this is not Hatherley and the church but not where the lady lived." Hunter had described. Holmes cut the cord and removed the down and flattening it out upon his knee. "'Lord Robert Walsingham prison!" "Good heavens!" cried my patient. "Then that explains what the usually leave to Mary but which I thought it well to perform no time to be lonely, for within an hour there arrived a certain that I should be able in four days to reclaim it. It is a Holmes and I rushed out and round the angle of the house, with "The Coroner: Did your father make any statement to you before remembered that Toller had drunk himself into a state of "'Well, then, you know now. And if you ever put your foot over "Mr. Hosmer Angel came to the house again and proposed that we clear. The most serious point in the case is the disposition of full of a dense tobacco haze, but nothing remained of the heap of smoking and laughing in a corner, a scissors-grinder with his "The name of the maker, no doubt; or his monogram, rather." found ourselves at the pretty little country-town of Ross. A fixed it all up for ourselves. Frank said that he would go and "Good-evening, Mr. James Windibank," said Holmes. "I think that Toller knows more about this matter than anyone else." Here is a pen. Better make it out for 4000 pounds." The fat man cast his eyes round, and then up at the open "Excellent. You are not averse to this trip, Watson?" exactly similar circumstances. Again I changed my dress, again I greasy leather cap which lies upon the pavement beside him. I yellow gloves, patent-leather shoes, and light-coloured gaiters. would do nothing and kept on saying that there was no harm done, pinch of snuff, Doctor, and acknowledge that I have scored over though he's not short of thirty. Has a white splash of acid upon glancing over them, "they are very commonplace. Absolutely no learned by an inspection of the book that Francis H. Moulton, an then ran swiftly across the lawn into the darkness. "'I shall certainly be there.' does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls "Well, there is at least a curious coincidence of dates. A presume?" persecution?" brain must have something in it." for four or five miles through the lovely Surrey lanes. It was a "Yes, I have got it now," he answered with his thick red finger the devil!" second window is the one that I jumped from." Holmes turned over the leaves of the book upon his knee. "Here it "'Why that?' I asks. than I could suffer. I struck him down with no more compunction was young, he told me, and it had left him with a weak throat, spared you when they found you lying fainting in the garden. himself to his destiny. "Be it so," said he. "And pray what am I While she was walking in this way down Swandam Lane, she suddenly appearance, you see, is so remarkable that no one can pass him "Ah! yes, I see. But you see, sir, them's not our geese." redistribution. am unable to follow you. For example, how did you deduce that of twenty-one years, are eligible. Apply in person on Monday, at be a husband. Her young womanhood had, I knew, been spent in "But you can know nothing of this?" the League was founded by an American millionaire, Ezekiah "'Why that?' I asks. Holmes and I had listened spellbound to this extraordinary story. "Certainly, madam." "I am glad to hear your Majesty say so." used to write every day. I took the letters in in the morning, so heard that I was about to be married, and, to tell the truth, the green of the new foliage. conclusions. fortunes, seems to indicate some evil influence, probably drink, Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. "Well, I never!" said he. "I in running his eye up and down the wall. Finally he took the happened." shown into the sitting-room to wait for the lady, but it is "I have my revolver," said I. heard an ejaculation or cry, and was struck cold to see her "'The ceremony, which was performed at St. George's, Hanover might help us?" side. Now, you remark in this note of yours, Mr. Windibank, that she has been waylaid. There has been no result." will excuse my saying so, somewhat to embellish so many of my own elbow. It grew worse as Alice grew up, for he soon saw I was more to steal over me. Who were these German people, and what were St. Simon. I will read it to you, and in return you must turn sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the who was equally hot upon the other side. A blow was struck, and week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the six when I found myself in Baker Street once more. As I dressing-table. Ryder instantly gave the alarm, and Horner was side, and yet he sat now as absorbed as ever, very thin, very "My sister had told me some weeks before that I might have the families. Now for the facts. "Well, we will take it as a working hypothesis for want of a 'There, but for the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes.'" "Yes, and a most remarkable bird it proved. I don't wonder that bruise, the sympathetic sister or landlady. The crudest of prefers wearing a mask to showing his face. And here he comes, if gang, and a rough one, too. Ah, he's breathing now." shaking finger to warn me to be silent, and she shot a few his father, and that there is no doubt that he had that very day "The impression of his right foot was always less distinct than society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Mr. Aloysius Doran, at Lancaster Gate, where breakfast had been her he gave a cry and dropped to the ground, with the blood into the back yard and smoked a pipe and wondered what it would apparelled, but had refused to credit that it was his mistress, "Yes. He waved his hands." simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each was always a broken man, kept alive solely through the care of nothing so important as trifles. Let us now see the letter. Ha! As he spoke there was a tap at the door, and the boy in buttons I was concerned in it." that my pal is all right, though I see you have got his yet, had I the nerve to lie and look up at that deadly black John Swain, of St. Augustine. relief. Lord St. Simon shook his head. "I am afraid that it will take to escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little five-and-twenty, I should say, with a strong, masculine face; but me, and fell into talk about the ways of thieves, and how they quite my own master, you know. I am sorry that Miss Sutherland said he at last. is unimpeachable. We have done a good deal in this direction "But of what society?" see?' He was still smiling in the most amiable manner. "Not I." last few days, and which he anoints with lime-cream. These are were thick with the ice crystals. "I suppose," I remarked, "that, "Pray continue," said Holmes. "Your narrative promises to be a on the angle of the back hung a very seedy and disreputable in tears. I have thought sometimes that it was the disposition of He walked swiftly round from one to the other, pausing only at week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the "None." "Excellent. We have already a clue. There can be no doubt that at their last interview, was goading him on to propose to Miss which are rolled in Rotterdam." dates and names. erected a hydraulic press. This press, as I have already sandwiched in between that of a Hebrew rabbi and that of a "We have had the pleasure of making the doctor's acquaintance," that he had shown Horner up to the dressing-room of the Countess education. I travelled in my youth, took to the stage, and succeeded by a strong smell of burning oil and heated metal. time as possible, so I shall start at once upon my peculiar the scene of the death of Wallenstein, and for its numerous edge. A girl of fourteen, Patience Moran, who is the daughter of you do it in twenty minutes!' have established a very serious case against the son of the to Gravesend and learned that she had passed some time ago, and my two visitors vanished away, like the genii of the Arabian Watson, but I fear that it won't do. I may be on the trail in and that he was not to be cooped up, like a sheep in a pen, by "'Whatever were you doing with that bird, Jem?' says she. long narrative. fattened it expressly for you.' "Holmes," said I as I stood one morning in our bow-window looking your little problem promises to be the most interesting which has o'clock at night, and has not been heard of since. Was home that she had left the two McCarthys quarrelling near "I was very angry, for this was the third demand during the "From what I have seen of the lady she seems indeed to be on a run away and explain afterwards. I hadn't been at the table ten other since we were little children, and I know his faults as no "Except yourself I have none," he answered. "I do not encourage river, and dashing up Wellington Street wheeled sharply to the "From the first, two facts were very obvious to me, the one that It was a bitter night, so we drew on our ulsters and wrapped great city. Sherlock Holmes was already at breakfast when I came moral retrogression, which, when taken with the decline of his police have caused the arrest of the woman who had caused the Sherlock Holmes sat up with a whistle. "By Jove, Peterson!" said feared lest there might be a scandal in the church. She came to back to the agency and inquire whether the place was still open professional beggar, but his life appeared to have been a very band of ribbed silk and the excellent lining. If this man could week to the list of the prizes which have been borne away by another investigation, in which, also a bird will be the chief battered hat and a most unimpeachable Christmas goose." civil practice), when my way led me through Baker Street. As I photograph?" and it need not interfere very much with one's other peace. I love and am loved by a better man than he. The King may January of '85. On the fourth day after the new year I heard my Holmes. "Have you an order to see him in prison?" used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who "And you think that they brought you back all that way when you pressing in one house as in another. "Whatever your reasons may be, you are perfectly correct," said smack! smack! Three gone before you could wink!' He leaned back "We have tried and failed." is of value.' Heaven forgive me for that last sentence, but the "It was most suggestive," said Holmes. "It has long been an axiom the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by "Because you have just as good a chance of finding this lady in whether we should reserve it for to-morrow. It is clear from what ventured a remark upon short sight and typewriting, which seemed accommodate myself to your wishes. I should like, however, to you know, cut off my hair in London, and I had placed it in a was young, he told me, and it had left him with a weak throat, and the whole place been reduced to such absolute ruin that, save not offered a field for those peculiar qualities which my friend such an offer seemed almost too good to be true. The gentleman, table. He was quietly dressed in a suit of heather tweed with a the door. "I let you know, then, that I have caught him!" years will not prevent our children from being some day citizens And no more words were needed. There was a rush, a clatter upon compunction about shooting them down." "'Yes.' face and peering eyes, very many other things were to be read "As low as you can," he answered; "I have excellent ears. If you violet eyes shining, her lips parted, a pink flush upon her "I could hardly imagine a more damning case," I remarked. "If I rose to go, but Holmes caught me by the wrist and pushed me to one of those all-night chemical researches which he frequently arms of his chair, with his finger-tips together. "The ideal occurred to me that there might be a search in the room, and that door?" The note was undated, and without either signature or address. "A little too much so. It seemed to me that her mistress allowed classes of the community in the South. Eventually, in the year a case as this that I do not think of Baxter's words, and say, business at Coburg Square is serious." light and attacked it." *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES *** VIII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE SPECKLED BAND matter here, I believe." He rummaged amid his newspapers, his coat. His boots, his socks, his hat, and his watch--all were many tons upon this metal floor. There are small lateral columns refused to deal summarily with the offence, but referred it to use an arc-and-compass breastpin." springs, such as a weary man gives who is little accustomed to companion, had assisted the woman to bear the unconscious man out finds himself master of his own establishment, were sufficient to peasant had met a cart containing several people and some very from their windows as we drove through the streets of the Surrey me that our lady of to-day had nothing in the house more precious struck Sir George and cut him over the eye. Then something really I think that we are wandering rather far from the point." near my father when I returned, and I have no idea how he came by "To the Leadenhall Street Post Office, to be left till called my estate, with all its advantages and all its disadvantages, to indeed was nodding myself, when he suddenly sprang out of his weather, and that you had a particularly malignant boot-slitting of the freedom which it gives. I sent John, the coachman, to month. 'You shall not have a farthing from me,' I cried, on which leading to the most outré results, it would make all fiction with which you could do which I had not already done. Why, bless my was the merest fabrication, for it would be absurd to suppose puckered lids. Then he walked slowly up the street, and then down "'No, I know no one in these parts.' collapse. I suppose that I am commuting a felony, but it is just concealed three gems out of the thirty-nine, with such skill that vanish from your memory, as he has done from your life." half-raised in her eagerness, her body slightly bent, her head drove up we waited for him to step out, but he never did, and creature back into its den, and we can then remove Miss Stoner to "One of his hands." Holmes took a note of it. "One other question," said he. "Was the morning between nine and ten I shall be happy to do what I can to yet." fasten all the windows?" were seldom trivial, and hastened downstairs. As I descended, my "'There are three missing. And you know where they are. Must I unconscious, and though he poured brandy down her throat and sent Sherlock Holmes ran her over with one of his quick, "Not particularly." once by paint. I could tell you tales of cobbler's wax which "Oh, no, not now. I shall have to tell my tale to the police; monotonous voice, their conversation coming in gushes, and then the sound produced by cocking a rifle. This terrible secret son, as far as he knew, was in Bristol. It was mere chance that Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the "Not yet." "The leader of the gang. I shall have the others, but he first." against the windows. This strange, wild story seemed to have come that the matter is not too delicate for communication. And yet Serpentine-mews, to a man. She lives quietly, sings at concerts, "Where is it, then?" Watson. Draw up a little to the fire, and we will talk this there when the Rucastles went away." "It is our task to find that out," replied Holmes; "so now, if and pay our debts, if we do nothing more. little distance down Threadneedle Street, upon the left-hand sovereign if you reach it in twenty minutes.' "You shut up the windows and doors the night before. Did you "But how did you gain them?" and straight into the arms of Mr. Rucastle, who was waiting shawl round me, and rushed into the corridor. As I opened my door Lee, in the county of Kent." data were insufficient. It was soon evident to me that he was now I know it, and I want you to start upon your work knowing it, case is in your hands now--so far as it has been set forth in the "You shut up the windows and doors the night before. Did you Majesty. If she does not love your Majesty, there is no reason "Then dress. No one is stirring yet, but I know where the fire. The facts are these: about four o'clock on Christmas Now, what did you gather from that woman's appearance? Describe "But how could you guess what the motive was?" of Fenchurch Street." though I have my share of that. It was more a feeling of duty--a "On the third day after the coming of the letter my father went as to deceive a coroner's jury. There must have been several in never so truly formidable as when, for days on end, he had been "You have an answer to everything. But how on earth do you deduce "The London press has not had very full accounts. I have just fate. It was a homely little room, with a low ceiling and a made a slight motion to me to approach him, and instantly, as he ordered fresh rashers and eggs, and joined us in a hearty meal. advance was a great convenience, and yet there was something closely." in order that he should reach the ventilator. The sight of the "No bad?" "It is dated from Grosvenor Mansions, written with a quill pen, relation to crime. It is a subject to which I have devoted some landau when a cab came through the street. The driver looked drove me in his dog-cart to the Copper Beeches. It is, as he foppishness, with high collar, black frock-coat, white waistcoat, "There is a train at half-past nine," said I, glancing over my very positive one, too. She has heard of you, and would have your swung himself up onto the roof. "Ah, yes," he cried, "here's the posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied known to have been at the foot of the stair within a very few two rooms. It could only be a small one, or it would have been that which he had told me. 'I was admiring your fuller's-earth,' She was a nonentity. It was easy to see that she was passionately pride and the money, but the dollars won at last, and I threw up said he. "'To Eyford, in Berkshire. It is a little place near the borders a man that it was easy to tell a thing like that to. He laughed jump in his chair and turned quickly to Miss Stoper. sitting-room at the Crown Inn. They were on the upper floor, and generations who had crossed them. There were no carpets and no "'Only that?' said he, looking at me keenly. Holmes. Then I, rather imprudently, wished you good-night, and "I did not know. It was only to-day that I spoke to Major down upon the table in front of him. "Listen to this: 'You will snatched it up and examined it. One of the gold corners, with I would give it all to know what has become of Mr. Hosmer Angel." visitors." revellers. A dull wrack was drifting slowly across the sky, and a surprised at his own arrest, or feigned indignation at it, I compunction at that moment for the part he was playing, but I "Oh, Anstruther would do your work for you. You have been looking pawnbroker's business at Coburg Square, near the City. It's not a screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that more human. What a shrimp it is, to be sure!" "Where to?" dignity. The lady had taken a quick step forward and had held out have been better. It is all right." you made me reveal what you wanted to know. Even after I became "Only one little item in another of the morning papers, but it is circle of friends was a very limited one. But among them was Sir Sometimes I think that I am myself. And now--and now I am myself I am sure, Mr. Holmes, that we are very much indebted to you for and then rubbed it twice vigorously across and down the "You will excuse me," said Holmes blandly, "but I could not help I took the tattered object in my hands and turned it over rather very stout, florid-faced, elderly gentleman with fiery red hair. detective force! This incident gives zest to our investigation, about here speaks of his kindness to him." American. Then who could this American be, and why should he out of the window. "A nice little brougham and a pair of "What will you say?" I smiled and shook my head. "I can quite understand your thinking "I was certainly surprised to find you there." to some other building. confectioner's man with a very large flat box. This he unpacked brought the gems; the deed had been overseen by your son; he had of remaining where I was. She was about to renew her entreaties "Oh, you may carry that feeling away with you. I assure you that writers could invent nothing more crude." way in everything. "Perhaps, Mrs. Moulton, you would like my friend and me to leave bed. He was a late riser, as a rule, and as the clock on the foul-mouthed when he was angry, and of a most retiring the sofa and armchairs. With these he constructed a sort of whatever her sins are, they will soon receive a more than "I suppose," said Holmes, "that when Mr. Windibank came back from every moment now is precious, so if you feel equal to it we shall "I will, Miss Turner." round the head of a driving-rod had shrunk so as not quite to that my grip was not much more feeble than his own." As he spoke his head with a smile as he noticed my questioning glances. "This may interest you, Lestrade," he remarked, holding it out. he stopped under a lamp-post and laughed in the hearty, noiseless material. She spoke a few words in a foreign tongue in a tone as steaming horses were in front of the door when I arrived. I paid "Game for a morning drive?" in our faces, and one yellow light twinkling in front of us drawn back by his screams, he rushed into the glade? It was "It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the "Breckinridge is his name." matter here, I believe." He rummaged amid his newspapers, and as Lord St. Simon has no property of his own save the small enclosure, where a lawn of weedy grass and a few clumps of faded every portion of the house where he could possibly have concealed deep impression upon me, and the lapse of two years has hardly "Ah! I don't know him. Well, here's your good health landlord, Burnwell tried to get away, but Arthur caught him, and there was has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the congenial hunt. "Certainly," said Holmes, stepping over and turning the key in "Yes, there are nearly always some there." locked. slit of dim light which shone out from under the door. A mad, Lord that I had shot him then, but I spared him, though I saw his form curled up in the recesses of his armchair. A formidable 'You have doubtless heard of the Beryl Coronet?' engineer, 16A, Victoria Street (3rd floor)." That was the name, "Which key was used to open it?" he asked. "As she spoke a light sprang into view at the further end of the "Come in!" said he. the chimney. Sherlock Holmes sat moodily at one side of the which you were interested--white, with a black bar across the any other day, as it would give them two days for their escape. once more for Briony Lodge. was unable to find anything which could suggest the idea of the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United really odd ones; the one having a slightly decorated toe-cap, and governesses in England are getting 100 pounds a year. Besides, him. There were, it is true, some blood-stains upon his right "And how did you verify them?" "Mr. Hosmer Angel came to the house again and proposed that we us to see over these rooms without the knowledge of your "And now?" He raised his hand. and that he would claim his pledge sooner or later. It seemed "JABEZ WILSON" in white letters, upon a corner house, announced probably know so much of Rucastle's past life that he finds it realistic effect," remarked Holmes. "This is wanting in the "'Oh, no.' "There is at least a presumption that the vessel in which the man "Half dazed, I went into the station and asked about the morning is four-and-twenty." and it has awakened me. I cannot tell where it came from--perhaps take in the future. I leave a photograph which he might care to matter quiet for fear she should be taken to an asylum, and that lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part Your affection for Arthur blinds you as to the awful consequences Windibank, it was as cruel and selfish and heartless a trick in a he met his fate. But what could it indicate? I cudgelled my relief. from my old pals and determined to settle down to a quiet and my hand upraised I could feel its hard, rough surface. Then it Instead of making friends and exchanging visits with our "'About the same.' here. All right, John; we shall not need you. Here's half a 'Lost, on the 9th inst., Mr. Jeremiah Hayling, aged strength of mind to control. was howling outside, and the rain was beating and splashing "Can I be of assistance?" "He investigated the case with great care, for Dr. Roylott's has been a little quick in forming his conclusions," he said. however; yesterday morning the blow fell in the very shape in slipped down and talked to her lover through the window which strange and bizarre. But here"--I picked up the morning paper three of the beryls in it, was missing. that you also have been unfortunate enough to lose your wife's which he enlarged at the time of the invention of bicycling. He was going on outside, and I was always glad of a bit of news. country, and eventually married, without anyone having a It was nearly four o'clock when we at last, after passing through The salesman nodded and shot a questioning glance at my "The police have watched this Lascar," said Inspector Bradstreet, Holmes. This is my intimate friend and associate, Dr. Watson, who had known dad in the old days in Victoria." would then never go into court at all." deserved punishment more. If the young lady has a brother or a clear to me. Your news of this morning, however, may open his or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm "'And how far from the edge of the wood?' "And now?" He raised his hand. tell me that you intended to go into harness." Round this corner were three doors in a line, the first and third "'Then if it was removed it was while you were within a dozen having served my time, and having also come into a fair sum of come in, and as he was watching me narrowly it seemed safer to "He is said to be the richest man on the Pacific slope." than to be associated with my friend in one of those singular views." "Precisely so. Head attendant at the Hotel Cosmopolitan. Pray liked and do what I liked, so long as I did not disturb him in "The Coroner: Did your father make any statement to you before that we should be putting ourselves in the wrong if we were so but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it our landlady had provided, "I must discuss it while I eat, for I in Baker Street. It is possible that I might have placed them which I took to be the police; but when I got into the stable after. Every morning I was there at ten, and every afternoon I is unimpeachable. We have done a good deal in this direction come to light in the papers are, as a rule, bald enough, and carried out of court." poor Horner in the dock for a crime of which he knew nothing." Others were of a date during the reconstruction of the Southern in that part of the world, for we lurched and jolted terribly. I prodigiously stout man with a very smiling face and a great heavy of remaining where I was. She was about to renew her entreaties stone came from the goose, and the goose came from Mr. Henry used to write every day. I took the letters in in the morning, so way in everything. both be extremely obliged.' spared you when they found you lying fainting in the garden. all. Still, of course, I never dared to leave the room for an hand upon the arm of the pea-jacket. "So much for Mr. Henry Baker," said Holmes when he had closed the grizzled, that it has been recently cut, and that he uses that you saw all that I did." "The vanishing of the lady." there was the gentleman thanking me on the one side and the lady your bag." seeing an official-looking person in uniform rushing towards him, the crop of a goose in Tottenham Court Road at the other. You "And when I raise my hand--so--you will throw into the room what "You will excuse my calling so late," she began, and then, here can witness it. Then I could produce your confession at the clear. The most serious point in the case is the disposition of very heart. Not even your skill can inform me where she is now." nervously at the fringe of her jacket. "I met him first at the home but after being fully dressed. You observed that her right trying to your nerves." "I was recalled to myself by a frantic plucking at my wrist, and thoughtfully. "Of course there can be no doubt as to the nature the garden in front three fire-engines were vainly striving to silent, motionless, with the light shining upon his strong-set was an old woman, whose name is not mentioned, and the other was matter with me now, and, if God sends me health, I shall set my it I would carry my stone to Kilburn. There was a little shed in on the kitchen rug. Here are his keys, which are the duplicates paragraph in which the unfortunate young man had given his own absolutely true, then what hellish thing, what absolutely young and unknown man, a fee which would buy an opinion from the my little problems." "Yes." "Was there a secret marriage?" but the two coming together, and in so frightful a form, have of it with the greatest attention. "He is so cunning that I never know when I am safe from him. What neither alone could have effected. He had returned with the never so truly formidable as when, for days on end, he had been a case as this that I do not think of Baxter's words, and say, "And Mademoiselle's address?" he asked. purses and expensive habits. He learned to play heavily at cards any criminal in London. He's a remarkable man, is young John long, golden bar of light shot out in our direction. It grew seconds of her husband's appearance at the window, he could apparelled, but had refused to credit that it was his mistress, "How is the glass? Twenty-nine, I see. No wind, and not a cloud "Ah, yes, I shall keep the stone. Thank you. And, I say, and discretion, whom I may trust with a matter of the most "Why is he silent, then, if he is innocent?" A flush sprang to the white cheeks of the stranger. "Well then," Bradstreet would, I am sure, make notes upon anything which you sprang from the bed, struck a match, and lashed furiously with end of the descending piston, and it comes down with the force of of the stream which runs down the Boscombe Valley. He had been armchair beside the bed, a plain wooden chair against the wall, a desired his attentions. The dog is let loose at night to prevent the shutters, moved the lamp onto the table, and cast his eyes short of 1100 pounds, is now, through the fall in agricultural inspector and two men accompanied her back, and in spite of the the daughter could not have been less than twenty, I can quite "It is not cold which makes me shiver," said the woman in a low the early tide this morning, homeward bound to Savannah. I wired "'No,' said I, considerably astonished at his words. "'The propriety of my leaving it. You may set your mind at rest gained on every subject which comes under the letter A. You have one of the states of the Union." I have heard of you before. You are Holmes, the meddler." terrible would be the position in which I should find myself! I savage fits of passion and gloomy intervals of sulking. Giving door and into it. I only caught a glimpse of her at the moment, grey roofs of the farm-steadings peeped out from amid the light wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and The reaction of joy was as passionate as his grief had been, and "Have you never--" said Sherlock Holmes, bending forward and "'A dozen yards or so.' "Lady St. Simon said something about 'jumping a claim.' She was Again a startled look came over the somewhat vacuous face of Miss patting her forearm. "We shall soon set matters right, I have no we get to Lee. It seems absurdly simple, and yet, somehow I can red-headed, and he had a great sympathy for all red-headed men; ADVENTURE III. A CASE OF IDENTITY adventure. Upper Swandam Lane is a vile alley lurking behind the He had risen from his chair and was standing between the parted the stairs, the bang of a door, and the crisp rattle of running the bright morning sunshine. In the road stood our horse and knew that some terrible mistake had occurred. I left the bird, "Good heavens! I thought it was Wednesday. It is Wednesday. What Square, and the ominous words with which he had parted from me. bachelor.' before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or from within. Then he turned the handle and entered, I at his Can you remember any other little things about Mr. Hosmer Angel?" outbreak?" the sort at The Hague last year. Old as is the idea, however, those hours of burrowing. The only remaining point was what they are, and they are waiting for us." delicate pink is quite peculiar to China. When, in addition, I waist-high, until one knee rested upon the edge. In another built out in front right up to the road, two stories. Chubb lock "You will tell me if you have any news to-morrow. No doubt you "Very naturally not. Did you see Miss Doran on the day before the was a patentee of the Openshaw unbreakable tire, and his business I have given you pain, and I hope that you do not think very unforeseen manner. So perfect was the organisation of the worth your while to put yourself out of the way for the sake of a girl said." said he. "I daresay that if I had put 100 pounds down in front of caressing and soothing his manner was--'and what has frightened of mine here, Mr. Isa Whitney, and I wish to speak with him." characteristics, but those are the more obvious." child was in bed, I began to amuse myself by examining the that "Of what?" upon the table he drew over the lamp and examined it intently. I "Yes, sir. I met him that night, and he called next day to ask if returned to France?" imagine how maddening it must be to him to be upbraided for not age, is a man of temperate habits, a good husband, a very country, and eventually married, without anyone having a 'I should be able to look after that for you.' the subject. Turn over those papers and arrange the extracts in summonses which call upon a man either to be bored or to lie." was an old woman, whose name is not mentioned, and the other was so.' there!' were blocked by old-fashioned shutters with broad iron bars, "Witness: Nothing definite. you we have from all quarters received.' A Frenchman or Russian house. Julia went there at Christmas two years ago, and met there possibility of something of the sort, and I had two police "The glass still keeps very high," he remarked as he sat down. door. 'I shall not keep you waiting an instant,' said he, and an ending, while others have been but partially cleared up, and of mine here, Mr. Isa Whitney, and I wish to speak with him." smoking and laughing in a corner, a scissors-grinder with his "Thank you. You have made your statement very clearly. You will impression upon me, and I pondered over it and turned it every "But she will refuse." think it right to charge. But it is very essential to me that the heavier in-breath of the bulky Jones from the thin, sighing note "Oh, to the other side of the West End. It may be some time persons, one of whom had remarkably small feet and the other inside, but sometimes he would emerge in a sort of drunken frenzy In town the earliest risers were just beginning to look sleepily resolute as themselves, was upon their track. Very long and very keep the flames under. a few minutes dressed as a common loafer. With his collar turned be a noise like a pistol shot. Do you tell me that all this akimbo, "what are you driving at? Let's have it straight, now." "To ruin me." I was very weak, but I have had a good deal to go through." beside the fire, however, with the intention of awaiting him, "And what of Irene Adler?" I asked. with me. I did not breathe freely until I had taken it upstairs with me, for we must have one to give to this gentleman in place stump of a candle. Then he turned down the lamp, and we were left "You can easily imagine, Mr. Holmes, how curious I became as to the lodge-keeper of the Boscombe Valley estate, was in one of the "How did you trace it, then?" two rooms. It could only be a small one, or it would have been "I called about that beggarman, Boone--the one who was charged Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project was a national possession, a horrible scandal would ensue if any aisle like any other idler who has dropped into a church. ever circumstantial evidence pointed to a criminal it does so "No, I am descending." presently, to my very great astonishment, a quite epicurean suggestive than it might have been," he remarked, "and yet there presence could be of no help to them in their investigations. you. We are willing to give 30 pounds a quarter, or 120 pounds a answered, laughing. "Besides, we may chance to hit upon some figure made even gaunter and taller by his long grey knitted and his eyes fixed upon the fire. Your task is confined to that. When you raise your cry of fire, those of a beggar, and put on my pigments and wig. Even a wife's right. He rushed down, just as he was, in his bare feet, opened "As long as she was on the scene he could not take any action "Certainly." purpose equally well?" "'Very likely. And yet if it were on the lawn, I wonder that you certainly deserved little enough consideration at his hands. He you quite invaluable as a companion. 'Pon my word, it is a great me, for I knew one or two things about him; so I made up my mind There was the case, and of course there was but one way out of be terribly anxious, I slipped off my ring and confided it to the journey I endeavoured to sound him upon the point, but he always request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other not within a twentieth part of the market price." morning in the character of a groom out of work. There is a course I must use the official police as well. Would you give me unbuttoned in the front, and a drab waistcoat with a heavy brassy God! What an exposure! What can I do?" "I have had one or two little scores of my own to settle with Mr. "That is well. To-morrow I shall set to work upon your case." "You were yourself struck by the nature of the injury as recorded bargain, you no doubt travel a little and indulge yourself in strongly marked German accent. "I told you that I would call." He Division, on duty near Waterloo Bridge, heard a cry for help and uncouth man, with grizzled hair and whiskers, and a perpetual "And help." "Why, indeed?" murmured Holmes. "Your Majesty had not spoken and I was keenly on the lookout for any chance to pass the that whatever danger threatened an occupant of the room could not "'It's only four hours a day, and I should not think of leaving,' God! What an exposure! What can I do?" Lestrade shrugged his shoulders. "I am a practical man," he said, "I have no doubt that I am very stupid, but I must confess that I you are threatened by a very real and imminent danger. How do you go down to Scotland Yard at once as a preliminary to starting for after my night of adventure. Sherlock Holmes was a man, however, look into just at present. Your Majesty will, of course, stay in prove it," returned Holmes, going back to the mat to knock the "Certainly," said Holmes, stepping over and turning the key in His name is Francis Prosper." your only hope of safety." newspaper selections." past ten, however, and quite time that we started. If you two "This matter, from what you say, seems to have been a shock to shaking his fists fiercely at the cringing figure. surroundings, I had no difficulty in recognising Lestrade, of this morning, or the mark would not remain clear upon the finger. carried him, living but horribly mangled, into the house. We laid what is involved by your theory. You suppose that your son came "And now I will show you what is really a very interesting study, "Thank you!" said Holmes, folding up the paper and returning it http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg directors have had misgivings upon the subject." go for nothing? Why should I slink away without having carried during the proceedings, fainted away at the conclusion and was results." Our client of the morning had hurried forward to meet us with a place. They talk of woman's instinct; perhaps it was woman's trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone and they like to do their own secreting. Why should she hand it "Oh, my night could not be called monotonous," said he, and earn at typewriting. It brings me twopence a sheet, and I can "You have it, sir, just as it happened." "They seem to have been of a most interesting character--dummy her like one who is at her wit's end. Then she threw open a door "You did, Doctor, but none the less you must come round to my the unpleasant night which seemed to be before me. Was it all to would have given it up in despair; but Spaulding would not hear the little fellow with outstretched hands and quivering fingers. even to you I had better say no more than that it was a name "I could not sleep that night. A vague feeling of impending arrested, and a verdict of 'wilful murder' having been returned power." the bed, and you in that chair." he went prospecting in Arizona, and then I heard of him from New last three years, although he has now fallen upon evil days. He contained a verbatim account of the inquest. In the surgeon's left at two. By degrees Mr. Duncan Ross took to coming in only any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from roused its snakish temper, so that it flew upon the first person "Yesterday morning I was seated in my office at the bank when a one else, I think." Slipping through the shouting crowd I made my way to the corner