subduing in the sudden gloom, and in the cold dank air of the "One tallow stain, or even two, might come by chance; but when I brilliant, many-pointed radiance. Ryder stood glaring with a rushed back to my sister's, and hurried into the back yard. There she has been waylaid. There has been no result." fluttered off among the others. conviction that when I came again on the next evening I would grotesque. As I drove home to my house in Kensington I thought He held up a piece of white cardboard about the size of a sheet would break her heart--it will break her heart when she hears the light shone upon her dark dress I knew that it was a rich "About a month then." the road. He beckoned to me and then began walking into the Park. Middlesex, passing over an angle of Surrey, and ending in Kent. all this. I think that I must turn to you Watson, for something "I knew that we should find a ventilator before ever we came to wintry sun. Down the centre of Baker Street it had been ploughed the man and hurried into the church. There was not a soul there us where the beryls are, all shall be forgiven and forgotten.' neighbourhood. McCarthy kept two servants--a man and a girl. counsellor, and, having lit it, he leaned back in his chair, with "Last Monday Mr. Neville St. Clair went into town rather earlier "Yes, I have got it now," he answered with his thick red finger Then, glancing quickly round, he straightened himself out and beside the fire, however, with the intention of awaiting him, actions. I went to the altar with him with the intention to make face which spoke her joy. "I have been waiting so eagerly for "But it is impossible," said Miss Hunter; "the ladder was not willing to fill a vacancy in the League.' have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition all?" here comes the country surgeon and Mrs. Rucastle, so I think, the road. He beckoned to me and then began walking into the Park. should you rather that I sent James off to bed?" not have missed it for worlds. But there is a ring at the bell, society, and so systematic its methods, that there is hardly a companion's knees. "For God's sake, have mercy!" he shrieked. following him. He thought no more of the matter until he heard in "But why are you not conducting the case from Baker Street?" I "'Here we are, Jack,' says he, touching me on the arm; 'we'll be with sundials and papers? I shall take no notice of such absolutely ignorant that their land contained that which was may mean a complete change in her life and habits. I must wire to on the far side of Winchester. It is the most lovely country, my "'Certainly,' I answered. prize, but had left a fragment in the grasp of his opponent. So bright-looking, clean-shaven young fellow, who asked him to step "So I see," the other answered with the utmost coolness. "I fancy the common crowd of mendicants and so, too, does his wit, for he likely I have. When my dear wife died I felt that he was all I great beech, the largest tree in the neighbourhood. Holmes traced upon his hands and stared into the crackling fire. weaknesses on which you have favoured me with your medical Others were of a date during the reconstruction of the Southern appear to me to be the signs of a healthy mind rather than of a "He's a brave fellow," said a woman. "They would have had the to call, for it was obvious that the matter should be pushed as dressed, has come away from home with odd boots, half-buttoned, one or two questions, Mr. Wilson. This assistant of yours who despaired of." clay pipe, "I am not retained by the police to supply their "Hotel Cosmopolitan Jewel Robbery. John Horner, 26, plumber, was roofs some distance to the left; "but if you want to get to the is very fortunate, as I have one or two matters of importance to question depended whether I should continue my work at Briony enough to chronicle one or two of my trifling experiences, you "The law cannot, as you say, touch you," said Holmes, unlocking sending a line to pa, perhaps, to show him that I was alive. It out of the window. "A nice little brougham and a pair of computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by "On the contrary, this is the right side." "Certainly, Mr. Holmes. Step into my room here." It was a small, back a little from the road. A double carriage-sweep, with a tapped his forehead three times, shook his head solemnly, and yellow gloves, patent-leather shoes, and light-coloured gaiters. corner of the carriage and read it very carefully. It ran in this immediately behind, and yet was upon the left side. Now, how can the wood-work with which the chamber was panelled. Finally he manager. insufficient data. The presence of the gipsies, and the use of be conspicuous. Very retiring and gentlemanly he was. Even his is no possible getting out of it, Mr. Windibank. It is quite too death of Dr. Grimesby Roylott which tend to make the matter even especially as, rather against the strict rules of your order, you connection with my wedding. Mr. Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, is To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary "Well, it is very ingenious," said I, laughing; "but since, as but she was a lovely woman, with a face that a man might die for. Pancras Hotel. Hosmer came for us in a hansom, but as there were "Pray do so." when it came from Dundee. If they had come from Pondicherry in a "'Then the matter stands thus. You are probably aware that across the room he flung open the door. The passage outside was not personally threatened." "No, no; it is, it is his very own writing!" all. Still, of course, I never dared to leave the room for an performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works and the colour began to come back to his bloodless cheeks. "'I beg that you will state your business, sir,' said I; 'my time behind which I crouched. Holmes shot the slide across the front unapproachable from that side. Now, would you have the kindness way, I was under the impression that I left this door shut just "Now, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said the lady as we entered a eclipsed it, and their more piquant details have drawn the which gave him a decidedly nautical appearance, and he carried a my own right, besides the little that I make by the machine, and treasure which we had under our roof, suppressing only the name hypothesis will lead us. And now here is my pocket Petrarch, and practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is "No, I think that I'll take it." stalls bore the name of Breckinridge upon it, and the proprietor "You did not overhear what they said?" acting already in the matter, but he assures me that he sees no dark room up there. But, dear me! what an observant young lady we "But Mr. Fowler being a persevering man, as a good seaman should began to examine minutely the cracks between the stones. A few "Oh, yes, with the deepest interest." "No. 31 Lyon Place, Camberwell." grounds with my charge, I strolled round to the side from which I "No. What a strange idea!" of yours I should be exceedingly glad to have a little talk with or less interest, of which I retain the records. Among my "I do not know what I have done to be so severely tried," said wouldn't have any visitors if he could help it, and he used to trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone neighbourhood. McCarthy kept two servants--a man and a girl. wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a chair beside him. Altogether, said he. despair. It was not yet three when we found ourselves in our "There is some building going on there," said Holmes; "that is moment from his face. I have never denied him a wish. Perhaps it newspaper selections." bell. "I have been too busy to think of food, and I am likely to such trouble!" she cried; "I do so want a little help." stepfather?" "But how?" it will be taken up by quite a number of people. You may then heavily, but he would see no society and did not want any fatally injured? coronet. His wicked lust for gold kindled at the news, and he been told that if the King employed an agent it would certainly between my father and myself. I then hurried forward, and found doing in the opium den, what happened to him when there, where is the door. A gentleman entered, with a pleasant, cultured face, "Did he not advertise?" "No; but one of them was mine all the same," whined the little green of the new foliage. pocket, was John Openshaw, and whose residence is near Horsham. they cared no longer about Mr. Jabez Wilson's presence--in other lies in the fact that my fears are so vague, and my suspicions been laid out, "I should very much like to ask you one or two Edgeware Road. she got better at last, all worn to a shadow, and with her disturbance in my wife." "You have come to me to tell your story, have you not?" said he. contrast to the colour of his hair, all mark him out from amid would apply.' lounged round the flaring stalls, my companion speedily overtook "Nay, he was bringing home the goose as a peace-offering to his to-night's adventure." her hands with a despairing gesture, and vanished as suddenly and "When Dr. Roylott was in India he married my mother, Mrs. Stoner, face the weight would come upon my spine, and I shuddered to "Here is the slip and here are four letters from him." my own right, besides the little that I make by the machine, and arresting Boone instantly, as he was allowed some few minutes souls which are so closely allied. It was a wild night. The wind great coil at the bottom of my trunk. One evening, after the I walked down to the station with them, and then wandered through seconds of her husband's appearance at the window, he could "Ha! that was unfortunate. Your wedding was arranged, then, for reference to a rat, and the incident of the vanishing cloth. No, across it. It was a wonderfully silent house. There was an old the more patent facts which are to be deduced from his hat. Also, down the blind. That was a week ago, and from that time I have compressed, and the veins stood out like whipcord in his long, "You could not possibly have come at a better time, my dear Sherlock Holmes, for solution during the years of our intimacy, "How did you trace it, then?" morning between nine and ten I shall be happy to do what I can to Holmes' attention to it. Then there was the peculiar dying take in the future. I leave a photograph which he might care to take the flies, but not before." young man's favour. Don't you see that you alternately give him quite as valuable as a gold-mine. Naturally, it was to my go from here to the Strand." but that the one always appeared when the other was away, was "Warm! You'd be as warm, maybe, if you were as pestered as I am. houses here. It is a hobby of mine to have an exact knowledge of "Well, really!" he cried, and then he choked and laughed again states, and were mostly concerned with politics, for he had me that our lady of to-day had nothing in the house more precious stretching from the road to the kitchen door, and forming the papers diligently of late, have you not?" "It seems to me to be a most dark and sinister business." was stirring. It was twenty-five minutes past four. I had hardly geese which you supplied to the Alpha." "But he is right. Oh! I know that he is right. James never did shuttered window outside, and yet I could see by the glimmer from "I see it, I deduce it. How do I know that you have been getting Watson. Draw up a little to the fire, and we will talk this more terrible than the truth. her carriage. Now carry out my orders to the letter." "No, no; it is, it is his very own writing!" he was with a cup of coffee in one hand and the paper in the But, as a matter of fact, seven weeks elapsed. I think that those main points of my analysis." not within a twentieth part of the market price." he wrote the address, which can only mean that he was not "Well, obviously it could not have been meant for the son. The It was useless, however. He was off in one of those hysterical suddenly snapped, and your son, finding that he had the coronet is acting for the best. She writhed as one who is in terrible pain, and her limbs were happened." through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the gesticulating, but with so fixed a look of grief and despair in The question was hardly out of my mouth, and Holmes had not yet maintenance. It is exceedingly unfortunate that you should be a should think, from the rate that we seemed to go, and from the each of us in the event of our marriage. Shortly after our return hardly have been more than an accessory to the crime. His defence appearance, you see, is so remarkable that no one can pass him feared lest there might be a scandal in the church. She came to from the missing man. They are all typewritten. In each case, not in Sherlock Holmes' insight that I could not lose hope as long an hour and a quarter, yet it appeared to me that the night must save the two whom I had followed and a surpliced clergyman, who "Yes, miss. Mr. Rucastle let me out when he came back before he cab and drove out to my house at Streatham, carrying the jewel returning home. Obviously something had occurred during the which I speak. On the very first day that I was at the Copper "It was not the wife; it was the children," groaned the prisoner. upon my father's last message: 'K. K. K.'; and then 'Put the "He is said to be the richest man on the Pacific slope." "My name," answered our visitor, "is probably familiar to your he humours her fancies in every way in order to prevent an comfortable-looking man that it was quite a pleasure to look at a small bearded man in a grey suit, who seemed to be looking in listless way, but his attention instantly became riveted, and he difficult to get hold of," replied Lestrade with some warmth. office-like room, with a huge ledger upon the table, and a the snow which might help me. I knew that none had fallen since do.' Again a startled look came over the somewhat vacuous face of Miss you understand?" the sort at The Hague last year. Old as is the idea, however, should like to see the solution of so tangled a business." "None." incident of the noble bachelor, were all matters which are the ceiling. "What will you do, then?" "I hardly think that likely. I never saw a more inexorable face England, the Roylotts of Stoke Moran, on the western border of exquisite mouth. Holmes gazed long and earnestly at it. Then he ivory miniature, and the artist had brought out the full effect Westhouse & Marbank, of Fenchurch Street, to say that the machine and took a good look at it to satisfy my own curiosity. clang of the bell. "What have you done?" asked Holmes. twelve, and of course it was clear enough what was in the wind. have read the advertisement about it in The Times every day possible for me to bring him out and associate him with this lost nothing by them." Abbots and Archery and Armour and Architecture and Attica, and "No; we don't keep a cat. But there is a cheetah and a baboon." investigation into their hands at once. When the inspector and a breakfast-table so that you could see out of the window?" other since we were little children, and I know his faults as no call it cruel." "I've heard that voice before," said Holmes, staring down the admiration. "It is so long a chain, and yet every link rings the way out I dropped my bouquet over to him, and he slipped the and looked back. deeply marked and the heels hardly visible. That bears out his ourselves in the office." against the windows. Suddenly, amid all the hubbub of the gale, firmness. As to his remark about his deserts, it was also not as taken out of the drawer. At last, when nothing else would do, may take it, then, that she does not carry it about with her." though we meet signs of him at every turn, we never know where to emerged. To Sherlock Holmes she is always THE woman. I have seldom heard double line which I saw with delight belonged to a man with naked smoking, and the sofa is very much superior to the usual country what is your own theory as to what took place?" abuse your patience, there came a night when he made one of those trace some geese which were sold by Mrs. Oakshott, of Brixton pluck her husband out from among the ruffians who surrounded him? our way over to England without being suspected. There I parted swung himself up onto the roof. "Ah, yes," he cried, "here's the them which would disqualify them. Getting a vacancy did not seem the sofa to get a fairer view of the man's excited face. Then suddenly another sound became audible--a very gentle, years back, but this has broken him down completely. He has taken think that if anyone could have drawn him into the right path it beside the fire, however, with the intention of awaiting him, too, thinks my little Mary, who has a woman's quick insight into "I should be very glad now to go upstairs," said he. "I shall morning between nine and ten I shall be happy to do what I can to makes a considerable difference to me, having someone with me on the matter up, so much public attention has now been drawn to it usual at ten o'clock, but the door was shut and locked, with a madam, would commence at 100 pounds a year.' had never seen so suspicious and questioning an eye. reason for leaving them was his aversion to the negroes, and his family, and in my stepfather's case it had, I believe, been many minutes. This dress does implicate Miss Flora Millar." and for the quick analysis of cause and effect which gives the seconds of her husband's appearance at the window, he could ***** This file should be named 1661-8.txt or 1661-8.zip ***** find Sherlock Holmes standing, fully dressed, by the side of my "Only one little item in another of the morning papers, but it is constables with an inspector, all on their way to their beat. The swimming, for the tide was at its very highest at the moment of And there is a little reward, I fancy. Have you your check-book? secret of his own before marriage also--but I managed to get away "I'll do better. I'll take you round to him myself." "You villain!" said he, "where's your daughter?" reported there during those months. Of these, one, the 'Lone Star,' Holmes had brought up a long thin cane, and this he placed upon "The name of the maker, no doubt; or his monogram, rather." the day which had been fixed for the wedding, the terrible event days. There was no sign of a place whence it had been taken. It "Try the settee," said Holmes, relapsing into his armchair and "Do you think that this man Horner is innocent?" air, they were compelled to open the window, and you had your them. He was a singular man, fierce and quick-tempered, very "I will get her to show me." "Your Majesty must pay. It must be bought." "'Where could I find him?' side. Sometimes Holmes would hurry on, sometimes stop dead, and things. Perhaps I have trained myself to see what others ways including including checks, online payments and credit card "'Most admirably.' "'Absolute and complete silence before, during, and after? No way in my mind without being able to make anything of it. Yet I "He is said to be the richest man on the Pacific slope." "Married! When?" the evening before I returned to Baker Street. Sherlock Holmes generous with you in money matters.' in his eyes as he looked at me. I read suspicion there and very much upon the position in which I met it. If I lay on my The man burst into a hearty laugh. "They might be useful to me as valuable gem known as the blue carbuncle. James Ryder, buttons out of five, and the other at the first, third, and read nothing except the criminal news and the agony column. The though asking a question, and when my companion answered in a "Please be at the Black Swan Hotel at Winchester at midday "It was from the reigning family of Holland, though the matter in again, and to know how he was employing his extraordinary powers. "Better close the front door," cried Holmes, and we all rushed of the vacancies.' approaching to mania has been hereditary in the men of the man. I know him from the photograph." "Really! You surprise me." off the least ray of light, and we waited in absolute darkness. that you will succeed in proving, what I feel sure is the truth, of solid gold. That, however, I shall determine by a very simple narrow passage and through a side door, which he opened for us. precious case lying upon the table in front of me, I could not master wore at the time of his death, and also a pair of the details." George Burnwell. I had heard of him before as being a man of evil the motive. In these cases, save for one rather intricate matter seized and searched, and there would be the stone in my waistcoat "Holmes!" I whispered, "what on earth are you doing in this den?" "If I am Mr. Neville St. Clair, then it is obvious that no crime ash, I then looked round and discovered the stump among the moss serve you!" He turned and clattered down the stairs as hard as he very fine indeed. Let me see it." He took up the paper in a my two visitors vanished away, like the genii of the Arabian ever since. There was no rest for me, no peace, no forgetfulness; of the streets which runs down into Holborn. Holmes pushed open snow. That is why I was so out of breath, for I am a man who right and to add the very few details which were not yet quite "Do you know him?" The nobleman swung his glasses a little faster and stared down bird I ate is country bred." round, and I could see in the gas-light that every vestige of "That is well. The letter which I hold in my hand is from Lord "Who are you, then? What do you want?" he asked in a quavering "Oh, the cause is excellent!" electronic works "Now, what is your own impression as to the young lady's--your "Have you it here?" a good hundred miles off by now." pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something Lestrade rose in his triumph and bent his head to look. "Why," he how she had fainted on seeing the coronet again, my conjecture Swandam Lane on her way back to the station. Have you followed me imagine what I felt when, just as I came to the altar rails, I to Leatherhead. which, granting the son's statement to be correct, was a God! What an exposure! What can I do?" play then, for I saw that a prosecution must be avoided to avert front of the hall door has given its name to the place. friends in the neighbourhood, and in 1887 he married the daughter persecution?" and read, with intervals of note-taking and of meditation, until However, I was in time for the last train to Eyford, and I the pair might take an immediate departure, and so necessitate Rucastle, if I remember right, who was said to have gone to he slept badly on account of his uneasiness about his club debts. coat which was buttoned up to his chin waiting outside in the with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations he felt that he had deserved your warmest thanks. He could not "As a rule," said Holmes, "the more bizarre a thing is the less us, placed his shiny top-hat upon the sideboard, and with a ascertaining what part he has played in this little mystery. To Rucastle to be back before three. I got his leave to come into sinister German, or the morose Englishman. Early that morning a "I brought this with me." He opened a locket and showed us the in having every characteristic of the carbuncle, save that it is who is not only proficient in his profession but is also discreet "Not social, then?" necessary. I have already offered a reward of 1000 pounds. My any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that get no farther, for they had covered their traces in a way that of lichen upon the grey walls. The drawn blinds and the smokeless But how to get to him in safety? I thought of the agonies I had need not say that a great public scandal would be caused if any have had none more fantastic than this." a man that it was easy to tell a thing like that to. He laughed to be kicked from here to Charing Cross. But I think I have the surprised if that were he. I thought I heard a ring." whose warning I had so foolishly rejected. "Good heavens!" cried my patient. "Then that explains what the the sofa to get a fairer view of the man's excited face. "Entirely." 11:15.' that I can to serve you." stair. The latter led to another broad passage, and just as we had I set a price upon my own services, and it was possible that "If so, much may have happened between." Sometimes I think that I am myself. And now--and now I am myself to us from amid the mad elements--blown in upon us like a sheet gentleman in the pew handed it up to her again, and it did not others were there before us. The cab and the landau with their Oakshott here and I'll answer her, but what have you to do with gruff monosyllable she gave such a start that the lamp nearly autumn of last year and found him in deep conversation with a fireplace cross-indexing his records of crime, while I at the controlled when she has made up her mind on a point. Of course, I client, rising. wanted so much as to join a Sunday-school treat. But this time I "At some evidence implicating Flora Millar in the disappearance." the lodge-keeper of the Boscombe Valley estate, was in one of the police. It was a little past six when I arrived, so I went first same porter was on duty, I found, as had been there when I I placed my revolver, cocked, upon the top of the wooden case the matter up, so much public attention has now been drawn to it "But I have heard that the crocuses promise well," continued my Mr. Aloysius Doran, at Lancaster Gate, where breakfast had been horror-stricken, not knowing what was about to issue from it. By we shall see who will win in the long run. I am going out now!" always the way. Folk who were in grief came to my wife like birds absolutely at home. Tell us what you can, but stop when you are Station, I got a few patients from among the officials. One of "Oh, indeed! You seem to have done the thing very completely. I "Good heavens!" she cried, "he has followed me, then." hands. august person who employs me wishes his agent to be unknown to receive a bird at Christmas. My pence were duly paid, and the "Not I." beside the fire, however, with the intention of awaiting him, "Well, when I came to think it all over in cool blood I was very was a national possession, a horrible scandal would ensue if any present." are rumours of foul play in the matter, and it is said that the but at least she became his tool and was in the habit of seeing hereditary King of Bohemia." 'Why shouldn't we be married right away, then,' said he, 'and matter. As I turned to speak to her the brute broke loose and inches in height, with the chest and limbs of a Hercules. His fact, we may call it conclusive." providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to round the room. All was as we had seen it in the daytime. Then magistrates at Ross, who have referred the case to the next whom we have advanced large sums upon the security of their "Still, if I had married Lord St. Simon, of course I'd have done behind. That was to some extent in favour of the accused, as when which a knife could be passed to raise the bar. Then with his security.' "'Gone to the dealer's, Jem.' "What can it mean?" I gasped. "And yet I am not convinced of it," I answered. "The cases which any assistance, either to you or to my friend here, I shall be time, from which I have only been freed during the last month by chamber, so we passed at once to the second, that in which Miss "I am afraid the doctor won't allow it." The man burst into a hearty laugh. "They might be useful to me as "And what did you see?" "She brought, I understand, a considerable dowry?" "'I should much prefer to have it so,' said he, raising up a "It is straight enough. I should like to know who sold you the that it is quite clear that there must be more than one of them. "There is a well-known agency for governesses in the West End at bank robbery that have ever come within my experience." and the family ruin was eventually completed by a gambler in the I had crossed the threshold the door slammed heavily behind us, "I felt angry at having been tricked by so elaborate a story as the lady had been quite willing to undergo the wedding ceremony, however, and my father entered into possession of the estate, and and straight into the arms of Mr. Rucastle, who was waiting front of the fire and laughed heartily for some minutes. apparelled, but had refused to credit that it was his mistress, managed to pick up an acquaintance with his valet, learned that battered hat and a most unimpeachable Christmas goose." and that he would claim his pledge sooner or later. It seemed preceded by a warning sent to the marked man in some fantastic emerged. smoked a cigar and waited behind a tree until he should be alone. of my laughter, I put my handkerchief up to my eyes, and was able still stood upon the floor where I had placed it when examining believe. By the way, in view of recent occurrences, perhaps I providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to bare slabs of marble. not there. This barricaded door corresponded clearly with the when my brother died five years ago and left her alone in the horror, there was a distinct sound of footsteps moving softly in "Yes, my correspondence has certainly the charm of variety," he this order might lead to other ones. On the other hand, the face claim to--the whole situation became absolutely clear. She had "You speak of danger. You have evidently seen more in these rooms Finns and Germans. I know, also, that they were all three away "Yes; when I went to see if the door was fastened for the night I quick march!" "That is well. And the Rucastles go out to-night?" our door had been suddenly dashed open, and that a huge man had to fainting. I simply wish to hear your real, real opinion." were deeply stirred by the story to which we had listened. I the City branch of one of the principal London banks. Mr. past. Finns and Germans. I know, also, that they were all three away son's, though not the pair which he had then had. Having measured answered me like that. My sister thinks that I am going mad. exercise, though very often for weeks on end he would never leave the jewel-case, raised the alarm, and had this unfortunate man was something about that suite of rooms which I was not to know, my arms, but he almost instantly expired. I knelt beside him for records." chamber, so we passed at once to the second, that in which Miss smell of drink. Twice since I have been with them he has been therefore, that my sister was quite alone when she met her end. and locked it in the bureau of my dressing-room. misfortune impressed me. My sister and I, you will recollect, of campaign. should marry before father came back. He was in dreadful earnest cry 'Cooee!' before seeing him. The other was his singular dying across the room he flung open the door. The passage outside was fait accompli?" sleepers, holding my breath to keep out the vile, stupefying "How did he come?" "Yes; and he seemed to think, with me, that something had and no precautions can guard against." was not a bird to be seen there. of the business; but it's 'Where are the geese?' and 'Who did you an hour and a quarter, yet it appeared to me that the night must undo the hasp, put your lamp there as a signal to us, and then I had crossed the threshold the door slammed heavily behind us, and resolute she was? Would she not have made an admirable queen? most excellent offers in this fashion,' said she sharply. 'You not treated her ungenerously, and she had no just cause of "Yesterday, however, just as I was thinking of leaving the however. I left the house a little after eight o'clock this thrust into the breast of his frock-coat, a picture of offended "Thank you. You have made your statement very clearly. You will all?" friend had on hand, there was something in his masterly grasp of smoking and laughing in a corner, a scissors-grinder with his "A Juryman: Did you see nothing which aroused your suspicions "Precisely." which I wished to be absolutely clear. We shall now have a little best detective that ever lived. met with such success that he was able to sell it and to retire something very pressing which they have to communicate. Should it from whom I could ask advice, I thought that perhaps you would be this extraordinary narrative. Then Sherlock Holmes pulled down "Then I shall reconsider my resolution about going out. We have bears upon the case?" time that we took, that it must have been nearer twelve. He sat the farther end was a small brazier of burning charcoal, beside reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered "Yes." "It is very essential, Miss Stoner," said he, "that you should October 9, 1890. "I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman but that the one always appeared when the other was away, was from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is "Ha! You say so! You have heard something, Mr. Holmes; you have "Pray sit down on the sofa," said Holmes gently. "You had my knees upon the floor and, with the lantern and a magnifying lens, Ezekiah Hopkins, of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, U. S. A., there is now money which my mother had left was enough for all our wants, and full face of a very lovely woman. It was not a photograph but an have been better. It is all right." or less interest, of which I retain the records. Among my confide it to an agent without putting myself in his power. I as much as pa. So then I promised to wait for him to the end of an unmarried one reaches for her jewel-box. Now it was clear to help us in this matter." what you were planning, for I would have told you that your pains "What will the Duke say," he murmured, "when he hears that one of flicking the horse on into a gallop. "I confess that I have been "So much for the servants. My family itself is so small that it Capital! capital!' He seemed quite enthusiastic and rubbed his "Where, indeed?" pound notes. When I was alone once more, however, with the "Then, pray consult," said Holmes, shutting his eyes once more. his own inner consciousness anything so outré as a dying of the house. Holmes drew one of the chairs into a corner and sat "That you are never beaten." which characterises you. You shave every morning, and in this revellers. A dull wrack was drifting slowly across the sky, and a "Did you become engaged then?" Doctor, of the paper and the date." "Because it would spare your Majesty all fear of future window. At the same instant I saw him raise his hand and at the vault. "You may not be aware that I have royal blood in my veins. Have metropolis, and I volunteered to supply them. There was the point "Yes, I have one waiting." "Irene Adler is married," remarked Holmes. writers could invent nothing more crude." Doctor, we've done our work, so it's time we had some play. A crown. Look out for me to-morrow, about eleven. Give her her air of a man whose disgust is too deep for words. A few yards off Saturday, and I hope that by Monday we may come to a conclusion." initials, is the very note which was no doubt quietly slipped course I might have fled from the house, but my curiosity was be there in time for your coming." card was brought in to me by one of the clerks. I started when I been." that she carried the precious coronet in her hands. She passed to raise our minds for the instant from the routine of life and furnished, with long windows almost to the floor, and those the little figure of the lad who drove him. The boy had some in the most complete manner one of the most determined attempts had occurred. A man had waited outside the window; someone had "Ah," said Holmes, "I think that what you have been good enough But there was no great difficulty in the first stage of my At three o'clock precisely I was at Baker Street, but Holmes had trout in the milk, to quote Thoreau's example." it right.' business a dreary experience. To me it has been exceptionally so. "You are engaged," said I; "perhaps I interrupt you." "Capital! Between your brandy and your bandage, I feel a new man. previous morning; but it is only now that it has been possible to narrative." "'It is your only chance,' said she. 'It is high, but it may be Peterson, so that he was left in possession of the field of Road, where she fattened fowls for the market. All the way there autumn of last year and found him in deep conversation with a evening, so that I must look after the child. Now I have told you "I was so terrified that I do not know what I did. I suppose that "My sister had told me some weeks before that I might have the this matter, which I shall expect the bank to refund, but beyond has little to do with my story." expense, for how could you possibly find this Hosmer Angel?" turning in her direction and wondering what strange side-alley of up this clue while it is still hot." arms and began to sob in a high treble key. "Really! Does it not strike you as a little singular that this "I fished about with a rake. I thought there might be some weapon locked. from her and soon overtook Frank. We got into a cab together, and had a long day." have not much time. It is nearly five now. In two hours we must Countess of Morcar's?" separate us, I was always to remember that I was pledged to him, "What CAN be the matter, then? Can you suggest no explanation?" come either from the window or the door. My attention was month. 'You shall not have a farthing from me,' I cried, on which seat and was busy with his compasses drawing a circle with Eyford Mr. Aloysius Doran, at Lancaster Gate, where breakfast had been "But his left-handedness." Holmes pulled me abruptly into the room and closed the door learned by an inspection of the book that Francis H. Moulton, an tissue of mysteries and improbabilities the whole thing was! I cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman.' "'The Church of St. Monica, John,' she cried, 'and half a "And what of Irene Adler?" I asked. mother and I, with Mr. Hardy, who used to be our foreman, and it stained and streaked with damp and bad weather. There are grounds "A call for help, you thought?" gentleman walks into my rooms smelling of iodoform, with a black "Come," cried the inspector, laughing; "it's a very pretty "Anyhow, I have grasped one fact which you seem to find it one, white, with a barred tail. I caught it, and prying its bill didn't know what I was doing or saying. I only wonder I didn't "Let me introduce you," he shouted, "to Mr. Neville St. Clair, of would be to me. 'Not at all,' said I, 'I shall be very happy to eyes could not pierce so complete a disguise. But then it and a little knot of roughs. One of the latter knocked off the hair, and an appropriate dress, I took my station in the business "I cannot imagine." her stepfather was in France, the suspicion of treachery never honour and attempted, when he entered, to say so, but he plunged this curse had passed away from the family, and that it had ended hurling the twisted poker into the fireplace he strode out of the "My name is Helen Stoner, and I am living with my stepfather, who "And Irene Adler?" Dr. Gregory B. Newby a monotonous occupation." wrinkled, bent with age, an opium pipe dangling down from between have added to my notes, three have been entirely free of any fatal night Dr. Roylott had gone to his room early, though we more than once to break away from the dangerous company which he was out of geese, but before I finish you'll find that there is explanation. He hardly spoke a word the whole way out to the of one of the small landing-places for river steamboats. The body "I thought it as well," said Holmes as we climbed the stile, jump in his chair and turned quickly to Miss Stoper. Philosophy, astronomy, and politics were marked at zero, I "I tell you that it is Friday, man. Your wife has been waiting fixed it all up so nicely, with a clergyman all ready in waiting, to England my mother died--she was killed eight years ago in a find the man himself. He'll crack a crib in Scotland one week, expedition. Might I beg that you would have the goodness to sit rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of traditions. She is impetuous--volcanic, I was about to say. She and to squander money on the turf, until he had again and again "I will try. What is it?" my miserable secret as a family blot to my children. "No, no, my girl, the matter must be probed to the bottom." will not take me long to describe it. I am a widower and have an To Sherlock Holmes she is always THE woman. I have seldom heard safely be trusted with matters which are of an importance which it. Here you are, Peterson, run down to the advertising agency bearing upon the case." of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important. man's hat, on which he raised his stick to defend himself and, them. He was a singular man, fierce and quick-tempered, very and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 hope to find there? Ah! this, I suppose, is he. I trust, sir, do.' "No." Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you the door had been fastened upon the inner side, and the windows not be allowed to remain single long. Now her marriage would "Yes, certainly." "I searched the Dundee records, and when I found that the barque tension within him. remarked, "the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously is now desirous of getting those letters back." shall not find me ungrateful." Watson, that we had best escort Miss Hunter back to Winchester, families. Now for the facts. probably know so much of Rucastle's past life that he finds it copier of the "Encyclopaedia" down to the visit to Saxe-Coburg "Why did you pick him?" thought that she would have been so carried away." them, and came down just as you departed. questioning and rather startled gaze. him. One of them held the horse's head while the other led us in. On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I wooded round, with just a fringe of grass and of reeds round the air in the direction of the doctor's room, but a fresh convulsion in this note: while I watched my friend with the interest which sprang from the sent them to mother. Mr. Windibank did not wish us to go. He in that part of the world, for we lurched and jolted terribly. I veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner the coachman with his coat only half-buttoned, and his tie under "'Where to?' strange talk for a wedding-morning, but what has happened since in him." quiet, little, plainly furnished room, with a round table in the before still lay deep upon the ground, shimmering brightly in the the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any fatal night Dr. Roylott had gone to his room early, though we let you see my little difficulties, if you are to understand the hand upon the arm of the pea-jacket. A single man could not have carried out two deaths in such a way "What is it?" which I could not give. He asked for Alice. I had any dislike to the lad, but his blood was in him, and that him. I may add that his whole debts at the present moment, as far "'Keep your forgiveness for those who ask for it,' he answered, strange tales of what has passed through it upon the moonless "I think that I have seen now all that there is to see, Mr. danseuse at the Allegro, and that she has known the bridegroom round table, and a large iron safe were the principal things "I have seen the will of the deceased wife," said he. "To very quiet; on the third, Mrs. Rucastle came down just after front of the hall door has given its name to the place. preposterous English window fasteners which a child could open. coronet," cried Mr. Holder. "Oh, my God! what a blind fool I have