realistic effect,” remarked Holmes. “This is wanting in the police
report, where more stress is laid, perhaps, upon the platitudes of the
magistrate than upon the details, which to an observer contain the
vital essence of the whole matter. Depend upon it there is nothing so
unnatural as the commonplace.”
I smiled and shook my head. “I can quite understand you thinking so,”
I said. “Of course, in your position of unofficial adviser and helper
to everybody who is absolutely puzzled, throughout three continents,
you are brought in contact with all that is strange and bizarre. But
here”—I picked up the morning paper from the ground—“let us put it
to a practical test. Here is the first heading upon which I come. ‘A
husband’s cruelty to his wife.’ There is half a column of print, but
I know without reading it that it is all perfectly familiar to me.
There is, of course, the other woman, the drink, the push, the blow,
the bruise, the sympathetic sister or landlady. The crudest of writers
could invent nothing more crude.”
“Indeed, your example is an unfortunate one for your argument,”
said Holmes, taking the paper and glancing his eye down it. “This
is the Dundas separation case, and, as it happens, I was engaged in
clearing up some small points in connection with it. The husband was
a teetotaler, there was no other woman, and the conduct complained of
was that he had drifted into the habit of winding up every meal by
taking out his false teeth and hurling them at his wife, which, you
will allow, is not an action likely to occur to the imagination of the
average story-teller. Take a pinch of snuff, doctor, and acknowledge
that I have scored over you in your example.”
He held out his snuffbox of old gold, with a great amethyst in the
centre of the lid. Its splendor was in such contrast to his homely ways
and simple life that I could not help commenting upon it.
“Ah,” said he, “I forgot that I had not seen you for some weeks. It is
a little souvenir from the King of Bohemia in return for my assistance
in the case of the Irene Adler papers.”
“And the ring?” I asked, glancing at a remarkable brilliant which
sparkled upon his finger.
“It was from the reigning family of Holland, though the matter in which
I served them was of such delicacy that I cannot confide it even to
you, who have been good enough to chronicle one or two of my little
problems.”
“And have you any on hand just now?” I asked, with interest.
“Some ten or twelve, but none which present any feature of interest.
They are important, you understand, without being interesting. Indeed,
I have found that it is usually in unimportant matters that there is
a field for the observation, and for the quick analysis of cause and
effect which gives the charm to an investigation. The larger crimes are
apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime, the more obvious, as
a rule, is the motive. In these cases, save for one rather intricate
matter which has been referred to me from Marseilles, there is nothing
which presents any features of interest. It is possible, however, that
I may have something better before very many minutes are over, for this
is one of my clients, or I am much mistaken.”
He had risen from his chair, and was standing between the parted
blinds, gazing down into the dull, neutral-tinted London street.
Looking over his shoulder, I saw that on the pavement opposite there
stood a large woman with a heavy fur boa round her neck, and a large
curling red feather in a broad-brimmed hat which was tilted in a
coquettish Duchess-of-Devonshire fashion over her ear. From under
this great panoply she peeped up in a nervous, hesitating fashion at
our windows, while her body oscillated backward and forward, and her
fingers fidgetted with her glove buttons. Suddenly, with a plunge, as
of the swimmer who leaves the bank, she hurried across the road, and we
heard the sharp clang of the bell.
“I have seen those symptoms before,” said Holmes, throwing his
cigarette into the fire. “Oscillation upon the pavement always means an
_affaire de cœur_. She would like advice, but is not sure that the
matter is not too delicate for communication. And yet even here we may
discriminate. When a woman has been seriously wronged by a man she no
longer oscillates, and the usual symptom is a broken bell wire. Here we
may take it that there is a love matter, but that the maiden is not so
much angry as perplexed, or grieved. But here she comes in person to
resolve our doubts.”
As he spoke there was a tap at the door, and the boy in buttons entered
to announce Miss Mary Sutherland, while the lady herself loomed behind
his small black figure like a full-sailed merchant-man behind a tiny
pilot boat. Sherlock Holmes welcomed her with the easy courtesy for
which he was remarkable, and having closed the door, and bowed her into
an arm-chair, he looked her over in the minute, and yet abstracted
fashion which was peculiar to him.
“Do you not find,” he said, “that with your short sight it is a little
trying to do so much type-writing?”
“I did at first,” she answered, “but now I know where the letters
are without looking.” Then, suddenly realizing the full purport of
his words, she gave a violent start and looked up, with fear and
astonishment upon her broad, good-humored face. “You’ve heard about me,
Mr. Holmes,” she cried, “else how could you know all that?”
“Never mind,” said Holmes, laughing; “it is my business to know things.
Perhaps I have trained myself to see what others overlook. If not, why
should you come to consult me?”
“I came to you, sir, because I heard of you from Mrs. Etherege, whose
husband you found so easy when the police and every one had given him
up for dead. Oh, Mr. Holmes, I wish you would do as much for me. I’m
not rich, but still I have a hundred a year in my own right, besides
the little that I make by the machine, and I would give it all to know
what has become of Mr. Hosmer Angel.”
“Why did you come away to consult me in such a hurry?” asked Sherlock
Holmes, with his finger-tips together, and his eyes to the ceiling.
Again a startled look came over the somewhat vacuous face of Miss Mary
Sutherland. “Yes, I did bang out of the house,” she said, “for it
made me angry to see the easy way in which Mr. Windibank—that is, my
father—took it all. He would not go to the police, and he would not
go to you, and so at last, as he would do nothing, and kept on saying
that there was no harm done, it made me mad, and I just on with my
things and came right away to you.”
“Your father,” said Holmes, “your step-father, surely, since the name
is different.”
“Yes, my step-father. I call him father, though it sounds funny, too,
for he is only five years and two months older than myself.”
“And your mother is alive?”
“Oh yes, mother is alive and well. I wasn’t best pleased, Mr. Holmes,
when she married again so soon after father’s death, and a man who was
nearly fifteen years younger than herself. Father was a plumber in the
Tottenham Court Road, and he left a tidy business behind him, which
mother carried on with Mr. Hardy, the foreman; but when Mr. Windibank
came he made her sell the business, for he was very superior, being a
traveller in wines. They got £4700 for the goodwill and interest, which
wasn’t near as much as father could have got if he had been alive.”
I had expected to see Sherlock Holmes impatient under this rambling and
inconsequential narrative, but, on the contrary, he had listened with
the greatest concentration of attention.
“Your own little income,” he asked, “does it come out of the business?”
“Oh no, sir. It is quite separate, and was left me by my Uncle Ned
in Auckland. It is in New Zealand stock, paying 4-1/2 per cent. Two
thousand five hundred pounds was the amount, but I can only touch the
interest.”
“You interest me extremely,” said Holmes. “And since you draw so large
a sum as a hundred a year, with what you earn into the bargain, you no
doubt travel a little, and indulge yourself in every way. I believe
that a single lady can get on very nicely upon an income of about £60.”
[Illustration: “SHERLOCK HOLMES WELCOMED HER”]
“I could do with much less than that, Mr. Holmes, but you understand
that as long as I live at home I don’t wish to be a burden to them, and
so they have the use of the money just while I am staying with them. Of
course, that is only just for the time. Mr. Windibank draws my interest
every quarter, and pays it over to mother, and I find that I can do
pretty well with what I earn at type-writing. It brings me twopence a
sheet, and I can often do from fifteen to twenty sheets in a day.”
“You have made your position very clear to me,” said Holmes. “This is
my friend, Dr. Watson, before whom you can speak as freely as before
myself. Kindly tell us now all about your connection with Mr. Hosmer
Angel.”
A flush stole over Miss Sutherland’s face, and she picked nervously at
the fringe of her jacket. “I met him first at the gasfitters’ ball,”
she said. “They used to send father tickets when he was alive, and then
afterwards they remembered us, and sent them to mother. Mr. Windibank
did not wish us to go. He never did wish us to go anywhere. He would
get quite mad if I wanted so much as to join a Sunday-school treat.
But this time I was set on going, and I would go; for what right had
he to prevent? He said the folk were not fit for us to know, when all
father’s friends were to be there. And he said that I had nothing fit
to wear, when I had my purple plush that I had never so much as taken
out of the drawer. At last, when nothing else would do, he went off
to France upon the business of the firm, but we went, mother and I,
with Mr. Hardy, who used to be our foreman, and it was there I met Mr.
Hosmer Angel.”
“I suppose,” said Holmes, “that when Mr. Windibank came back from
France he was very annoyed at your having gone to the ball.”
“Oh, well, he was very good about it. He laughed, I remember, and
shrugged his shoulders, and said there was no use denying anything to a
woman, for she would have her way.”
“I see. Then at the gasfitters’ ball you met, as I understand, a
gentleman called Mr. Hosmer Angel.”
“Yes, sir. I met him that night, and he called next day to ask if we
had got home all safe, and after that we met him—that is to say, Mr.
Holmes, I met him twice for walks, but after that father came back
again, and Mr. Hosmer Angel could not come to the house any more.”
“No?”
“Well, you know, father didn’t like anything of the sort. He wouldn’t
have any visitors if he could help it, and he used to say that a woman
should be happy in her own family circle. But then, as I used to say to
mother, a woman wants her own circle to begin with, and I had not got
mine yet.”
“But how about Mr. Hosmer Angel? Did he make no attempt to see you?”
“Well, father was going off to France again in a week, and Hosmer wrote
and said that it would be safer and better not to see each other until
he had gone. We could write in the mean time, and he used to write
every day. I took the letters in in the morning, so there was no need
for father to know.”
“Were you engaged to the gentleman at this time?”
“Oh yes, Mr. Holmes. We were engaged after the first walk that we
took. Hosmer—Mr. Angel—was a cashier in an office in Leadenhall
Street—and—”
“What office?”
“That’s the worst of it, Mr. Holmes, I don’t know.”
“Where did he live, then?”
“He slept on the premises.”
“And you don’t know his address?”
“No—except that it was Leadenhall Street.”
“Where did you address your letters, then?”
“To the Leadenhall Street Post-office, to be left till called for. He
said that if they were sent to the office he would be chaffed by all
the other clerks about having letters from a lady, so I offered to
type-write them, like he did his, but he wouldn’t have that, for he
said that when I wrote them they seemed to come from me, but when they
were type-written he always felt that the machine had come between us.
That will just show you how fond he was of me, Mr. Holmes, and the
little things that he would think of.”
“It was most suggestive,” said Holmes. “It has long been an axiom of
mine that the little things are infinitely the most important. Can you
remember any other little things about Mr. Hosmer Angel?”
“He was a very shy man, Mr. Holmes. He would rather walk with me in
the evening than in the daylight, for he said that he hated to be
conspicuous. Very retiring and gentlemanly he was. Even his voice was
gentle. He’d had the quinsy and swollen glands when he was young, he
told me, and it had left him with a weak throat, and a hesitating,
whispering fashion of speech. He was always well dressed, very neat and
plain, but his eyes were weak, just as mine are, and he wore tinted
glasses against the glare.”
“Well, and what happened when Mr. Windibank, your step-father, returned
to France?”
“Mr. Hosmer Angel came to the house again, and proposed that we should
marry before father came back. He was in dreadful earnest, and made
me swear, with my hands on the Testament, that whatever happened I
would always be true to him. Mother said he was quite right to make me
swear, and that it was a sign of his passion. Mother was all in his
favor from the first, and was even fonder of him than I was. Then, when
they talked of marrying within the week, I began to ask about father;
but they both said never to mind about father, but just to tell him
afterwards, and mother said she would make it all right with him. I
didn’t quite like that, Mr. Holmes. It seemed funny that I should ask
his leave, as he was only a few years older than me; but I didn’t want
to do anything on the sly, so I wrote to father at Bordeaux, where the
company has its French offices, but the letter came back to me on the
very morning of the wedding.”
“It missed him, then?”
“Yes, sir; for he had started to England just before it arrived.”
“Ha! that was unfortunate. Your wedding was arranged, then, for the
Friday. Was it to be in church?”
“Yes, sir, but very quietly. It was to be at St. Saviour’s, near King’s
Cross, and we were to have breakfast afterwards at the St. Pancras
Hotel. Hosmer came for us in a hansom, but as there were two of us, he
put us both into it, and stepped himself into a four-wheeler, which
happened to be the only other cab in the street. We got to the church
first, and when the four-wheeler drove up we waited for him to step
out, but he never did, and when the cabman got down from the box and
looked, there was no one there! The cabman said that he could not
imagine what had become of him, for he had seen him get in with his own
eyes. That was last Friday, Mr. Holmes, and I have never seen or heard
anything since then to throw any light upon what became of him.”
“It seems to me that you have been very shamefully treated,” said
Holmes.
“Oh no, sir! He was too good and kind to leave me so. Why, all the
morning he was saying to me that, whatever happened, I was to be true;
and that even if something quite unforeseen occurred to separate
us, I was always to remember that I was pledged to him, and that he
would claim his pledge sooner or later. It seemed strange talk for a
wedding-morning, but what has happened since gives a meaning to it.”
“Most certainly it does. Your own opinion is, then, that some
unforeseen catastrophe has occurred to him?”
“Yes, sir. I believe that he foresaw some danger, or else he would not
have talked so. And then I think that what he foresaw happened.”
“But you have no notion as to what it could have been?”
“None.”
“One more question. How did your mother take the matter?”
“She was angry, and said that I was never to speak of the matter again.”
“And your father? Did you tell him?”
“Yes; and he seemed to think, with me, that something had happened, and
that I should hear of Hosmer again. As he said, what interest could any
one have in bringing me to the doors of the church, and then leaving
me? Now, if he had borrowed my money, or if he had married me and got
my money settled on him, there might be some reason; but Hosmer was
very independent about money, and never would look at a shilling of
mine. And yet, what could have happened? And why could he not write?
Oh, it drives me half-mad to think of! and I can’t sleep a wink at
night.” She pulled a little handkerchief out of her muff, and began to
sob heavily into it.
“I shall glance into the case for you,” said Holmes, rising; “and I
have no doubt that we shall reach some definite result. Let the weight
of the matter rest upon me now, and do not let your mind dwell upon
it further. Above all, try to let Mr. Hosmer Angel vanish from your
memory, as he has done from your life.”
“Then you don’t think I’ll see him again?”
“I fear not.”
“Then what has happened to him?”
“You will leave that question in my hands. I should like an accurate
description of him, and any letters of his which you can spare.”
“I advertised for him in last Saturday’s _Chronicle_,” said she. “Here
is the slip, and here are four letters from him.”
“Thank you. And your address?”
“No. 31 Lyon Place, Camberwell.”
“Mr. Angel’s address you never had, I understand. Where is your
father’s place of business?”
“He travels for Westhouse & Marbank, the great claret importers of
Fenchurch Street.”
“Thank you. You have made your statement very clearly. You will leave
the papers here, and remember the advice which I have given you. Let
the whole incident be a sealed book, and do not allow it to affect your
life.”
“You are very kind, Mr. Holmes, but I cannot do that. I shall be true
to Hosmer. He shall find me ready when he comes back.”
For all the preposterous hat and the vacuous face, there was something
noble in the simple faith of our visitor which compelled our respect.
She laid her little bundle of papers upon the table, and went her way,
with a promise to come again whenever she might be summoned.
Sherlock Holmes sat silent for a few minutes with his finger-tips still
pressed together, his legs stretched out in front of him, and his gaze
directed upward to the ceiling. Then he took down from the rack the
old and oily clay pipe, which was to him as a counsellor, and, having
lit it, he leaned back in his chair, with the thick blue cloud-wreaths
spinning up from him, and a look of infinite languor in his face.
“Quite an interesting study, that maiden,” he observed. “I found her
more interesting than her little problem, which, by the way, is rather
a trite one. You will find parallel cases, if you consult my index, in
Andover in ’77, and there was something of the sort at The Hague last
year. Old as is the idea, however, there were one or two details which
were new to me. But the maiden herself was most instructive.”
“You appeared to read a good deal upon her which was quite invisible to
me,” I remarked.
“Not invisible, but unnoticed, Watson. You did not know where to look,
and so you missed all that was important. I can never bring you to
realize the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumb-nails,
or the great issues that may hang from a boot-lace. Now, what did you
gather from that woman’s appearance? Describe it.”
“Well, she had a slate-colored, broad-brimmed straw hat, with a feather
of a brickish red. Her jacket was black, with black beads sewn upon it,
and a fringe of little black jet ornaments. Her dress was brown, rather
darker than coffee color, with a little purple plush at the neck and
sleeves. Her gloves were grayish, and were worn through at the right
forefinger. Her boots I didn’t observe. She had small, round, hanging
gold ear-rings, and a general air of being fairly well-to-do, in a
vulgar, comfortable, easy-going way.”
Sherlock Holmes clapped his hands softly together and chuckled.
“’Pon my word, Watson, you are coming along wonderfully. You have
really done very well indeed. It is true that you have missed
everything of importance, but you have hit upon the method, and you
have a quick eye for color. Never trust to general impressions, my boy,
but concentrate yourself upon details. My first glance is always at a
woman’s sleeve. In a man it is perhaps better first to take the knee
of the trouser. As you observe, this woman had plush upon her sleeves,
which is a most useful material for showing traces. The double line
a little above the wrist, where the type-writist presses against the
table, was beautifully defined. The sewing-machine, of the hand type,
leaves a similar mark, but only on the left arm, and on the side of it
farthest from the thumb, instead of being right across the broadest
part, as this was. I then glanced at her face, and observing the dint
of a pince-nez at either side of her nose, I ventured a remark upon
short sight and type-writing, which seemed to surprise her.”
“It surprised me.”
“But, surely, it was very obvious. I was then much surprised and
interested on glancing down to observe that, though the boots which she
was wearing were not unlike each other, they were really odd ones; the
one having a slightly decorated toe-cap, and the other a plain one.
One was buttoned only in the two lower buttons out of five, and the
other at the first, third, and fifth. Now, when you see that a young
lady, otherwise neatly dressed, has come away from home with odd boots,
half-buttoned, it is no great deduction to say that she came away in a
hurry.”
“And what else?” I asked, keenly interested, as I always was, by my
friend’s incisive reasoning.
“I noted, in passing, that she had written a note before leaving home,
but after being fully dressed. You observed that her right glove was
torn at the forefinger, but you did not apparently see that both glove
and finger were stained with violet ink. She had written in a hurry,
and dipped her pen too deep. It must have been this morning, or the
mark would not remain clear upon the finger. All this is amusing,
though rather elementary, but I must go back to business, Watson. Would
you mind reading me the advertised description of Mr. Hosmer Angel?”
I held the little printed slip to the light. “Missing,” it said, “on
the morning of the 14th, a gentleman named Hosmer Angel. About 5 ft. 7
in. in height; strongly built, sallow complexion, black hair, a little
bald in the centre, bushy, black side-whiskers and mustache; tinted
glasses, slight infirmity of speech. Was dressed, when last seen, in
black frock-coat faced with silk, black waistcoat, gold Albert chain,
and gray Harris tweed trousers, with brown gaiters over elastic-sided
boots. Known to have been employed in an office in Leadenhall Street.
Anybody bringing,” etc., etc.
“That will do,” said Holmes. “As to the letters,” he continued,
glancing over them, “they are very commonplace. Absolutely no clew
in them to Mr. Angel, save that he quotes Balzac once. There is one
remarkable point, however, which will no doubt strike you.”
“They are type-written,” I remarked.
“Not only that, but the signature is type-written. Look at the neat
little ‘Hosmer Angel’ at the bottom. There is a date, you see, but no
superscription except Leadenhall Street, which is rather vague. The
point about the signature is very suggestive—in fact, we may call it
conclusive.”
“Of what?”
“My dear fellow, is it possible you do not see how strongly it bears
upon the case?”
“I cannot say that I do, unless it were that he wished to be able to
deny his signature if an action for breach of promise were instituted.”
“No, that was not the point. However, I shall write two letters, which
should settle the matter. One is to a firm in the city, the other is
to the young lady’s step-father, Mr. Windibank, asking him whether he
could meet us here at six o’clock to-morrow evening. It is just as well
that we should do business with the male relatives. And now, doctor, we
can do nothing until the answers to those letters come, so we may put
our little problem upon the shelf for the interim.”
I had had so many reasons to believe in my friend’s subtle powers of
reasoning, and extraordinary energy in action, that I felt that he must
have some solid grounds for the assured and easy demeanor with which he
treated the singular mystery which he had been called upon to fathom.
Once only had I known him to fail, in the case of the King of Bohemia
and of the Irene Adler photograph; but when I looked back to the weird
business of the Sign of Four, and the extraordinary circumstances
connected with the Study in Scarlet, I felt that it would be a strange
tangle indeed which he could not unravel.
I left him then, still puffing at his black clay pipe, with the
conviction that when I came again on the next evening I would find that
he held in his hands all the clews which would lead up to the identity
of the disappearing bridegroom of Miss Mary Sutherland.