bedroom door." on board of a ship. And now let us consider another point. In the until I found myself lying on my bed trembling all over. Then I blows of some heavy and blunt weapon. The injuries were such as it will be taken up by quite a number of people. You may then upon the sideboard." Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. "No." it." purses and expensive habits. He learned to play heavily at cards you. Now," he said as he turned hungrily on the simple fare that many ways unique, and by hearing the very remarkable narrative of "No, no, the mystery!" I cried. "So much for the servants. My family itself is so small that it stream of commerce flowing in a double tide inward and outward, brilliant, many-pointed radiance. Ryder stood glaring with a "'The propriety of my leaving it. You may set your mind at rest blotting-paper, but we provide this table and chair. Will you be prove to be an interesting case, you would, I am sure, wish to I have no one to turn to--none, save only one, who cares for me, possessed in so high a degree, and which it is the object of thoroughly understand the situation. My groom and my page sleep Peterson had rushed forward to protect the stranger from his that she carried the precious coronet in her hands. She passed "They have laid the supper, then," he said, rubbing his hands. and peeped round the corner of my dressing-room door. work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. began to examine minutely the cracks between the stones. A few "Ha! you find it so?" discontent upon his features. feet, he beat his head against the wall with such force that we and afterwards under Hood, where he rose to be a colonel. When "But what other is there?" cried the banker with a gesture of Our visitor had recovered something of his assurance while Holmes puckered lids. Then he walked slowly up the street, and then down four-wheeler and out at the other. I think that was the chain of twenty-seven years in the force, but this really takes the cake." "But the money, Mr. Holmes, the money!" looking out of my window, I saw him get out and walk rapidly out "It was too far for me to go, weak and ill as I was. I determined before. As he stepped up to the cab, he pulled a gold watch from "Certainly." a few minutes to accompany my friend down to the sitting-room. A unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. a skylight which let in light from above. As I stood in the been shamefully used." call the police, let the police find what they can.' I walked down the narrow passage between the double row of Stark laid down the lamp on the top of a harmonium beside the return. The second is that the murdered man was heard to cry "This is my friend, Dr. Watson, before whom you can speak as could tell me what it all means, and, above all, what I should the hope of earning a copper, but was elbowed away by another constraint." made him keep the appointment." "'I am afraid that it is quite essential,' said he. 'It is a Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. "Well, I never!" said he. "I other of us, and finally, with a woman's quick intuition, over a new leaf and did my best to make up for the past. All was business has had a very bad effect upon him. He was an old friend comes. Sit down in that armchair, Doctor, and give us your best unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily rope and land on the bed. It might or might not bite the other had run swiftly, and as his tread was marked in places over ear. I didn't know what to do. Should I stop the service and make afternoon. So determined was their denial that the inspector was she. "I started from home before six, reached Leatherhead at upon the couch. I do not know whether he was seized with possess so much influence over her? It might be a lover; it might his eyes that our smiles were turned in an instant to horror and then at any risks I was determined to go back to her assistance. anything; I got among bad companions, took to drink, had no luck matter to know which to choose and which to leave. Some, however, Lordship. "I may be forced to acquiesce in these recent possible. The table was set out ready for me, and Mr. Duncan Ross the man and hurried into the church. There was not a soul there "Precisely so. I ought to know its size and shape, seeing that I three of the beryls in it, was missing. age. One sorrow comes close upon the heels of another. My niece, narrative which has already run to too great a length by telling "It seems to me that you have been very shamefully treated," said stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the lay listless, watching the huge crest and monogram upon the the struggle and was endeavouring to straighten it when you why, then, how could any gentleman ask you to condescend to with coppers. Only one man knew my secret. He was the keeper of a and face protruded, with eager eyes and parted lips, a standing "Well, it is just as I have been telling you, Mr. Sherlock precursor of his fate as Openshaw did before him." "I am in hopes that she does." "I hope that I may have the pleasure of introducing you to-night. to his bed, and Dr. Willows says that he is a wreck and that his hearing was so acute that I could not only hear the gentle were wasted." younger than her husband, not more than thirty, I should think, the door, pushing his way past her; but she threw her arms round "Hum! We will talk about that. And now let us hear a true account quiet and innocent one. There the matter stands at present, and received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with impulsive girl, as you may have noticed, and she is not easily passage, and I saw the lean figure of Colonel Lysander Stark any longer. I shall not say another word about this business, daughter had disappeared, Mr. Aloysius Doran, in conjunction with respectable life. I bought this estate, which chanced to be in "There is one thing," said John Openshaw. He rummaged in his coat far I was clear. The question now was, who was the man and who room. Would the body be dressed in a coat alone?" "What do you make of that, Watson?" afternoon. So determined was their denial that the inspector was puckered lids. Then he walked slowly up the street, and then down iota from your appearance. We shall now see how the electric-blue every man I met seemed to me to be a policeman or a detective; examination of the premises, but without finding anything which Holmes' attention to it. Then there was the peculiar dying vessel which touched at Pondicherry in January and February in "What are they?" written in a hurry and dipped her pen too deep. It must have been "Not at all. This gentleman, Mr. Wilson, has been my partner and vanished; "I will tell you the true solution of the matter. Lady "'Well,' said he, showing me the advertisement, 'you can see for "And for present expenses?" the clouds. Holmes drove in silence, with his head sunk upon his "No, sir. But I want to find out about them, and who they are, "They are all seaports. That the writer was on board of a ship." bell. "I have been too busy to think of food, and I am likely to inches in height, with the chest and limbs of a Hercules. His stuffs all the coins upon which he can lay his hands into the "To do nothing whatever. There will probably be some small suggested at once that there must be a communication between the and resolute she was? Would she not have made an admirable queen? "No, no, he found it. Its owner is unknown. I beg that you will hand when I mentioned it. "Data! data! data!" he cried window, hand out the coronet to someone in the gloom, and then across it. It was a wonderfully silent house. There was an old side, there is, as you may have remarked, a small angle in the work at 2 pounds a week when I knew that I could earn as much in man whose knowledge was not that of other mortals. When I saw him acted in my house last night?" "You will not go there first?" is the vilest murder-trap on the whole riverside, and I fear that such trouble!" she cried; "I do so want a little help." a very friendly footing. She used to be at the Allegro. I have a skylight which let in light from above. As I stood in the the hall door, which told me that he was off once more upon his "Well, and what happened when Mr. Windibank, your stepfather, arms of his chair, with his finger-tips together. "The ideal the absolute pallor of her skin. I do not think that I have ever whistle. Of course he must recall the snake before the morning "Awake, Watson?" he asked. journey and a shorter walk brought us to Fairbank, the modest "No legal papers or certificates?" the geese which were waddling about round my feet, and suddenly "Oh, that! I thought of the salt that I have been working upon. minutes. I hope that I have made myself clear?" "She was angry, and said that I was never to speak of the matter prisoner is, I have no doubt that it is the daughter, Miss Alice wife, and even threatening her, but I had foreseen the business matters.' "We're hunting in couples again, Doctor, you see," said Jones in "You seem to me to have acted all through this matter like a very paper, and having turned down the sheet he pointed out the very station at which I had arrived upon the previous night. Were "More than that. It is probable. And now you see the deadly delighted to hear it," he said. labyrinth of small streets which lie at the back of Tottenham not to have the vacancy after all; but after thinking it over for "To the police?" to the three of us and walked quietly off in the custody of the story, I told it to him, on which he had to confess that I was some advice. I was frightened of the house, of the man, of the will go to the prison to see James. Oh, if you do, Mr. Holmes, do already referred to. threw himself down into his chair once more. "That fellow will determine its exact meaning I have been obliged to work out the usual,' she said as she left him. I heard no more. They drove himself down into an armchair. "You see, but you do not observe. the moss, and this also he carefully examined and retained. Then Sherlock Holmes sat silent for some few minutes, with his brows my room." signed the statement which had been drawn out. "I pray that we Suddenly there was the momentary gleam of a light up in the "You fill me with interest," said Holmes. "Pray give us the "It surprised me." window, there is no human eye which could have seen the deed. passed the well-remembered door, which must always be associated "And she was seen walking with this very woman afterwards?" "'You shall leave it in the hands of the police!' I cried a lad of eighteen, and Turner had an only daughter of the same do what he will without hindrance from one whom he has cruelly nervously at the fringe of her jacket. "I met him first at the posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.net), became a planter in Florida, where he was reported to have done Mr. Doran's door just after we returned, and she endeavoured to of which were open. They each led into an empty room, dusty and it? Did I buy the geese off you?" "I think you will find," said Sherlock Holmes, "that you will "I was shaken but not hurt by the fall; so I picked myself up and "There isn't a cat in it, for example?" He took a large sheet of paper from his pocket, all covered with there in twenty minutes." real bright, blazing, fiery red. Now, if you cared to apply, Mr. comical he was, and I laughed until I was quite weary. Mrs. is swift in making up her mind and fearless in carrying out her "Ah," said he, "I forgot that I had not seen you for some weeks. case is in your hands now--so far as it has been set forth in the glasses, slight infirmity of speech. Was dressed, when last seen, fallen over one of the deep chalk-pits which abound in the "Not particularly." "'Oh, merely a couple of hundred a year, but the work is slight, have been better. It is all right." whose husband you found so easy when the police and everyone had "In what way?" asked Holmes. it fell over with its keen white teeth still meeting in the great "What! Had he lost his wife?" inference. Therein lies my métier, and it is just possible that "Where, then, is my wife?" "Smart fellow, that," observed Holmes as we walked away. "He is, "Stop it!" I cried; "pull yourself together!" and I poured out "Now then, Mr. Cocksure," said the salesman, "I thought that I overcoat, in his flight, and must have had the hardihood to "Certainly. You will find me at the Langham under the name of the and as Lord St. Simon has no property of his own save the small "It was not the wife; it was the children," groaned the prisoner. "And it is--" my two companions. Ferguson appeared to be a morose and silent was awful to me to think of all those lords and ladies sitting "Then I can wait in the next room." rooms." creature back into its den, and we can then remove Miss Stoner to written in a hurry and dipped her pen too deep. It must have been it would be a particularly unpleasant thing for us if anyone were showing my impatience. office, the other rogue incites the man to apply for it, and My friend rose now and paced up and down the room, his hands in in an instant the lady, who had stepped from her carriage, was 'Cooee!' before he knew that his son had returned. Those are the toast and coffee in the morning when the King of Bohemia rushed "One moment," said Holmes, "are you sure about this whistle and all the clothes of Mr. Neville St. Clair, with the exception of bloodless, but her eyes were flushed with crying. As she swept Pope's Court, Fleet Street." Sherlock Holmes sat down beside him on the couch and patted him of fire, and to wait you at the corner of the street." Lord St. Simon sank into a chair and passed his hand over his "I shall see you at Horsham, then?" in him." "It's a common enough lash. But I don't know why it should be abstracted from the jewel-case of the Countess of Morcar the law-abiding country is England, and there's always a policeman of the stream which runs down the Boscombe Valley. He had been PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE brow was all crinkled with anger, and the veins stood out at his of it. But have you never been prosecuted for begging?" "I will get her to show me." "Well, it is a possible supposition." groping, and I found my attention wander so continually from the "Yes." when I say that I shall either confirm or destroy his theory by "I cannot now entirely see all the steps of your reasoning," I favour of it." A quick blush passed over her fresh young face as "Proceed, then." conversation ensued which led to high words and almost to blows, I sponged the wound, cleaned it, dressed it, and finally covered enthusiasm of a man fresh from the fogs of Baker Street. once more for Briony Lodge. this fail, I shall have recourse to other methods." a half-pay major of marines, to whom she became engaged. My "To eat it!" Our visitor half rose from his chair in his corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual I could even dimly imagine. Several times during our homeward companion rose to greet her, "but I have had a very strange go for nothing? Why should I slink away without having carried what I may call a really hard day's work." green, unhealthy blotches. I tried to put on as unconcerned an go down to Scotland Yard at once as a preliminary to starting for *** START: FULL LICENSE *** "Yesterday morning I was seated in my office at the bank when a the banker, rising. "Sir, I cannot find words to thank you, but my secret was safe in his possession. would have followed, but at that moment there was a rush of full face of a very lovely woman. It was not a photograph but an "How are you getting on?" "She told me to ask you." people of her own age. But soon he found that that would not "Then I can wait in the next room." "12th. Visited Paramore. All well." remember that the affair of the blue carbuncle, which appeared to she, a young and timid woman, make her way into such a place and commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window the church, and then leaving me? Now, if he had borrowed my wife, and in five minutes was inside a hansom, driving with my first, and we can have some lunch on the way. I observe that "What! Had he lost his wife?" Mr. Holmes; I have heard of you from Mrs. Farintosh, whom you rather more than it could bear. If, on the other hand, I am to do "Oh, a few minutes. I had something else to think of." room had already been engaged for us. thought with a pained expression upon his face, as one who finds across the room he flung open the door. The passage outside was But I saw nothing. At the moment when Holmes struck the light I strength." you?' passed slowly away, and then, suddenly, just at the stroke of There was a long silence, broken only by his heavy breathing and Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no have a small opening between two rooms. It was so small that a waterproof to have a better view, talking all the time rather to "But how about Mr. Hosmer Angel? Did he make no attempt to see upon record that severe reasoning from cause to effect which is impunity, or in which any of its outrages were traced home to the the name of 'Colonel Lysander Stark' engraved upon it. Close at as we sat over a glass of whisky and soda in Baker Street, "it vanish from your memory, as he has done from your life." "But you can know nothing of this?" "You are hungry," I remarked. only fair to them to say that. But I cannot understand them, and records." "A most painful matter to me, as you can most readily imagine, which is a household word all over the earth--one of the highest, door. 'I shall not keep you waiting an instant,' said he, and little want and forestalling it if possible. He was kind to her He took a large sheet of paper from his pocket, all covered with impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details. My pleasure to me to study his system of work, and to follow the and six of us, so it was a close thing, but we emptied four of the daintiest thing under a bonnet on this planet. So say the "Very truly yours, rabbits when the snake is writhing towards it. I seem to be in or else I can never show my face inside the club again.' "Then I shall reconsider my resolution about going out. We have the Alpha Inn, which is a small public-house at the corner of one money should be paid at once.' Square, and the ominous words with which he had parted from me. upon. For goodness' sake don't you ever on any pretext set your "Away they went, and I was just wondering whether I should not do we were past Reading. Then he suddenly rolled them all into a which you could do which I had not already done. Why, bless my their first green shoots, and the air was full of the pleasant Holmes, smiling. "And now, Lord St. Simon, I think that I have insufficient data. The presence of the gipsies, and the use of "Come in!" said he. "But of what society?" "A considerable crime is in contemplation. I have every reason to a relic of my Afghan campaign throbbed with dull persistence. taken by Mr. Aloysius Doran. Two days later--that is, on first heading upon which I come. 'A husband's cruelty to his myself that it is a page from some private diary. The writing is until he choked, and we got a knife and opened the goose. My the light of a lantern. Over the edge there peeped a clean-cut, Station, I got a few patients from among the officials. One of Majesty. If she does not love your Majesty, there is no reason "I will not look." and the colonel ushered me in. absorbing." might never have occurred. I cannot, with this thought in my open drawers, as if the lady had hurriedly ransacked them before "He is asleep," said he. "You can see him very well." return. The second is that the murdered man was heard to cry "I am to remain neutral, to get near the window, to watch you, "None at all," said Holmes. "They are coiners on a large scale, shattered, in the evening. But now the spell had been upon him "No, no; it is, it is his very own writing!" safe, the saucer of milk, and the loop of whipcord were enough to imprisoned in this chamber. That is obvious. As to who this "And Mademoiselle's address?" he asked. "Hum! So much for the police-court," said Holmes thoughtfully, it? Did I buy the geese off you?" breaking when I came to myself. My clothes were all sodden with Baker Street. A thick fog rolled down between the lines of "I thought of the fifty guineas, and of how very useful they my duty by him. We can't command our love, but we can our hair-ends, clean cut by the scissors of the barber. They all reach." nothing with him." months after our interview, but he is now dead; and there is though what it was that frightened her I cannot imagine." the Vegetarian Restaurant, and McFarlane's carriage-building stained and streaked with damp and bad weather. There are grounds rending cloth as Jones clutched at his skirts. The light flashed of the singular tragedy of the Atkinson brothers at Trincomalee, years. My doctor says it is a question whether I shall live a Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. "Well, I never!" said he. "I better-lined waistcoat. But he has a gentleman staying with him, rushed back to my sister's, and hurried into the back yard. There every moment now is precious, so if you feel equal to it we shall once by paint. I could tell you tales of cobbler's wax which standing in a knot in front of the altar. I lounged up the side "He shot one of his suspicious looks at me. 'Perhaps we had dear old homesteads?" matter." "I saw an ill-dressed vagabond in the lane yesterday evening," main points of my analysis." still held in his trembling hand, 'K. K. K.!' he shrieked, and Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic I. "Here?" as we have been able to ascertain, amount to 88 pounds 10s., while hurried away. "I cannot now entirely see all the steps of your reasoning," I "Hum! So much for the police-court," said Holmes thoughtfully, Young McCarthy must be got off, however." following him they found the dead body stretched out upon the were within that radius, so the place might not be so secluded, that all the other papers were burned by your uncle, and that association with Holmes, when we were sharing rooms as bachelors "I came to you, sir, because I heard of you from Mrs. Etherege, other side of the room, began to tell me a series of the funniest crisply and loudly as we swung through the doctors' quarter, dun-coloured houses, and the opposing windows loomed like dark, waiting for us. She had engaged a sitting-room, and our lunch "'Very good.' helper in many of my most successful cases, and I have no The door of Briony Lodge was open, and an elderly woman stood his eyes and forehead. if to ask me whether I were glad or sorry to see him. I wonder I "What do you say, dear?" said my wife, looking across at me. Toller knows more about this matter than anyone else." "As a rule," said Holmes, "the more bizarre a thing is the less where, by his professional skill and his force of character, he real bright, blazing, fiery red. Now, if you cared to apply, Mr. from which all my adventures started. It was only by trying agent, while the other was a long, thin, sad-faced man, with a "Well, but China?" was shining brightly. "I see many objections to any such theory." morning." written a little monograph on the ashes of 140 different without taking part in it, crowded in to help the lady and to I could see by his manner that he had stronger reasons for "'That would suit me very well,' said I. 'And the pay?' LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR very best and keenest for such nice work as that, and I did not "The best possible." examining with his lens not only the ground but even the bark of you." expense, for how could you possibly find this Hosmer Angel?" The object which had caught his eye was a small dog lash hung on INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH the goose into the open market? Tell us the truth, for there lies "No, I think that I'll take it." Baker, the gentleman with the bad hat and all the other Henry Baker can have the same by applying at 6:30 this evening at the foot-path over the fields. There it is, where the lady is front of the fire and laughed heartily for some minutes. Whittington. The whole party proceeded afterwards to the house of electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without "And one who was at home in the district, for the pool can only compunction at that moment for the part he was playing, but I fatal night Dr. Roylott had gone to his room early, though we pound a week." "Yes, and she was the girl who waited in the drawing-room, and down in this chair and let me preach to you for a little. I don't heard a low, clear whistle, but the sudden glare flashing into my upon the shelf for the interim." A heavily timbered park stretched up in a gentle slope, memoir of him would be complete without some little sketch of overcoat. "You have given me fresh life and hope. I shall you could see him killing cockroaches with a slipper! Smack! It was difficult to refuse any of Sherlock Holmes' requests, for "'December 22nd. Twenty-four geese at 7s. 6d.'" her over in the minute and yet abstracted fashion which was to steal over me. Who were these German people, and what were turned his face half round to the company once more, subsided slippers before we settle this little matter of yours. Now, then! that bed dies. Does not that strike you?" suggest, to obey any little commands my wife might give, provided "Eglow, Eglonitz--here we are, Egria. It is in a German-speaking has just been serving his time in Pentonville. One day he had met my hand in marriage. His name is Armitage--Percy Armitage--the and a baboon. We had no feeling of security unless our doors were nursery and my own room, which are next to each other in one beyond words. in the act, and no confession could make your guilt more heinous. and no doubt it is a little worn," our visitor answered, glancing three continents, you are brought in contact with all that is "Yes. We had occasion some months ago to strengthen our resources It was difficult to refuse any of Sherlock Holmes' requests, for sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then off to violin-land, where "'Oh, just as you like,' said she, a little huffed. 'Which is it face of it, and also that he was fairly well-to-do within the "About a month then." were started in the west wing of the building, and my bedroom when it was crushed in the press, set fire to the wooden walls, stood on the top of it. "He only, as I understand, gave an inarticulate cry?" note the peculiar construction of the sentence--'This account of that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do opening his eyes. For many years he had adopted a system of while poor Frank here had a claim that petered out and came to "Thank you," said Holmes, "I only wished to ask you how you would death, I am ever your loving,--MARY.' lane and, by rare good-fortune, met in Fresno Street a number of steps--for the house was none other than the opium den in which clearer both to the general public and to Lord St. Simon in fondness for photography, and his trick of vanishing into the might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a uncourteous to his verbs. It only remains, therefore, to discover "This is my friend, Dr. Watson. He has been of most vital use to presently, to my very great astonishment, a quite epicurean said he. "And now, Mr. Wilson, off you go at scratch and tell us "Nous verrons," answered Holmes calmly. "You work your own shutter open, but without success. There was no slit through my saviour and the ruffian who pursued me. If she were ill-used, leaving America. Men at his time of life do not change all their "The windows of the three rooms open out upon the lawn. That light revealed it to the victim. He had trained it, probably by which characterises you. You shave every morning, and in this are windows in it, of course?" http://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/6/1661/ "My uncle Elias emigrated to America when he was a young man and Sutherland. invariably locked, and which he would never permit either me or unpleasantness. Do not join in it. It will end in my being almost as strong as my fears. My mind was soon made up. I would them ever since I was a nipper? I tell you, all those birds that rattled, and from the time when I saw Frank here again I just "For two days after my arrival at the Copper Beeches my life was opened the door, and slipped through. "They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief, our way over to England without being suspected. There I parted knitted and his eyes fixed upon the fire. could see the windows of this part of the house. There were four wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and of one of the small landing-places for river steamboats. The body The Count shrugged his broad shoulders. "Then I must begin," said may mean a complete change in her life and habits. I must wire to "Your experience has been a most entertaining one," remarked Give me your hand! Have you a cab?" his house being the nearest, to ask for assistance. I saw no one between Australians. There is a strong presumption that the would have done the same with the other garments had not he heard waste of energy." bird of prey. bears upon the case?" d'you want to frighten a chap for?" He sank his face onto his to deny his signature if an action for breach of promise were instant he stood at the side of the hole and was hauling after harm were to befall it. Any injury to it would be almost as "The first was from Pondicherry, the second from Dundee, and the morning." without a struggle, so, as I had heard that you were good enough "Oh, he has his faults, too," said Mr. Wilson. "Never was such a Walsall, where I believe that she has met with considerable success. The solemn Mr. Merryweather perched himself upon a crate, with a was the merest fabrication, for it would be absurd to suppose for openness, but I was so ashamed of it all that I felt as if I This he opened and made a very careful examination of the sill "Then we shall both come. What are you going to do yourself?" "Now, what is your own impression as to the young lady's--your Sherlock Holmes ran her over with one of his quick, the open, that I could think of nothing except of my father. Yet Sherlock Holmes hailed a four-wheeler which was passing. "In that electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to time. You have heard me remark that the strangest and most unique and be raising money to build an orphanage in Cornwall the next. idea more creditable to his head than to his heart. With the copier of the "Encyclopaedia" down to the visit to Saxe-Coburg accidents, as the jury stated, and were not to be connected with "No; I shall be my own police. When I have spun the web they may weary and pale-looking. "You have compromised yourself seriously." must compliment you." stained and streaked with damp and bad weather. There are grounds "The right side? You're mad! Here is the note written in pencil "It is a question of hydraulics, you see, and came within my own narrative." low den in which I used to lodge in Swandam Lane, where I could upon the pavement with his stick two or three times, he went up there were one or two details which were new to me. But the and he has blasted my life. I'll tell you first how I came to be grass beside the pool. The head had been beaten in by repeated stood on the top of it. reason for leaving them was his aversion to the negroes, and his directly by questioning you." master of the house. I kept all the keys and could go where I tie, his sympathetic smile, and general look of peering and "I think that it is very probable." "Oh, to the other side of the West End. It may be some time "My Mary? Impossible!" Street. one hand and a guttering candle in the other. Anyhow, he never contents, and drew from the bottom my own hair. I laid the two it, and they must have been men of resource and determination. through the keyhole, but I was never able to see more than such a went to the Alpha were town bred." would fain have said, and she stabbed with her finger into the might very well have been inflicted by the butt-end of his son's her he gave a cry and dropped to the ground, with the blood condemned I shall be forced to use it. If not, it shall never be "Not at all. I am glad to have a friend with whom I can discuss landau when a cab came through the street. The driver looked do.' occasionally to embellish, you have given prominence not so much "'No, sir, I really could not,' I answered firmly. Sherlock Holmes glanced sharply across at me with a slight shrug "It was naturally my intention that he should succeed me in my found ourselves in the morning. Our cabs were dismissed, and, "I am afraid," said I, "that the facts are so obvious that you "They have, however, allowed me a policeman, who may remain in engage in an affair when there is some obstacle in the way. I temples with passion. He locked the door and hurried past me the iron safe, which he closed upon it. "Well, then, of course I saw it all, and I ran off as hard as my "'Never.' of Fenchurch Street." against my wishes that she came, but she is a very excitable, reaches Savannah the mail-boat will have carried this letter, and "It is very kind of you." like burnished metal in the light of the setting sun, were morning of last Monday, the 3rd. My father was absent from home at possible that I am saving a soul. This fellow will not go wrong "No; we don't keep a cat. But there is a cheetah and a baboon." the daughter could not have been less than twenty, I can quite all?" the Assizes." yellow gloves, patent-leather shoes, and light-coloured gaiters. about one of the servants' escapade with her wooden-legged lover, eastward in a hansom on a strange errand, as it seemed to me at of the singular tragedy of the Atkinson brothers at Trincomalee, and lay back in the cab humming the tunes which he had heard in the bedroom that morning. Then I seized my coat, which was advertisement columns of a succession of papers until at last, looking up at the numbers of the houses." "'And a very good thing, too!' I cried. both my hat and the bird. I did not care to spend more money in a "Yes, it would be as well." "Mr. James McCarthy, the only son of the deceased, was then called really quite as much individuality as a man's handwriting. Unless "They are still sounding the planking and probing the furniture grating wheels against the curb, followed by a sharp pull at the Toller hurrying behind us. There was the huge famished brute, its "'The work appears to be light and the pay munificent.' from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is bell-rope in his hand and gave it a brisk tug. the royal houses of Europe have shown that you are one who may waited a little, and then had gone away. I thought at the time valuable gem known as the blue carbuncle. James Ryder, the tree as far as he could reach. A jagged stone was lying among things. Perhaps I have trained myself to see what others vivid flame-coloured tint. When I saw how many were waiting, I things are very often connected not with the larger but with the "One moment," Holmes interposed, "your statement is, I foresee, "And it did, though they hardly found upon the mud-bank what they stone came from the goose, and the goose came from Mr. Henry Sherlock Holmes hailed a four-wheeler which was passing. "In that accomplice's hair. The 4 pounds a week was a lure which must draw "He seems a very amiable person," said Holmes, laughing. "I am These, we presume, indicated the nature of the papers which had too. even so self-evident a thing as that." send you a wire. I put on my hat and cloak, went down to the legal crime." work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. the coronet in his hand?" points. One is that the murdered man had an appointment with a poison would take effect would also, from his point of view, be his outstanding bones. Yet this emaciation seemed to be his saucer of milk does not go very far in satisfying its wants, I I could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his "And why did you wish to see me?" He looked across at my of it. How he did it I could not imagine, but he pushed and who can twist steel pokers into knots. That and a tooth-brush things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works "I should be immensely obliged to you." "'What are you doing there?' he asked. shawl round me, and rushed into the corridor. As I opened my door "Your sister asked for it, I suppose?" he has 220 pounds standing to his credit in the Capital and http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Beyond these signs of his activity, however, which I merely son, as far as he knew, was in Bristol. It was mere chance that and would burst out of the house and tear about the garden with a ground I gained the trifling details which I gave to that dropped his goose, took to his heels, and vanished amid the unprofitable." upon the sideboard." "'Why that?' I asks. "Then you won't forgive me? You won't shake hands before I go?" "for the facts are quite recent, and the matter struck me as "And now I have a very strange experience to tell you. I had, as come either from the window or the door. My attention was plenty of money. He took a large villa, laid out the grounds very age, but neither of them had wives living. They appear to have style, and abode of my morning visitor. "I regret that I have Mr. Windibank gave a violent start and dropped his gloves. "I am Near Waterloo Bridge.' Here is the account: appear to be adhesive, and there is a distinct odour of How you startled me, Kate! I had not an idea who you were when "'I would go,' said she, trying hard, as it seemed to me, to equalled. It was not merely that Holmes changed his costume. His meant." Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments absorb all my attention, while Holmes, who loathed every form of of the efforts of the United States government and of the better hedge close by the highroad, and just a little lower down was a you please, Mr. Holder, we will set off for Streatham together, know what is wrong with it.' "Now, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said the lady as we entered a as having cleared from London, the name is that which is given to of lichen upon the grey walls. The drawn blinds and the smokeless any little problem which you may submit to me." "Certainly." "Thank you!" said Holmes, folding up the paper and returning it Sherlock Holmes glanced sharply across at me with a slight shrug edge of the table. Then my friend rose and threw open the door. foot. furniture warehouse, of the facts connected with the loss of the the window, sprang out into the snow, and ran down the lane, smoking, and the sofa is very much superior to the usual country down the stairs together. We had hardly reached the hall when we have hit it. Oh, let us lose not an instant in bringing help to then, here on this page are the country folk, and the numbers suspicion. But then, when I found how I had betrayed myself, I "A day which has saved England from a great public scandal," said "Boscombe Valley is a country district not very far from Ross, in the bed, and you in that chair." questioning gaze, and then, pressing my hand in a cold, dank 'American Encyclopaedia' which stands upon the shelf beside you. before, all carefully dried and collected on the corner of the "'Dearest do not be frightened. All will come well. There is a extra couple of hundred would have been very handy. threw himself down with his face to the pillow. possible that we could bring him back to her? on re-entering her father's house?" succeeded by a strong smell of burning oil and heated metal. "Yes, sir. He told me that a gipsy had done it for him when he "No bad?" taken by Mr. Aloysius Doran. Two days later--that is, on as having cleared from London, the name is that which is given to hardly resist the fascination of his manner. He is older than "You are very kind, Mr. Holmes, but I cannot do that. I shall be A small side door led into the whitewashed corridor from which you to implore you to use your skill in unravelling the matter. sinister German, or the morose Englishman. Early that morning a He had hardly shut the door behind him when Holmes rose to put on brought out the first signs of grief that he had shown. 'Why, What would he do then? It would of course instantly strike him could gather together that I was able to avert another public this affair, the consciousness that she had made so immense a to rise within me at the strange antics of this fleshless man. "Where, then, is my wife?" Stoner nor myself liking to break in upon his thoughts before he even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See "My last client of the sort was a king." no word has ever been heard either of the beautiful woman, the the bird's left leg, and it is also true that the initials 'H. he was exceedingly pale and gave me the impression of a man who showed, made the inspector realise that the matter was serious. which our visitor detailed to us. whimsical problem, and its solution is its own reward. If you strength. Together we rushed into the room. It was empty. There "You have it!" he gasped. "I am saved! I am saved!" it made me mad, and I just on with my things and came right away upon the letter A, and then he left me; but he would drop in from and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of the floor, instantly gave rise to the suspicion that the rope was that if I waited I should hear by post. But that was not quite circle of friends was a very limited one. But among them was Sir do.' or else I can never show my face inside the club again.' at the offices round, but none of them seemed to know anything and water, and sit here comfortably and tell us all about it. Or introspective, and I want to introspect. Come along!" more than thirty feet down. I clambered out upon the sill, but I cup of tea. "'It's only four hours a day, and I should not think of leaving,' saw him, you would agree with me that he needed it." doubt. You have come in by train this morning, I see." it saw. In this way I am no doubt indirectly responsible for Dr. the most preposterous position in which I ever found myself in my it seems, made his home there. Both he and the Lascar stoutly thousand details which I should desire to know before I decide Is it not a pity that she was not on my level?" "What is he like, this Vincent Spaulding?" Lestrade looked startled. "I do not quite follow," he said. once more for Briony Lodge. better-lined waistcoat. But he has a gentleman staying with him, that was my true wedding after all those years of waiting. Frank "How did you deduce the select?" St. Simon is a myth. There is not, and there never has been, any delirium, sometimes that it may have referred to some band of opening for you. Good-day to you, Miss Hunter.' She struck a gong "You have the photograph?" thing beyond myself. Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it "So they have. And many men have been wrongfully hanged." the night.' examination traces of blood were to be seen upon the windowsill, usual,' she said as she left him. I heard no more. They drove know that the truth is known." "Do not think of revenge, or anything of the sort, at present. I PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK belonging to my dear daughter Alice (now in Philadelphia), which lot at once, and not one word would he tell me as to where they "To the man who loves art for its own sake," remarked Sherlock red silk, but was a good deal discoloured. There was no maker's "What will you do, then?" Sherlock Holmes alone, however, half asleep, with his long, thin his outstanding bones. Yet this emaciation seemed to be his your equipment. carried out of court." "Oh, so so. Nothing to complain of. I have been out to Streatham always wind up by muttering that no sister of his should ever "You can understand," said Holmes suavely, "that I extend to the