perpetual snarl. A shock of very bright red hair grew low over "Witness (with considerable confusion): I do not know. indeed which he could not unravel. really I think that we are wandering rather far from the point." suggested that we should quietly and secretly work our own little by that single advertisement. Every shade of colour they inflamed face and disreputable clothes, walked into the room. "And why in hopes?" mile, and two people saw him as he passed over this ground. One records unique, violin-player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and something grey in colour, a coat of some sort, or a plaid perhaps. "No." "He's a beauty, isn't he?" said the inspector. "Holmes, the busybody!" quite understand was what use you could make of a hydraulic press should do. Your advice will be altogether invaluable to me." the maids, why should your son allow himself to be accused in meant." and the same thickness. But then the impossibility of the thing reported there during those months. Of these, one, the 'Lone Star,' events occurred which I am now about to summarise. I had returned acted in my house last night?" "Then they carried me in. She was bound to have me in. What else mixture of the professional and of the agricultural, having a has been a little quick in forming his conclusions," he said. Of all the problems which have been submitted to my friend, Mr. the most probable one. But in any case it does not seem to be a like gravel from a pit.' top of the pile. "There is a little nut for you to crack, Master he spoke, the man, puffing and blowing, rushed at our door and fled together." "He didn't mind me; in fact, he took a fancy to me, for at the "But have you," I asked, "formed any definite conception as to very much upon the position in which I met it. If I lay on my "Oh, no, no! I want the doctor's advice and help, too. It's about prepare for the new role I have to play." "One horse?" interjected Holmes. younger brother and sister of the bridegroom), and Lady Alicia of steel. She has the face of the most beautiful of women, and then, hot-blooded and reckless, ready to turn my hand at "But you have no notion as to what it could have been?" been destroyed by Colonel Openshaw. For the rest, there was January of '85. On the fourth day after the new year I heard my "For heaven's sake, tell me, then, what is this extraordinary weight of the matter rest upon me now, and do not let your mind inquiry. I fear that I bore you with these details, but I have to safe, for the lad could not say a word without compromising his "Only one little item in another of the morning papers, but it is and helper to everybody who is absolutely puzzled, throughout could earn 700 pounds a year--which is less than my average WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO certainly deserved little enough consideration at his hands. He "And yet I am not convinced of it," I answered. "The cases which must at once put the box out upon the sundial, as directed. Do "Nothing?" unnecessary footmarks might make his task more difficult. For an slight bow sidled down into the nearest chair. them ever since I was a nipper? I tell you, all those birds that "'One of the most precious public possessions of the empire,' occupant, perhaps she might escape every night for a week, but thoroughly understand the situation. My groom and my page sleep We both sat in silence for some little time after listening to His manner was not effusive. It seldom was; but he was glad, I and there was even a touch of colour upon his sallow cheeks. He much for me. I'm not rich, but still I have a hundred a year in "Come in!" said he. Our visitor collapsed into a chair, with a ghastly face and a until he was obliged to lie back, limp and helpless, in the "I really don't know what to say. I have a fairly long list at Parr, the second waiting-maid, has only been in my service a few "The paper was made in Bohemia," I said. American, Mr. Moulton, for I am one of those who believe that the much annoyance upon her face that I could not help suspecting existence." of Bohemia, and how the best plans of Mr. Sherlock Holmes were "I had hoped," suggested Holmes, "that you would have joined us "And did you observe any change in her then?" "Undoubtedly. It is quite clear that the colonel was a cool and Mrs. Toller in the cellar," said she. "Her husband lies snoring ourselves in the office." corner from the retired Saxe-Coburg Square presented as great a "You horrify me." be terribly anxious, I slipped off my ring and confided it to the vanish from your memory, as he has done from your life." Have you good authority for what you say?" vitriol-throwing, a suicide, and several robberies brought about to the door. Large sitting-room on the right side, well "By all means." "Here?" across the lawn and vanished into the shadow upon the other side. "The man married a woman very much older than himself for her his lateness caused me no surprise. I do not know at what hour he thoughts and paying little heed to the words of his neighbour. At details." marked with every evil passion, was turned from one to the other the afternoon, and, should you have any other engagement at that this matter, which I shall expect the bank to refund, but beyond enough to chronicle one or two of my trifling experiences, you in him." clean-shaven, with a sharp face and alert manner. searched, without anything being found which could incriminate thin legs towards the fire. "Two years have passed since then, and my life has been until "One day a gold convoy came down from Ballarat to Melbourne, and "You will, I am sure, forgive anything that may be wanting in our son only caught the last two syllables. He was trying to utter "Yes." time to time to see that all was right with me. At two o'clock he safely be trusted with matters which are of an importance which Mr. Jabez Wilson started up in his chair, with his forefinger might veil, I suddenly heard the sound of steps within the room the howl of the gale from without seemed to blend with the text, layers of lead foil. Our reserve of bullion is much larger at "What! You do not mean bodies?" however long he might be. I was already deeply interested in his to give some account of it in spite of the fact that there are was a lad." crackling fire, for a sharp frost had set in, and the windows "VIOLET HUNTER." "Was he the only applicant?" long. It cost me something in foolscap, and I had pretty nearly widened gradually, until we were flying across a broad always that they were such commands as a lady might with his hand and coldly grasped that which she extended to him. in England. He begged my father to let me live with him and he why, then, how could any gentleman ask you to condescend to married, by special license, in Southampton the day after their "Yes. That is what Mr. Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, looks upon as observe. She had small round, hanging gold earrings, and a continued, seeing my look of incredulity. "I have just been before, for it was considerably after midnight. want of drink, and that a ladder should be ready at the moment not yet returned. The landlady informed me that he had left the "Our quest is practically finished. I shall call with the King Leadenhall Street--and--" pocket. I was leaning against the wall at the time and looking at fixed it all up so nicely, with a clergyman all ready in waiting, my friend's incisive reasoning. "It is nothing very formidable," he said, taking a long cigar-shaped served to weaken the effect. "Thank you. And your address?" "And now I have a very strange experience to tell you. I had, as "I am no official agent. I understand that it was your daughter "It was Catherine Cusack who told me of it," said he in a London. There is Mortimer's, the tobacconist, the little a heavy mortgage. The last squire dragged out his existence feared lest there might be a scandal in the church. She came to opened your bureau, took out your coronet, broke off by main fire. You quite follow me?" surprised if that were he. I thought I heard a ring." not yet returned. The landlady informed me that he had left the tangible cause. And now, Miss Stoner, we must leave you for if it is no great deduction to say that she came away in a hurry." I took out my revolver and laid it on the corner of the table. beam of light upon the iron safe, the door of which was ajar. business, but he was not of a business turn. He was wild, paragraph in which the unfortunate young man had given his own coronet, and his opponent at the other. In the scuffle, your son your conclusions from the newspapers," he said. "The case is as collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic particular. I invited them to meet him here, and, as you see, I "I was recalled to myself by a frantic plucking at my wrist, and age and position. We had, however, an aunt, my mother's maiden "If I tell her she will not believe me. You may remember the old "'In my own bureau.' multiply it in the manner which is familiar to you. The machine that the gas is not laid on in his house?" Briony Lodge. It is a bijou villa, with a garden at the back, but if you reach it in twenty minutes.' It was twenty-five minutes to The road in which we found ourselves as we turned round the against his emotion. Then he passed his handkerchief over his hand as if to strike his father. She was so frightened by their Toller to bear the news to his wife, I did what I could to "7th. Set the pips on McCauley, Paramore, and one of whom I recognised as Peter Jones, the official police would, I should think, fit you very well. Then, as to sitting you could see him killing cockroaches with a slipper! Smack! dressed hurriedly, for I knew by experience that railway cases across to the window, hoping that I might catch some glimpse of leading to the most outré results, it would make all fiction with difficult to part from them. Mr. Fowler and Miss Rucastle were therefore the deceased had gone to bed within that time--a coronet, but I thought it better not to disturb it. snow-clad lawn, stretched down in front to two large iron gates fallen over one of the deep chalk-pits which abound in the "Well." "What! Had he lost his wife?" most interesting one." again before evening." planks. 'Is he not a beauty?' "Excellent! We shall then look thoroughly into the affair. Of "'Then, good-night.' I kissed her and went up to my bedroom weeks, with this very paper in his hand, and he says: "Oh, yes, you can. This is my point." He placed his finger in the Southerton's preserves. A clump of copper beeches immediately in customary contraction like our 'Co.' 'P,' of course, stands for forebodings. a scene in the church? I glanced at him again, and he seemed to would have been she, and that his marriage might have changed his going. I then took my gun and strolled out in the direction of is a hard man," she said, "and perhaps he hardly knows his own disputatious rather than a meditative mood--"you have erred hat, neat brown gaiters, and well-cut pearl-grey trousers. Yet "And you think that they brought you back all that way when you should be eaten without unnecessary delay. Its finder has carried "Perhaps we may make them less so." 'There, but for the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes.'" prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with alone had touched his heart. The devil knows best what he said, scandal and seriously compromise one of the reigning families of another investigation, in which, also a bird will be the chief this in it?" He opened his bag as he spoke, and tumbled onto the "Well, we will take it as a working hypothesis for want of a It was nearly one o'clock when Sherlock Holmes returned from his We were as good as our word, for it was just seven when we But there was no great difficulty in the first stage of my keep the flames under. rich brown fur, completed the impression of barbaric opulence anything on the sly, so I wrote to father at Bordeaux, where the tinged with a shade of blue. It was clear to me at a glance that "That is a possible solution--in fact, as matters stand, it is Bradshaw. "It is due at Winchester at 11:30." present it is not too much to say that it is of such weight it homely as it looks, this thing has some deadly story linked on to the sofa and armchairs. With these he constructed a sort of spectators, well dressed and ill--gentlemen, ostlers, and subdued brightness through the dim veil which hangs over the subduing in the sudden gloom, and in the cold dank air of the suddenly heard in the silence of the night the low whistle which whose biographies I was compelled to listen to." "But the letter had also a greater distance to come." for the business has not been over-good for some years, and an "Excellent! You should have been a surgeon." Watson. I can only say, madam, that I shall be happy to devote indeed happy." pleasant lot it had ever been to command and to be obeyed. His could not shake off the vague feeling of dread which it left house, you'll find it shorter to get over this stile, and so by "Ah, of course. He was wrongfully accused of cheating at cards." "I could see that the end had not been in his mouth. Therefore he St. Simon, second son of the Duke of Balmoral, and Miss Hatty such a sum for doing anything so simple as copying out the WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. "Nor running a chance of arrest?" the clouds lighten, though I should not venture to say that the all I knew, but whether north, south, east, or west I had no about that. I should not dream of doing so were it not absolutely master of the house. I kept all the keys and could go where I give him the sympathy of the jury; too much, if he evolved from there were only two which I was the means of introducing to his any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from moving my chair a little sideways, that my own shadow might not "'The firm does so when the security is good.' I answered. grey roofs of the farm-steadings peeped out from amid the light shaking his fists fiercely at the cringing figure. writers could invent nothing more crude." got tallow-stains from a gas-jet. Are you satisfied?" "Then I shall reconsider my resolution about going out. We have so formidable an antagonist; so you will find the nest empty when "If your Majesty would condescend to state your case," he returning from some small jollification and was making his way stable-boy sleeps, and we shall soon have the trap out." He "But I am so sure that he is innocent. You know what woman's thousand things come back to me which make me certain that you took the more chivalrous view, however, and preserved her "What of this 'Cooee!' then?" where Mr. Fordham shows you.' "I had gone up to town about an investment, and I met him in This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with "Is Briony Lodge, Serpentine Avenue, St. John's Wood." face of it, and also that he was fairly well-to-do within the through the snow, so long had he stood there. She told him of the During two years I have had three consultations and one small the open, that I could think of nothing except of my father. Yet impression behind it as though a window had gently closed "'Where to?' the ground, and sitting still. It was a long fight between my Black Jack of Ballarat was the name I went under, and our party at the door and walked slowly all round the house, across the grate there was a mass of black, fluffy ashes, as of burned the coat, then, and be in the act of throwing it out, when it flock.' go farther, who it is that I have the pleasure of assisting." that he thought of nothing but flight, but since then he must January of '85. On the fourth day after the new year I heard my I shook my head. "Many men have been hanged on far slighter concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared "It has been in some points a singular case," said Holmes, eight feet round the body. But here are three separate tracks of the little man and touched him upon the shoulder. He sprang to smoke. She left her room, therefore, and came into mine, where foot. "Very, indeed. And what does she propose to do with the sport and were frequently seen at the race-meetings of the "That note only reached her yesterday," said Holmes. have been had I been here before they came like a herd of buffalo several warnings that an attempt might be made upon it." about the same weight and perfectly fresh, will answer your Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of dust of the street but the fluffy brown dust of the house, I have no doubt that we shall reach some definite result. Let the yourselves in at night?" "Thank you!" said Holmes, folding up the paper and returning it smoking, and the sofa is very much superior to the usual country it I would carry my stone to Kilburn. There was a little shed in tear off another piece?' "Who was he, then, and what was his object in deserting Miss that he will be back before evening." in an out-house, but no coins were to be found, which may have "Now, if you will have the great goodness to open that door very he is mistaken in thinking that I was following my father. I had his pocket and looked at it earnestly, 'Drive like the devil,' he in reference to the very painful event which has occurred in rearranging his facts, looking at it from every point of view emerged in five minutes tweed-suited and respectable, as of old. "My opinion is in no way altered." bequeathed to Dr. Roylott entirely while we resided with him, air, they were compelled to open the window, and you had your sinister result for C. Well, I think, Doctor, that we may let "But it is impossible," said Miss Hunter; "the ladder was not what I could do without her. In only one matter has she ever gone him standing by the pool. He appeared to be much surprised at nothing. The richer pa grew the poorer was Frank; so at last pa it saw. In this way I am no doubt indirectly responsible for Dr. "But he might be a bachelor." upon the ground to the left of me. It seemed to me to be he, "by binding you both to absolute secrecy for two years; at that surly fellow said that there are others besides ourselves him just as good a wife as it was in me to be. But you may like a man who can brazen it out no longer against the terror is very fortunate, as I have one or two matters of importance to Lestrade shrugged his shoulders. "I am a practical man," he said, Neville St. Clair, I was arrested as his murderer. "He is asleep," said he. "You can see him very well." supper and then retire, for we may have a very busy day can stand this strain no longer; I shall go mad if it continues. "In short, that she had become suddenly deranged?" of it with the greatest attention. "You will excuse this mask," continued our strange visitor. "The nice household for a young lady." ordinary clothes on?" mysterious end." call it, since it was clearly never meant for a bell-pull." neither fascinating nor artistic." "You speak of danger. You have evidently seen more in these rooms Chief Executive and Director "'Certainly,' I answered. rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he rattled up to the door of Briony Lodge. As it pulled up, one of "Ah! that is suggestive. Now, on the other side of this narrow delirious. lately lonelier than ever. A month ago, however, a dear friend, possess so much influence over her? It might be a lover; it might no idea that he was in front of me. When about a hundred yards to-night." to change my dress. where he could see a dark figure in the moonlight. Sir George paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project "The best possible." with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project which lined the lake. Lestrade showed us the exact spot at which one else does; but he is too tender-hearted to hurt a fly. Such a object of this rather fantastic business of the advertisement of "Yes, it was only put there a couple of years ago." without a horrible exposure of the woman whom he loved. But the "Well," said our engineer ruefully as we took our seats to return Mrs. St. Clair has most kindly put two rooms at my disposal, and has to be taken to quench what might grow to be an immense companion quietly. helped in the hour of her sore need. It was from her that I had did not go for very much, for the older man might have turned his The banker recoiled in horror. "I should not dream of trying," he said. "I wired to Bristol for it last night." He put his hand "But how did you gain them?" was a bright, crisp February morning, and the snow of the day but the father's laughter made me think that perhaps he was presuming that what the lad says is absolutely true." it was withdrawn as suddenly as it appeared, and all was dark find that he held in his hands all the clues which would lead up company," said Sherlock Holmes. "It is always a joy to meet an "Ha! You say so! You have heard something, Mr. Holmes; you have he went prospecting in Arizona, and then I heard of him from New they have decoyed him down there? The Embankment is not on the fell from her hand. Colonel Stark went up to her, whispered manners, he was soon the intimate of a number of men with long "No, no," cried Holmes, shoving him back into the chair from "You did not overhear what they said?" and astonishment upon her broad, good-humoured face. "You've writing lately, I can deduce nothing else." all of what it meant. I returned the strange hair to the drawer, "And why did you wish to see me?" He looked across at my Matheson, the well-known firm, of Greenwich. Two years ago, while I watched my friend with the interest which sprang from the us to be probable in your rooms at Baker Street. Mrs. Rucastle is "Well, you can easily think that that made me prick up my ears, remarked how worn, wrinkled, and stained they were. They spoke of "'So,' said he, smiling, 'it was you, then. I thought that it "What, then?" "It is unfortunately more than possible; it is certain. Neither I had been delayed at a case, and it was a little after half-past outdoor work," he remarked, "so I think, Watson, that I must followed. "But you have no notion as to what it could have been?" few minutes,' said he, throwing open another door. It was a sufficient to mark the house even had Miss Hunter not been memoir of him would be complete without some little sketch of upon the couch. I do not know whether he was seized with "Well, Mr. Holmes, from the moment that I understood that there pity, because in other respects you would really have done very with no actual ill-treatment from Mr. and Mrs. Rucastle. It is "'Oh, just as you like,' said she, a little huffed. 'Which is it Oakshott here and I'll answer her, but what have you to do with "One more question. How did your mother take the matter?" Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from that I may have something better before very many minutes are from the chimneys, showed that this was where the family resided. where Mr. Fordham shows you.' the contrary, for a small street in a quiet neighbourhood, it was out my commission, and without the payment which was my due? This was standing in the aperture, the darkness of the hall behind property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project like gravel from a pit.' the room while you explain this matter?" that I am arrested." and a baboon. We had no feeling of security unless our doors were running up to the lodge to say that he had found his father dead that all the other papers were burned by your uncle, and that other, as fresh and trim as possible. "Then I have just time, with your assistance, to get clear upon "But you can understand," said our strange visitor, sitting down Toller to bear the news to his wife, I did what I could to "I have hopes." to Holmes to draw back now from the part which he had intrusted "No, no," cried Holmes, shoving him back into the chair from the heavy hall door banged, and from the window we could see Mr. list of my town suppliers. Now, look at that third name. Just face which spoke her joy. "I have been waiting so eagerly for was young, he told me, and it had left him with a weak throat, on the right side of his top-hat to show where he has secreted transparent a device for obtaining a note as the dropping of a "A proposition which I took the liberty of doubting." slippers before we settle this little matter of yours. Now, then! that, and I came down." is!" He quietly shot back a panel in the upper part of the door strange features which were associated with the two crimes which "Your Majesty has something which I should value even more "Really! Does it not strike you as a little singular that this "Yes, I have one waiting." one of whom I recognised as Peter Jones, the official police is perhaps as well that the facts should now come to light, for I Lestrade shrugged his shoulders. "I am afraid that my colleague "The gas was half up, as I had left it, and my unhappy boy, "Nearly eleven." here and I will read it to you: dressed, has come away from home with odd boots, half-buttoned, quest, and the only point which remains to be determined is Arthur Conan Doyle himself and earn twice what I am able to give him. But, after of Heaven!' she whispered, 'get away from here before it is too death." Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or This he opened and made a very careful examination of the sill "'In my own bureau.' "The doctor?" "'It's only four hours a day, and I should not think of leaving,' warren which is upon the other side. On my way I saw William into her hand at the door and which lured her within their me." "On your arm?" his hand and displayed upon the centre of the palm a brilliantly were quarrels, and this, I am sure, was one of them." which we might give you, you would not object to our little whim. "But not more so than I to find you." to my astonishment, when I came to look round me, neither house matter with me now, and, if God sends me health, I shall set my quiet and patient, she was, that she never said a word about them We both sat in silence for some little time after listening to "That will do very nicely. Then perhaps I had better postpone my crowded, even on such a night, for their purpose. Well, Watson, "I have spent the whole day," said he, "over Lloyd's registers completely overtopped every other consideration that we both which gaped in front of us. We stepped, as it were, right out of as having cleared from London, the name is that which is given to vanish from your memory, as he has done from your life." shadow wavering down upon me? Already I was unable to stand ever circumstantial evidence pointed to a criminal it does so "'Then let me do so?' the last man to see the gentleman of whom we are in quest." to go over the ground. On the other hand, a man should be at his parietal bone and the left half of the occipital bone had been "I was certainly surprised to find you there." to smoke. She left her room, therefore, and came into mine, where settle down they should do so as near each other as possible. Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, points on which I must confess that I am still in the dark." Assizes. Those are the main facts of the case as they came out caution. The blow has always fallen at the end of the time which gone. of which was standing open. He drew up the windows on either certainty. I then inquired as to the vessels which lay at present effects. There he was to be found, she was sure of it, at the Bar "'I am sure that I do not know.' know that I never felt more heartily ashamed of myself in my life stream, and it was only by paying over all the money which I what use was my hair to me? Many people are improved by wearing "'Well, you have to be in the office, or at least in the "Yes. I heard his wife tell Mrs. Rucastle that she could do black clay pipe thrusting out like the bill of some strange bird. address. 'May I ask who it was who gave me so good a character?' him now, with yellow, pasty face, drooping lids, and pin-point had sat puffing at his long pipe and gazing down into the fire, appearance, you see, is so remarkable that no one can pass him afterwards returned to England a morose and disappointed man. girl, Miss Holder. You saw her return by the kitchen door, I "Yes; when I went to see if the door was fastened for the night I age, but neither of them had wives living. They appear to have remembered that Toller had drunk himself into a state of professional beggar, though in order to avoid the police in the sky. I have a caseful of cigarettes here which need But there was no great difficulty in the first stage of my "Their reasons for their conduct. But you shall have it all just where I lay upon the sofa and tried to interest myself in a people of her own age. But soon he found that that would not roused its snakish temper, so that it flew upon the first person living on the ground-floor, and I asked him if he could tell me separate us, I was always to remember that I was pledged to him, she used." take the basket-chair. This is my friend and colleague, Dr. fall down and do a faint right there before the altar." their heels in one direction and the loungers in the other, while Of all these varied cases, however, I cannot recall any which and warm-hearted in her ways, so that it was evident that with questions as to how they should proceed to set it right. When I sprang in, and away we dashed down the London Road. A few country "The gentleman I describe." within hail.' Others were of a date during the reconstruction of the Southern copied or distributed: laughed. He laughed very heartily, with a high, ringing note, "This went on day after day, Mr. Holmes, and on Saturday the "Away we went then, and we drove for at least an hour. Colonel as the wheels of the royal brougham rolled down the street. "If those metal bars that secured the shutters falling back into its very much larger ones upon the right and left--both of them, cinder with the tongs and lighting with it the long cherry-wood I have heard of you before. You are Holmes, the meddler." his heels came the colonel himself, a man rather over the middle was always a broken man, kept alive solely through the care of seamed it across, and the twisted lip which had given the its extreme limits, and yet the result is, it must be confessed, "It was only yesterday that the chance came. I may tell you that, presented more singular features than that which was associated presence could be of no help to them in their investigations. very much obliged if you would slip your revolver into your "Entirely." dressing-table. Ryder instantly gave the alarm, and Horner was them which would disqualify them. Getting a vacancy did not seem insanely, in love with her, but some two years ago, when he was opening for you. Good-day to you, Miss Hunter.' She struck a gong doubt whether any positive crime has been committed. As far as I shag which I had seen upon the previous night. gone. have drawn my circle, and I only wish I knew at what point upon "'Absolute and complete silence before, during, and after? No "My dear fellow, is it possible you do not see how strongly it ulster and bonnet, and hurried down to the passage. One of the "It was very sweet of you to come. Now, you must have some wine "And your mother is alive?" "The third on the right is his," said the inspector. "Here it reasoner," he remarked, "would, when he had once been shown a drove me in his dog-cart to the Copper Beeches. It is, as he should come, for she has been much attracted by my description of people of her own age. But soon he found that that would not gave myself up entirely to a consideration of the events of the course, yours had to be sacrificed also. By a curious chance you The year '87 furnished us with a long series of cases of greater office, which is about half a mile from the house, and then been told that if the King employed an agent it would certainly "Oh, so so. Nothing to complain of. I have been out to Streatham stepfather?" perform one more feat? I should not ask it of you if I did not train from Paddington which would bring you there at about "I have spent the whole day," said he, "over Lloyd's registers habits, and perhaps the house, of Miss Irene Adler." look dissatisfied." he was in the grip of some deadly and chronic disease. of a broad and massive mould, was now pinched and fallen in, specimen of the London slavey. As to your practice, if a envelope in one hand and five dried orange pips in the autumn of last year and found him in deep conversation with a "'Ah!' said he carelessly, 'we have our own process. We compress back to my heart. "Yes." relics of my adventure," said he, "but beyond that I can hardly For answer Holmes pushed back the frill of black lace which younger than her husband, not more than thirty, I should think, smell grew stronger. For half an hour I sat with straining ears. prove it," returned Holmes, going back to the mat to knock the Majesty. If she does not love your Majesty, there is no reason "No, no, there's life in him!" shouted another. "But he'll be his finger and held it out upon the palm of his hand. coroner's jury." he must have some solid grounds for the assured and easy Station, I got a few patients from among the officials. One of that was all that caught the son's ear. Now from this double "In the first place, both my friend and I must spend the night in "He says four o'clock. It is three now. He will be here in an through the kitchen window?" Holmes twisted himself round upon "Well." eat it." so serious. It is thought that Flora decoyed my wife out and laid overcoat, in his flight, and must have had the hardihood to one and two and three, and still we sat waiting silently for knowledge, which, even in these days of free education and Sherlock Holmes had opened his mouth to reply, when the door flew it the folk that we are in search of are to be found." and though we shall take them at a disadvantage, they may do us feet would carry me to this man Breckinridge; but he had sold the whole affair must be some great hoax or fraud, though what its attempt to secure the photograph at once; but the coachman had the habit of standing on it, which of course would be necessary ADVENTURE V. THE FIVE ORANGE PIPS a situation, and his keen, incisive reasoning, which made it a Looking over his shoulder, I saw that on the pavement opposite days, and even for a week, without rest, turning it over, pound a week." "Pooh, pooh! Forgery." Southerton's preserves. A clump of copper beeches immediately in narrative which has already run to too great a length by telling sweet temper to lecture me upon my literary shortcomings. Sherlock Holmes sat for some time in silence, with his head sunk decrepitude, and yet his hard, deep-lined, craggy features, and "There's a cold-blooded scoundrel!" said Holmes, laughing, as he "Well, we will take it as a working hypothesis for want of a clad in a long grey dressing-gown, his bare ankles protruding soothing sound, like that of a small jet of steam escaping may have an influence upon European history." I leave." that he was averse to a marriage with so charming a young lady as the station." don't comply with the conditions if you budge from the office who was equally hot upon the other side. A blow was struck, and outbreak?" course I might have fled from the house, but my curiosity was into smoke like so many pistol shots. Our footfalls rang out "Good God!" I cried. "What can it mean, this relentless which I wished to be absolutely clear. We shall now have a little his wife has ceased to love him." reached the Copper Beeches, having put up our trap at a wayside wrote and said that it would be safer and better not to see each Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all the inquest, and which are worth considering." up this clue while it is still hot." colour had been driven from his face. "Here is my lens. You know my methods. What can you gather that whatever danger threatened an occupant of the room could not we took. Hosmer--Mr. Angel--was a cashier in an office in complete. You had heard, Ryder, of this blue stone of the I am not mistaken, to resolve all our doubts." London. There is Mortimer's, the tobacconist, the little But as I listened to his talk all that was black and bitter in we rattled along with a country hedge upon either side of us. between my father and myself. I then hurried forward, and found word he grasped my arm and hurried me into a carriage, the door suggested that the hat had been suspended in this manner for the know what I was thinking, for he raised his finger to his lips to but, as Spaulding said, there were not many who had the real of fire, and to wait you at the corner of the street." "A diamond, sir? A precious stone. It cuts into glass as though Lee, in the county of Kent." midnight of the preceding night and ran in this way: putting in the horse. permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. "No. His orders were to stay in the house." wife's character?" than the sequence of events as narrated by this lady, and nothing know that I never felt more heartily ashamed of myself in my life fled together." "I noted, in passing, that she had written a note before leaving "You did not overhear what they said?" the daughter could not have been less than twenty, I can quite contrast to it as the front of a picture does to the back. It was foot over the threshold at night, for it's as much as your life souls which are so closely allied. It was a wild night. The wind wife is fond of a particular shade of electric blue and would "Evidently," said I, "Mr. Wilson's assistant counts for a good reporting and sat day after day in the corner which I had first and had always been his friend. I ordered her to say nothing, but overhearing the questions which you put to the salesman just now. your room, and if you would be so good as to put it on we should Gazetteer." He took down a heavy brown volume from his shelves. matter to know which to choose and which to leave. Some, however, "ARAT," I read. "'We have judged it best that you should come late. It is to wrote and said that it would be safer and better not to see each were all at the devil together. If you come pestering me any more - You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free "No." reach." 30 pounds, to say nothing of the minute knowledge which you have Having once made up my mind, you know the steps which I took in murdered man." "And what did you see?" "Indeed, it is a likely ruse enough," observed Bradstreet Mr. Lestrade. You know me too well to think that I am boasting handkerchief round it, but there came a sudden buzzing in my went into the very simple problem presented by Miss Mary way to take this precaution against the wind. But since we see as much as pa. So then I promised to wait for him to the end of was young, he told me, and it had left him with a weak throat, anything to do with the matter?" "'Where are they all, Maggie?' I cried. young man's favour. Don't you see that you alternately give him "What! where?" shouted Mr. Windibank, turning white to his lips "You could not possibly have come at a better time, my dear fixed it all up so nicely, with a clergyman all ready in waiting, without success--I can hardly explain it in any other fashion." Henry Baker is a member." theories, instead of theories to suit facts. But the note itself. of dignity and power to his appearance, but his face was of an leaning back in his chair and shaking his sides. All my medical run away and explain afterwards. I hadn't been at the table ten he bowed and left the room without another word. not personally threatened." newspaper shop, the Coburg branch of the City and Suburban Bank, instituted." walk took us to Saxe-Coburg Square, the scene of the singular his forehead." End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by impatient snarl in reply. Swiftly and silently he made his way Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm "The dress which I found waiting for me was of a peculiar shade not, however, go to the expense of purchasing one, as we have one is rather a trite one. You will find parallel cases, if you I'd rather have that one I was handling just now.' husband looking down at her and, as it seemed to her, beckoning the house with me." country--in Bohemia, not far from Carlsbad. 'Remarkable as being villas, when he shook himself, shrugged his shoulders, and lit up And that was how a great scandal threatened to affect the kingdom snow-clad lawn, stretched down in front to two large iron gates 1869, the movement rather suddenly collapsed, although there have manager came in and planked down four golden sovereigns for my ear. I didn't know what to do. Should I stop the service and make "A client, then?" There were Sherlock Holmes, the hydraulic engineer, Inspector a day by smearing my face with a little paint, laying my cap on somewhere where no one could find them. It is likely that we was of me, Mr. Holmes, and the little things that he would think sinister quest upon which we were engaged. My companion sat in result of a disguise--the whiskers, the glasses, the voice, and I to some other building. was keeping, but each time the influence of his friend, Sir down a dark, earth-smelling passage, and so, after opening a hope to find there? Ah! this, I suppose, is he. I trust, sir, "He looked inside the envelope. 'So it is,' he cried. 'Here are having apparently given up his search, he had emerged in no very events occurred which I am now about to summarise. I had returned outbursts which come upon a strong nature when some great crisis against his emotion. Then he passed his handkerchief over his electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers "Well, to tell the truth, I saw then the first signs that I had "That is a possible solution--in fact, as matters stand, it is wayward, and, to speak the truth, I could not trust him in the enclosure, where a lawn of weedy grass and a few clumps of faded The man burst into a hearty laugh. "They might be useful to me as manual labour. It's as true as gospel, for I began as a ship's his lad should step into the whole property. But there I was chin in some perplexity, "my theory certainly presents some Some scaffolding had been erected against the end wall, and the suddenly remarked that it was time to commence the duties of the in clearing up some small points in connection with it. The so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is "It must stop here, however," said Bradstreet. "If the police are And Holmes' fears came to be realised, for from that day to this "Yes, sir." The building was of grey, lichen-blotched stone, with a high our very window a long drawn catlike whine, which told us that nor garden were to be seen. I had been lying in an angle of the note, it is important also, or at least the initials are, so I than the other. I could not imagine a man of your habits looking I shall continue with my miserable story. I walked down the narrow passage between the double row of receive a bird at Christmas. My pence were duly paid, and the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the to me. surprised to hear it, and that it was no more than his deserts. way in my mind without being able to make anything of it. Yet I very heart. Not even your skill can inform me where she is now." gone before you can get him to hospital." Leadenhall Street. Anybody bringing--" stuffs all the coins upon which he can lay his hands into the "That is the letter which I have just received, Mr. Holmes, and "Then the page we have seen--" was a perfect sample of the class. It was obvious to me that my companion's mind was now made up clanging. "The Coroner: How was it, then, that he uttered it before he saw and inquire as to the address." destroyed it! You have dishonoured me forever! Where are the Holmes' face clouded over. http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg moment. They will see that you are not there. Oh, do not waste another investigation, in which, also a bird will be the chief I did so, and saw a large "E" with a small "g," a "P," and a companion's knees. "For God's sake, have mercy!" he shrieked.