“I have found out everything!”
“What!” Lestrade stared at him in amazement. “You are joking.”
“I was never more serious in my life. A shocking crime has beencommitted, and I think I have now laid bare every detail of it.”
“And the criminal?”
Holmes scribbled a few words upon the back of one of his visitingcards and threw it over to Lestrade.
The Complete Sherlock Holmes
“That is the name,” he said. “You cannot effect an arrest untilto-morrow night at the earliest. I should prefer that you do notmention my name at all in connection with the case, as I choose tobe only associated with those crimes which present some difficultyin their solution. Come on, Watson.” We strode off together to thestation, leaving Lestrade still staring with a delighted face at thecard which Holmes had thrown him.
“The case,” said Sherlock Holmes as we chatted over our cigarsthat night in our rooms at Baker Street, “is one where, as inthe investigations which you have chronicled under the namesof ‘A Study in Scarlet’ and of ‘The Sign of Four,’ we have beencompelled to reason backward from effects to causes. I havewritten to Lestrade asking him to supply us with the details whichare now wanting, and which he will only get after he has securedhis man. That he may be safely trusted to do, for although he isabsolutely devoid of reason, he is as tenacious as a bulldog whenhe once understands what he has to do, and indeed, it is just thistenacity which has brought him to the top at Scotland Yard.”
“Your case is not complete, then?” I asked.
“It is fairly complete in essentials. We know who the author ofthe revolting business is, although one of the victims still escapesus. Of course, you have formed your own conclusions.”
“I presume that this Jim Browner, the steward of a Liverpoolboat, is the man whom you suspect?”
“Oh! it is more than a suspicion.”
“And yet I cannot see anything save very vague indications.”
“On the contrary, to my mind nothing could be more clear.
Let me run over the principal steps. We approached the case,you remember, with an absolutely blank mind, which is always anadvantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply there toobserve and to draw inferences from our observations. What didwe see first? A very placid and respectable lady, who seemed quiteinnocent of any secret, and a portrait which showed me that shehad two younger sisters. It instantly flashed across my mind thatthe box might have been meant for one of these. I set the ideaaside as one which could be disproved or confirmed at our leisure.
Then we went to the garden, as you remember, and we saw thevery singular contents of the little yellow box.
“The string was of the quality which is used by sailmakersaboard ship, and at once a whiff of the sea was perceptible in ourinvestigation. When I observed that the knot was one which ispopular with sailors, that the parcel had been posted at a port, andthat the male ear was pierced for an earring which is so much morecommon among sailors than landsmen, I was quite certain that all theactors in the tragedy were to be found among our seafaring classes.
The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge 1123
“When I came to examine the address of the packet I observedthat it was to Miss S. Cushing. Now, the oldest sister would, ofcourse, be Miss Cushing, and although her initial was ‘S’ it mightbelong to one of the others as well. In that case we should haveto commence our investigation from a fresh basis altogether.
I therefore went into the house with the intention of clearingup this point. I was about to assure Miss Cushing that I wasconvinced that a mistake had been made when you may rememberthat I came suddenly to a stop. The fact was that I had just seensomething which filled me with surprise and at the same timenarrowed the field of our inquiry immensely.
“As a medical man, you are aware, Watson, that there is no partof the body which varies so much as the human ear. Each ear isas a rule quite distinctive and differs from all other ones. In lastyear’s Anthropological Journal you will find two short monographsfrom my pen upon the subject. I had, therefore, examined theears in the box with the eyes of an expert and had carefully notedtheir anatomical peculiarities. Imagine my surprise, then, whenon looking at Miss Cushing I perceived that her ear correspondedexactly with the female ear which I had just inspected. The matterwas entirely beyond coincidence. There was the same shorteningof the pinna, the same broad curve of the upper lobe, the sameconvolution of the inner cartilage. In all essentials it was the same ear.
“Of coune I at once saw the enormous importance of theobservation. It was evident that the victim was a blood relation,and probably a very close one. I began to talk to her abouther family, and you remember that she at once gave us someexceedingly valuable details.”
“In the first place, her sister’s name was Sarah, and her addresshad until recently been the same, so that it was quite obvioushow the mistake had occurred and for whom the packet wasmeant. Then we heard of this steward, married to the third sister,and learned that he had at one time been so intimate with MissSarah that she had actually gone up to Liverpool to be near theBrowners, but a quarrel had afterwards divided them. This quarrelhad put a stop to all communications for some months, so that ifBrowner had occasion to address a packet to Miss Sarah, he wouldundoubtedly have done so to her old address.
“And now the matter had begun to straighten itself outwonderfully. We had learned of the existence of this steward, animpulsive man, of strong passions—you remember that he threwup what must have been a very superior berth in order to be nearerto his wife—subject, too, to occasional fits of hard drinking. Wehad reason to believe that his wife had been murdered, and thata man—presumably a seafaring man—had been murdered at the1124 The Complete Sherlock Holmes.