But there was a chance in the evening if I could only be sure thathis attention was engaged. That was where you and your bluesaucer came in. But I had to be sure of the position of the book,and I knew I had only a few minutes in which to act, for my timewas limited by your knowledge of Chinese pottery. Therefore Igathered the girl up at the last moment. How could I guess whatthe little packet was that she carried so carefully under her cloak?thought she had come altogether on my business, but it seemsshe had some of her own.”
The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes 1255
“He guessed I came from you.”
“I feared he would. But you held him in play just long enoughfor me to get the book, though not long enough for an unobservedescape. Ah, Sir James, I am very glad you have come!”
Our courtly friend had appeared in answer to a previoussummons. He listened with the deepest attention to Holmes’saccount of what had occurred.
“You have done wonders—wonders!” he cried when he hadheard the narrative. “But if these injuries are as terrible as Dr.
Watson describes, then surely our purpose of thwarting themarriage is sufficiently gained without the use of this horriblebook.”
Holmes shook his head.
“Women of the De Merville type do not act like that. She wouldlove him the more as a disfigured martyr. No, no. It is his moralside, not his physical, which we have to destroy. That book willbring her back to earth—and I know nothing else that could. It isin his own writing. She cannot get past it.”
Sir James carried away both it and the precious saucer. As I wasmyself overdue, I went down with him into the street. A broughamwas waiting for him. He sprang in, gave a hurried order to thecockaded coachman, and drove swiftly away. He flung his overcoathalf out of the window to cover the armorial bearings upon thepanel, but I had seen them in the glare of our fanlight none theless. I gasped with surprise. Then I turned back and ascended thestair to Holmes’s room.
“I have found out who our client is,” I cried, bursting with mygreat news. “Why, Holmes, it is——”
“It is a loyal friend and a chivalrous gentleman,” said Holmes,holding up a restraining hand. “Let that now and forever beenough for us.”
I do not know how the incriminating book was used. Sir Jamesmay have managed it. Or it is more probable that so delicate atask was entrusted to the young lady’s father. The effect, at anyrate, was all that could be desired. Three days later appeared aparagraph in the Morning Post to say that the marriage betweenBaron Adelbert Gruner and Miss Violet de Merville would nottake place. The same paper had the first police-court hearing ofthe proceedings against Miss Kitty Winter on the grave charge ofvitriol-throwing. Such extenuating circumstances came out in thetrial that the sentence, as will be remembered, was the lowest thatwas possible for such an offence. Sherlock Holmes was threatenedwith a prosecution for burglary, but when an object is good and aclient is sufficiently illustrious, even the rigid British law becomeshuman and elastic. My friend has not yet stood in the dock.
The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier
The ideas of my friend Watson, though limited, are exceedinglypertinacious. For a long time he has worried me to write anexperience of my own. Perhaps I have rather invited thispersecution, since I have often had occasion to point out tohim how superficial are his own accounts and to accuse him ofpandering to popular taste instead of confining himself rigidly tofacts and figures. “Try it yourself, Holmes!” he has retorted, andam compelled to admit that, having taken my pen in my hand,do begin to realize that the matter must be presented in such away as may interest the reader. The following case can hardly failto do so, as it is among the strangest happenings in my collectionthough it chanced that Watson had no note of it in his collection.
Speaking of my old friend and biographer, I would take thisopportunity to remark that if I burden myself with a companionin my various little inquiries it is not done out of sentiment orcaprice, but it is that Watson has some remarkable characteristicsof his own to which in his modesty he has given small attentionamid his exaggerated estimates of my own performances. Aconfederate who foresees your conclusions and course of actionalways dangerous, but one to whom each development comesas a perpetual surprise, and to whom the future is always a closedbook, is indeed an ideal helpmate.
I find from my notebook that it was in January, 1903, just afterthe conclusion of the Boer War, that I had my visit from Mr.
James M. Dodd, a big, fresh, sunburned, upstanding Briton. Thegood Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the onlyselfish action which I can recall in our association. I was alone.
It is my habit to sit with my back to the window and to place myvisitors in the opposite chair, where the light falls full upon them.
Mr. James M. Dodd seemed somewhat at a loss how to begin theinterview. I did not attempt to help him, for his silence gave memore time for observation. I have found it wise to impress clientswith a sense of power, and so I gave him some of my conclusions.
“From South Africa, sir, I perceive.”
“Yes, sir,” he answered, with some surprise.
“Imperial Yeomanry, I fancy.”
“Exactly.”
“Middlesex Corps, no doubt.”
“That is so. Mr. Holmes, you are a wizard.”
I smiled at his bewildered expression.
“When a gentleman of virile appearance enters my room withsuch tan upon his face as an English sun could never give, andThe Case Book of Sherlock Holmes 1257
with his handkerchief in his sleeve instead of in his pocket, it isnot difficult to place him. You wear a short beard, which showsthat you were not a regular. You have the cut of a riding-man.
As to Middlesex, your card has already shown me that you area stockbroker from Throgmorton Street. What other regimentwould you join?”
“You see everything.”