The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

  "He is asleep," said he. "You can see him very well."

  We both put our eyes to the grating. The prisoner lay with his

  face towards us, in a very deep sleep, breathing slowly and

  heavily. He was a middle-sized man, coarsely clad as became his

  calling, with a colored shirt protruding through the rent in his

  tattered coat. He was, as the inspector had said, extremely

  dirty, but the grime which covered his face could not conceal its

  repulsive ugliness. A broad wheal from an old scar ran right

  across it from eye to chin, and by its contraction had turned up

  one side of the upper lip, so that three teeth were exposed in a

  perpetual snarl. A shock of very bright red hair grew low over

  his eyes and forehead.

  "He's a beauty, isn't he?" said the inspector.

  "He certainly needs a wash," remarked Holmes. "I had an idea that

  he might, and I took the liberty of bringing the tools with me."

  He opened the Gladstone bag as he spoke, and took out, to my

  astonishment, a very large bath-sponge.

  "He! he! You are a funny one," chuckled the inspector.

  "Now, if you will have the great goodness to open that door very

  quietly, we will soon make him cut a much more respectable

  figure."

  "Well, I don't know why not," said the inspector. "He doesn't

  look a credit to the Bow Street cells, does he?" He slipped his

  key into the lock, and we all very quietly entered the cell. The

  sleeper half turned, and then settled down once more into a deep

  slumber. Holmes stooped to the waterjug, moistened his sponge,

  and then rubbed it twice vigorously across and down the

  prisoner's face.

  "Let me introduce you," he shouted, "to Mr. Neville St. Clair, of

  Lee, in the county of Kent."

  Never in my life have I seen such a sight. The man's face peeled

  off under the sponge like the bark from a tree. Gone was the

  coarse brown tint! Gone, too, was the horrid scar which had

  seamed it across, and the twisted lip which had given the

  repulsive sneer to the face! A twitch brought away the tangled

  red hair, and there, sitting up in his bed, was a pale,

  sad-faced, refined-looking man, black-haired and smooth-skinned,

  rubbing his eyes and staring about him with sleepy bewilderment.

  Then suddenly realizing the exposure, he broke into a scream and

  threw himself down with his face to the pillow.

  "Great heavens!" cried the inspector, "it is, indeed, the missing

  man. I know him from the photograph."

  The prisoner turned with the reckless air of a man who abandons

  himself to his destiny. "Be it so," said he. "And pray what am I

  charged with?"

  "With making away with Mr. Neville St.-- Oh, come, you can't be

  charged with that unless they make a case of attempted suicide of

  it," said the inspector with a grin. "Well, I have been

  twenty-seven years in the force, but this really takes the cake."

  "If I am Mr. Neville St. Clair, then it is obvious that no crime

  has been committed, and that, therefore, I am illegally

  detained."

  "No crime, but a very great error has been committed," said

  Holmes. "You would have done better to have trusted you wife."

  "It was not the wife; it was the children," groaned the prisoner.

  "God help me, I would not have them ashamed of their father. My

  God! What an exposure! What can I do?"

  Sherlock Holmes sat down beside him on the couch and patted him

  kindly on the shoulder.

  "If you leave it to a court of law to clear the matter up," said

  he, "of course you can hardly avoid publicity. On the other hand,

  if you convince the police authorities that there is no possible

  case against you, I do not know that there is any reason that the

  details should find their way into the papers. Inspector

  Bradstreet would, I am sure, make notes upon anything which you

  might tell us and submit it to the proper authorities. The case

  would then never go into court at all."

  "God bless you!" cried the prisoner passionately. "I would have

  endured imprisonment, ay, even execution, rather than have left

  my miserable secret as a family blot to my children.

  "You are the first who have ever heard my story. My father was a

  school-master in Chesterfield, where I received an excellent

  education. I travelled in my youth, took to the stage, and

  finally became a reporter on an evening paper in London. One day

  my editor wished to have a series of articles upon begging in the

  metropolis, and I volunteered to supply them. There was the point

  from which all my adventures started. It was only by trying

  begging as an amateur that I could get the facts upon which to

  base my articles. When an actor I had, of course, learned all the

  secrets of making up, and had been famous in the greenroom for

  my skill. I took advantage now of my attainments. I painted my

  face, and to make myself as pitiable as possible I made a good

  scar and fixed one side of my lip in a twist by the aid of a

  small slip of flesh-colored plaster. Then with a red head of

  hair, and an appropriate dress, I took my station in the business

  part of the city, ostensibly as a match-seller but really as a

  beggar. For seven hours I plied my trade, and when I returned

  home in the evening I found to my surprise that I had received no

  less than 26s. 4d.

  "I wrote my articles and thought little more of the matter until,

  some time later, I backed a bill for a friend and had a writ

  served upon me for 25 pounds. I was at my wit's end where to get

  the money, but a sudden idea came to me. I begged a fortnight's

  grace from the creditor, asked for a holiday from my employers,

  and spent the time in begging in the City under my disguise. In

  ten days I had the money and had paid the debt.

  "Well, you can imagine how hard it was to settle down to arduous

  work at 2 pounds a week when I knew that I could earn as much in

  a day by smearing my face with a little paint, laying my cap on

  the ground, and sitting still. It was a long fight between my

  pride and the money, but the dollars won at last, and I threw up

  reporting and sat day after day in the corner which I had first

  chosen, inspiring pity by my ghastly face and filling my pockets

  with coppers. Only one man knew my secret. He was the keeper of a

  low den in which I used to lodge in Swandam Lane, where I could

  every morning emerge as a squalid beggar and in the evenings

  transform myself into a well-dressed man about town. This fellow,

  a Lascar, was well paid by me for his rooms, so that I knew that

  my secret was safe in his possession.

  "Well, very soon I found that I was saving considerable sums of

  money. I do not mean that any beggar in the streets of London

  could earn 700 pounds a year--which is less than my average

  takings--but I had exceptional advantages in my power of making

  up, and also in a facility of repartee, which improved by

  practice and made me quite a recognized character in the City.

  All day a stream of pennies, varied by silver, poured in upon me,

/>   and it was a very bad day in which I failed to take 2 pounds.

  "As I grew richer I grew more ambitious, took a house in the

  country, and eventually married, without anyone having a

  suspicion as to my real occupation. My dear wife knew that I had

  business in the City. She little knew what.

  "Last Monday I had finished for the day and was dressing in my

  room above the opium den when I looked out of my window and saw,

  to my horror and astonishment, that my wife was standing in the

  street, with her eyes fixed full upon me. I gave a cry of

  surprise, threw up my arms to cover my face, and, rushing to my

  confidant, the Lascar, entreated him to prevent anyone from

  coming up to me. I heard her voice downstairs, but I knew that

  she could not ascend. Swiftly I threw off my clothes, pulled on

  those of a beggar, and put on my pigments and wig. Even a wife's

  eyes could not pierce so complete a disguise. But then it

  occurred to me that there might be a search in the room, and that

  the clothes might betray me. I threw open the window, reopening

  by my violence a small cut which I had inflicted upon myself in

  the bedroom that morning. Then I seized my coat, which was

  weighted by the coppers which I had just transferred to it from

  the leather bag in which I carried my takings. I hurled it out of

  the window, and it disappeared into the Thames. The other clothes

  would have followed, but at that moment there was a rush of

  constables up the stair, and a few minutes after I found, rather,

  I confess, to my relief, that instead of being identified as Mr.

  Neville St. Clair, I was arrested as his murderer.

  "I do not know that there is anything else for me to explain. I

  was determined to preserve my disguise as long as possible, and

  hence my preference for a dirty face. Knowing that my wife would

  be terribly anxious, I slipped off my ring and confided it to the

  Lascar at a moment when no constable was watching me, together

  with a hurried scrawl, telling her that she had no cause to

  fear."

  "That note only reached her yesterday," said Holmes.

  "Good God! What a week she must have spent!"

  "The police have watched this Lascar," said Inspector Bradstreet,

  "and I can quite understand that he might find it difficult to

  post a letter unobserved. Probably he handed it to some sailor

  customer of his, who forgot all about it for some days."

  "That was it," said Holmes, nodding approvingly; "I have no doubt

  of it. But have you never been prosecuted for begging?"

  "Many times; but what was a fine to me?"

  "It must stop here, however," said Bradstreet. "If the police are

  to hush this thing up, there must be no more of Hugh Boone."

  "I have sworn it by the most solemn oaths which a man can take."

  "In that case I think that it is probable that no further steps

  may be taken. But if you are found again, then all must come out.

  I am sure, Mr. Holmes, that we are very much indebted to you for

  having cleared the matter up. I wish I knew how you reach your

  results."

  "I reached this one," said my friend, "by sitting upon five

  pillows and consuming an ounce of shag. I think, Watson, that if

  we drive to Baker Street we shall just be in time for breakfast."

  ADVENTURE VII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLUE CARBUNCLE

  I had called upon my friend Sherlock Holmes upon the second

  morning after Christmas, with the intention of wishing him the

  compliments of the season. He was lounging upon the sofa in a

  purple dressing-gown, a pipe-rack within his reach upon the

  right, and a pile of crumpled morning papers, evidently newly

  studied, near at hand. Beside the couch was a wooden chair, and

  on the angle of the back hung a very seedy and disreputable

  hard-felt hat, much the worse for wear, and cracked in several

  places. A lens and a forceps lying upon the seat of the chair

  suggested that the hat had been suspended in this manner for the

  purpose of examination.

  "You are engaged," said I; "perhaps I interrupt you."

  "Not at all. I am glad to have a friend with whom I can discuss

  my results. The matter is a perfectly trivial one"--he jerked his

  thumb in the direction of the old hat--"but there are points in

  connection with it which are not entirely devoid of interest and

  even of instruction."

  I seated myself in his armchair and warmed my hands before his

  crackling fire, for a sharp frost had set in, and the windows

  were thick with the ice crystals. "I suppose," I remarked, "that,

  homely as it looks, this thing has some deadly story linked on to

  it--that it is the clew which will guide you in the solution of

  some mystery and the punishment of some crime."

  "No, no. No crime," said Sherlock Holmes, laughing. "Only one of

  those whimsical little incidents which will happen when you have

  four million human beings all jostling each other within the

  space of a few square miles. Amid the action and reaction of so

  dense a swarm of humanity, every possible combination of events

  may be expected to take place, and many a little problem will be

  presented which may be striking and bizarre without being

  criminal. We have already had experience of such."

  "So much so," l remarked, "that of the last six cases which I

  have added to my notes, three have been entirely free of any

  legal crime."

  "Precisely. You allude to my attempt to recover the Irene Adler

  papers, to the singular case of Miss Mary Sutherland, and to the

  adventure of the man with the twisted lip. Well, I have no doubt

  that this small matter will fall into the same innocent category.

  You know Peterson, the commissionaire?"

  "Yes."

  "It is to him that this trophy belongs."

  "It is his hat."

  "No, no, he found it. Its owner is unknown. I beg that you will

  look upon it not as a battered billycock but as an intellectual

  problem. And, first, as to how it came here. It arrived upon

  Christmas morning, in company with a good fat goose, which is, I

  have no doubt, roasting at this moment in front of Peterson's

  fire. The facts are these: about four o'clock on Christmas

  morning, Peterson, who, as you know, is a very honest fellow, was

  returning from some small jollification and was making his way

  homeward down Tottenham Court Road. In front of him he saw, in

  the gaslight, a tallish man, walking with a slight stagger, and

  carrying a white goose slung over his shoulder. As he reached the

  corner of Goodge Street, a row broke out between this stranger

  and a little knot of roughs. One of the latter knocked off the

  man's hat, on which he raised his stick to defend himself and,

  swinging it over his head, smashed the shop window behind him.

  Peterson had rushed forward to protect the stranger from his

  assailants; but the man, shocked at having broken the window, and

  seeing an official-looking person in uniform rushing towards him,

  dropped his goose, took to his heels, and vanished amid the

  labyrinth of small streets which lie at the back of To
ttenham

  Court Road. The roughs had also fled at the appearance of

  Peterson, so that he was left in possession of the field of

  battle, and also of the spoils of victory in the shape of this

  battered hat and a most unimpeachable Christmas goose."

  "Which surely he restored to their owner?"

  "My dear fellow, there lies the problem. It is true that 'For

  Mrs. Henry Baker' was printed upon a small card which was tied to

  the bird's left leg, and it is also true that the initials 'H.

  B.' are legible upon the lining of this hat, but as there are

  some thousands of Bakers, and some hundreds of Henry Bakers in

  this city of ours, it is not easy to restore lost property to any

  one of them."

  "What, then, did Peterson do?"

  "He brought round both hat and goose to me on Christmas morning,

  knowing that even the smallest problems are of interest to me.

  The goose we retained until this morning, when there were signs

  that, in spite of the slight frost, it would be well that it

  should be eaten without unnecessary delay. Its finder has carried

  it off, therefore, to fulfil the ultimate destiny of a goose,

  while I continue to retain the hat of the unknown gentleman who

  lost his Christmas dinner."

  "Did he not advertise?"

  "No."

  "Then, what clew could you have as to his identity?"

  "Only as much as we can deduce."

  "From his hat?"

  "Precisely."

  "But you are joking. What can you gather from this old battered

  felt?"

  "Here is my lens. You know my methods. What can you gather

  yourself as to the individuality of the man who has worn this

  article?"

  I took the tattered object in my hands and turned it over rather

  ruefully. It was a very ordinary black hat of the usual round

  shape, hard and much the worse for wear. The lining had been of

  red silk, but was a good deal discolored. There was no maker's

  name; but, as Holmes had remarked, the initials "H. B." were

  scrawled upon one side. It was pierced in the brim for a

  hat-securer, but the elastic was missing. For the rest, it was

  cracked, exceedingly dusty, and spotted in several places,

  although there seemed to have been some attempt to hide the

  discolored patches by smearing them with ink.

  "I can see nothing," said I, handing it back to my friend.

  "On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail,

  however, to reason from what you see. You are too timid in

  drawing your inferences."

  "Then, pray tell me what it is that you can infer from this hat?"

  He picked it up and gazed at it in the peculiar introspective

  fashion which was characteristic of him. "It is perhaps less

  suggestive than it might have been," he remarked, "and yet there

  are a few inferences which are very distinct, and a few others

  which represent at least a strong balance of probability. That

  the man was highly intellectual is of course obvious upon the

  face of it, and also that he was fairly well-to-do within the

  last three years, although he has now fallen upon evil days. He

  had foresight, but has less now than formerly, pointing to a

  moral retrogression, which, when taken with the decline of his

  fortunes, seems to indicate some evil influence, probably drink,

  at work upon him. This may account also for the obvious fact that

  his wife has ceased to love him."

  "My dear Holmes!"

  "He has, however, retained some degree of self-respect," he

  continued, disregarding my remonstrance. "He is a man who leads a

  sedentary life, goes out little, is out of training entirely, is

  middle-aged, has grizzled hair which he has had cut within the

  last few days, and which he anoints with lime-cream. These are

  the more patent facts which are to be deduced from his hat. Also,

  by the way, that it is extremely improbable that he has gas laid

  on in his house."

  "You are certainly joking, Holmes."

  "Not in the least. Is it possible that even now, when I give you