know their ways and how to amuse them and so earn enough to keep me."
"Your narrative is most interesting," said Sherlock Holmes. "I have
already heard of your meeting with Mrs. Barclay, and your mutual
recognition. You then, as I understand, followed her home and saw
through the window an altercation between her husband and her, in
which she doubtless cast his conduct to you in his teeth. Your own
feelings overcame you, and you ran across the lawn and broke in upon
them."
"I did, sir, and at the sight of me he looked as I have never seen a
man look before, and over he went with his head on the fender. But
he was dead before he fell. I read death on his face as plain as I
can read that text over the fire. The bare sight of me was like a
bullet through his guilty heart."
"And then?"
"Then Nancy fainted, and I caught up the key of the door from her
hand, intending to unlock it and get help. But as I was doing it it
seemed to me better to leave it alone and get away, for the thing
might look black against me, and any way my secret would be out if I
were taken. In my haste I thrust the key into my pocket, and dropped
my stick while I was chasing Teddy, who had run up the curtain. When
I got him into his box, from which he had slipped, I was off as fast
as I could run."
"Who's Teddy?" asked Holmes.
The man leaned over and pulled up the front of a kind of hutch in the
corner. In an instant out there slipped a beautiful reddish-brown
creature, thin and lithe, with the legs of a stoat, a long, thin
nose, and a pair of the finest red eyes that ever I saw in an
animal's head.
"It's a mongoose," I cried.
"Well, some call them that, and some call them ichneumon," said the
man. "Snake-catcher is what I call them, and Teddy is amazing quick
on cobras. I have one here without the fangs, and Teddy catches it
every night to please the folk in the canteen.
"Any other point, sir?"
"Well, we may have to apply to you again if Mrs. Barclay should prove
to be in serious trouble."
"In that case, of course, I'd come forward."
"But if not, there is no object in raking up this scandal against a
dead man, foully as he has acted. You have at least the satisfaction
of knowing that for thirty years of his life his conscience bitterly
reproached him for this wicked deed. Ah, there goes Major Murphy on
the other side of the street. Good-bye, Wood. I want to learn if
anything has happened since yesterday."
We were in time to overtake the major before he reached the corner.
"Ah, Holmes," he said: "I suppose you have heard that all this fuss
has come to nothing?"
"What then?"
"The inquest is just over. The medical evidence showed conclusively
that death was due to apoplexy. You see it was quite a simple case
after all."
"Oh, remarkably superficial," said Holmes, smiling. "Come, Watson, I
don't think we shall be wanted in Aldershot any more."
"There's one thing," said I, as we walked down to the station. "If
the husband's name was James, and the other was Henry, what was this
talk about David?"
"That one word, my dear Watson, should have told me the whole story
had I been the ideal reasoner which you are so fond of depicting. It
was evidently a term of reproach."
"Of reproach?"
"Yes; David strayed a little occasionally, you know, and on one
occasion in the same direction as Sergeant James Barclay. You
remember the small affair of Uriah and Bathsheba? My biblical
knowledge is a trifle rusty, I fear, but you will find the story in
the first or second of Samuel."
THE RESIDENT PATIENT
Glancing over the somewhat incoherent series of Memoirs with which I
have endeavored to illustrate a few of the mental peculiarities of my
friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I have been struck by the difficulty
which I have experienced in picking out examples which shall in every
way answer my purpose. For in those cases in which Holmes has
performed some tour de force of analytical reasoning, and has
demonstrated the value of his peculiar methods of investigation, the
facts themselves have often been so slight or so commonplace that I
could not feel justified in laying them before the public. On the
other hand, it has frequently happened that he has been concerned in
some research where the facts have been of the most remarkable and
dramatic character, but where the share which he has himself taken in
determining their causes has been less pronounced than I, as his
biographer, could wish. The small matter which I have chronicled
under the heading of "A Study in Scarlet," and that other later one
connected with the loss of the Gloria Scott, may serve as examples of
this Scylla and Charybdis which are forever threatening the
historian. It may be that in the business of which I am now about to
write the part which my friend played is not sufficiently
accentuated; and yet the whole train of circumstances is so
remarkable that I cannot bring myself to omit it entirely from this
series.
It had been a close, rainy day in October. Our blinds were
half-drawn, and Holmes lay curled upon the sofa, reading and
re-reading a letter which he had received by the morning post. For
myself, my term of service in India had trained me to stand heat
better than cold, and a thermometer of 90 was no hardship. But the
paper was uninteresting. Parliament had risen. Everybody was out of
town, and I yearned for the glades of the New Forest or the shingle
of Southsea. A depleted bank account had caused me to postpone my
holiday, and as to my companion, neither the country nor the sea
presented the slightest attraction to him. He loved to lie in the
very centre of five millions of people, with his filaments stretching
out and running through them, responsive to every little rumor or
suspicion of unsolved crime. Appreciation of Nature found no place
among his many gifts, and his only change was when he turned his mind
from the evil-doer of the town to track down his brother of the
country.
Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for conversation, I had tossed
aside the barren paper, and leaning back in my chair, I fell into a
brown study. Suddenly my companion's voice broke in upon my thoughts.
"You are right, Watson," said he. "It does seem a very preposterous
way of settling a dispute."
"Most preposterous!" I exclaimed, and then, suddenly realizing how he
had echoed the inmost thought of my soul, I sat up in my chair and
stared at him in blank amazement.
"What is this, Holmes?" I cried. "This is beyond anything which I
could have imagined."
He laughed heartily at my perplexity.
"You remember," said he, "that some little time ago, when I read you
the passage in one of Poe's sketches, in which a close reasoner
follows the unspoken thought of his companion, you were inclined to
treat the matter as a mere tour de force of the author. On my
remarking that I was constantly in the habit of doing the same thing
you expressed incredulity."
"Oh, no!"
"Perhaps not with your tongue, my dear Watson, but certainly with
your eyebrows. So when I saw you throw down your paper and enter upon
a train of thought, I was very happy to have the opportunity of
reading it off, and eventually of breaking into it, as a proof that I
had been in rapport with you."
But I was still far from satisfied. "In the example which you read to
me," said I, "the reasoner drew his conclusions from the actions of
the man whom he observed. If I remember right, he stumbled over a
heap of stones, looked up at the stars, and so on. But I have been
seated quietly in my chair, and what clues can I have given you?"
"You do yourself an injustice. The features are given to man as the
means by which he shall express his emotions, and yours are faithful
servants."
"Do you mean to say that you read my train of thoughts from my
features?"
"Your features, and especially your eyes. Perhaps you cannot yourself
recall how your reverie commenced?"
"No, I cannot."
"Then I will tell you. After throwing down your paper, which was the
action which drew my attention to you, you sat for half a minute with
a vacant expression. Then your eyes fixed themselves upon your
newly-framed picture of General Gordon, and I saw by the alteration
in your face that a train of thought had been started. But it did not
lead very far. Your eyes turned across to the unframed portrait of
Henry Ward Beecher which stands upon the top of your books. You then
glanced up at the wall, and of course your meaning was obvious. You
were thinking that if the portrait were framed it would just cover
that bare space and correspond with Gordon's picture over there."
"You have followed me wonderfully!" I exclaimed.
"So far I could hardly have gone astray. But now your thoughts went
back to Beecher, and you looked hard across as if you were studying
the character in his features. Then your eyes ceased to pucker, but
you continued to look across, and your face was thoughtful. You were
recalling the incidents of Beecher's career. I was well aware that
you could not do this without thinking of the mission which he
undertook on behalf of the North at the time of the Civil War, for I
remember you expressing your passionate indignation at the way in
which he was received by the more turbulent of our people. You felt
so strongly about it that I knew you could not think of Beecher
without thinking of that also. When a moment later I saw your eyes
wander away from the picture, I suspected that your mind had now
turned to the Civil War, and when I observed that your lips set, your
eyes sparkled, and your hands clinched, I was positive that you were
indeed thinking of the gallantry which was shown by both sides in
that desperate struggle. But then, again, your face grew sadder; you
shook your head. You were dwelling upon the sadness and horror and
useless waste of life. Your hand stole towards your own old wound,
and a smile quivered on your lips, which showed me that the
ridiculous side of this method of settling international questions
had forced itself upon your mind. At this point I agreed with you
that it was preposterous, and was glad to find that all my deductions
had been correct."
"Absolutely!" said I. "And now that you have explained it, I confess
that I am as amazed as before."
"It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I assure you. I should not
have intruded it upon your attention had you not shown some
incredulity the other day. But the evening has brought a breeze with
it. What do you say to a ramble through London?"
I was weary of our little sitting-room and gladly acquiesced. For
three hours we strolled about together, watching the ever-changing
kaleidoscope of life as it ebbs and flows through Fleet Street and
the Strand. His characteristic talk, with its keen observance of
detail and subtle power of inference held me amused and enthralled.
It was ten o'clock before we reached Baker Street again. A brougham
was waiting at our door.
"Hum! A doctor's--general practitioner, I perceive," said Holmes.
"Not been long in practice, but has had a good deal to do. Come to
consult us, I fancy! Lucky we came back!"
I was sufficiently conversant with Holmes's methods to be able to
follow his reasoning, and to see that the nature and state of the
various medical instruments in the wicker basket which hung in the
lamplight inside the brougham had given him the data for his swift
deduction. The light in our window above showed that this late visit
was indeed intended for us. With some curiosity as to what could have
sent a brother medico to us at such an hour, I followed Holmes into
our sanctum.
A pale, taper-faced man with sandy whiskers rose up from a chair by
the fire as we entered. His age may not have been more than three or
four and thirty, but his haggard expression and unhealthy hue told of
a life which has sapped his strength and robbed him of his youth. His
manner was nervous and shy, like that of a sensitive gentleman, and
the thin white hand which he laid on the mantelpiece as he rose was
that of an artist rather than of a surgeon. His dress was quiet and
sombre--a black frock-coat, dark trousers, and a touch of color about
his necktie.
"Good-evening, doctor," said Holmes, cheerily. "I am glad to see that
you have only been waiting a very few minutes."
"You spoke to my coachman, then?"
"No, it was the candle on the side-table that told me. Pray resume
your seat and let me know how I can serve you."
"My name is Doctor Percy Trevelyan," said our visitor, "and I live at
