upon it further. Above all, try to let Mr. Hosmer Angel vanish from
your memory, as he has done from your life."
"Then you don't think I'll see him again?"
"I fear not."
"Then what has happened to him?"
"You will leave that question in my hands. I should like an accurate
description of him and any letters of his which you can spare."
"I advertised for him in last Saturday's Chronicle," said she. "Here
is the slip and here are four letters from him."
"Thank you. And your address?"
"No. 31 Lyon Place, Camberwell."
"Mr. Angel's address you never had, I understand. Where is your
father's place of business?"
"He travels for Westhouse & Marbank, the great claret importers of
Fenchurch Street."
"Thank you. You have made your statement very clearly. You will leave
the papers here, and remember the advice which I have given you. Let
the whole incident be a sealed book, and do not allow it to affect
your life."
"You are very kind, Mr. Holmes, but I cannot do that. I shall be true
to Hosmer. He shall find me ready when he comes back."
For all the preposterous hat and the vacuous face, there was
something noble in the simple faith of our visitor which compelled
our respect. She laid her little bundle of papers upon the table and
went her way, with a promise to come again whenever she might be
summoned.
Sherlock Holmes sat silent for a few minutes with his fingertips
still pressed together, his legs stretched out in front of him, and
his gaze directed upward to the ceiling. Then he took down from the
rack the old and oily clay pipe, which was to him as a counsellor,
and, having lit it, he leaned back in his chair, with the thick blue
cloud-wreaths spinning up from him, and a look of infinite languor in
his face.
"Quite an interesting study, that maiden," he observed. "I found her
more interesting than her little problem, which, by the way, is
rather a trite one. You will find parallel cases, if you consult my
index, in Andover in '77, and there was something of the sort at The
Hague last year. Old as is the idea, however, there were one or two
details which were new to me. But the maiden herself was most
instructive."
"You appeared to read a good deal upon her which was quite invisible
to me," I remarked.
"Not invisible but unnoticed, Watson. You did not know where to look,
and so you missed all that was important. I can never bring you to
realise the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumb-nails,
or the great issues that may hang from a boot-lace. Now, what did you
gather from that woman's appearance? Describe it."
"Well, she had a slate-coloured, broad-brimmed straw hat, with a
feather of a brickish red. Her jacket was black, with black beads
sewn upon it, and a fringe of little black jet ornaments. Her dress
was brown, rather darker than coffee colour, with a little purple
plush at the neck and sleeves. Her gloves were greyish and were worn
through at the right forefinger. Her boots I didn't observe. She had
small round, hanging gold earrings, and a general air of being fairly
well-to-do in a vulgar, comfortable, easy-going way."
Sherlock Holmes clapped his hands softly together and chuckled.
"'Pon my word, Watson, you are coming along wonderfully. You have
really done very well indeed. It is true that you have missed
everything of importance, but you have hit upon the method, and you
have a quick eye for colour. Never trust to general impressions, my
boy, but concentrate yourself upon details. My first glance is always
at a woman's sleeve. In a man it is perhaps better first to take the
knee of the trouser. As you observe, this woman had plush upon her
sleeves, which is a most useful material for showing traces. The
double line a little above the wrist, where the typewritist presses
against the table, was beautifully defined. The sewing-machine, of
the hand type, leaves a similar mark, but only on the left arm, and
on the side of it farthest from the thumb, instead of being right
across the broadest part, as this was. I then glanced at her face,
and, observing the dint of a pince-nez at either side of her nose, I
ventured a remark upon short sight and typewriting, which seemed to
surprise her."
"It surprised me."
"But, surely, it was obvious. I was then much surprised and
interested on glancing down to observe that, though the boots which
she was wearing were not unlike each other, they were really odd
ones; the one having a slightly decorated toe-cap, and the other a
plain one. One was buttoned only in the two lower buttons out of
five, and the other at the first, third, and fifth. Now, when you see
that a young lady, otherwise neatly dressed, has come away from home
with odd boots, half-buttoned, it is no great deduction to say that
she came away in a hurry."
"And what else?" I asked, keenly interested, as I always was, by my
friend's incisive reasoning.
"I noted, in passing, that she had written a note before leaving home
but after being fully dressed. You observed that her right glove was
torn at the forefinger, but you did not apparently see that both
glove and finger were stained with violet ink. She had written in a
hurry and dipped her pen too deep. It must have been this morning, or
the mark would not remain clear upon the finger. All this is amusing,
though rather elementary, but I must go back to business, Watson.
Would you mind reading me the advertised description of Mr. Hosmer
Angel?"
I held the little printed slip to the light.
"Missing," it said, "on the morning of the fourteenth, a gentleman
named Hosmer Angel. About five ft. seven in. in height; strongly
built, sallow complexion, black hair, a little bald in the centre,
bushy, black side-whiskers and moustache; tinted glasses, slight
infirmity of speech. Was dressed, when last seen, in black frock-coat
faced with silk, black waistcoat, gold Albert chain, and grey Harris
tweed trousers, with brown gaiters over elastic-sided boots. Known to
have been employed in an office in Leadenhall Street. Anybody
bringing--"
"That will do," said Holmes. "As to the letters," he continued,
glancing over them, "they are very commonplace. Absolutely no clue in
them to Mr. Angel, save that he quotes Balzac once. There is one
remarkable point, however, which will no doubt strike you."
"They are typewritten," I remarked.
"Not only that, but the signature is typewritten. Look at the neat
little 'Hosmer Angel' at the bottom. There is a date, you see, but no
superscription except Leadenhall Street, which is rather vague. The
point about the signature is very suggestive--in fact, we may call it
conclusive."
"Of what?"
"My dear fellow, is it possible you do not see how strongly it bears
upon the case?"
"I cannot say that I do unless it were that he wished to be able to
deny his signature if an action for breach of promise were
instituted."
"No, that was not the point. However, I shall write two letters,
which should settle the matter. One is to a firm in the City, the
other is to the young lady's stepfather, Mr. Windibank, asking him
whether he could meet us here at six o'clock tomorrow evening. It is
just as well that we should do business with the male relatives. And
now, Doctor, we can do nothing until the answers to those letters
come, so we may put our little problem upon the shelf for the
interim."
I had had so many reasons to believe in my friend's subtle powers of
reasoning and extraordinary energy in action that I felt that he must
have some solid grounds for the assured and easy demeanour with which
he treated the singular mystery which he had been called upon to
fathom. Once only had I known him to fail, in the case of the King of
Bohemia and of the Irene Adler photograph; but when I looked back to
the weird business of the Sign of Four, and the extraordinary
circumstances connected with the Study in Scarlet, I felt that it
would be a strange tangle indeed which he could not unravel.
I left him then, still puffing at his black clay pipe, with the
conviction that when I came again on the next evening I would find
that he held in his hands all the clues which would lead up to the
identity of the disappearing bridegroom of Miss Mary Sutherland.
A professional case of great gravity was engaging my own attention at
the time, and the whole of next day I was busy at the bedside of the
sufferer. It was not until close upon six o'clock that I found myself
free and was able to spring into a hansom and drive to Baker Street,
half afraid that I might be too late to assist at the d閚ouement of
the little mystery. I found Sherlock Holmes alone, however, half
asleep, with his long, thin form curled up in the recesses of his
armchair. A formidable array of bottles and test-tubes, with the
pungent cleanly smell of hydrochloric acid, told me that he had spent
his day in the chemical work which was so dear to him.
"Well, have you solved it?" I asked as I entered.
"Yes. It was the bisulphate of baryta."
"No, no, the mystery!" I cried.
"Oh, that! I thought of the salt that I have been working upon. There
was never any mystery in the matter, though, as I said yesterday,
some of the details are of interest. The only drawback is that there
is no law, I fear, that can touch the scoundrel."
"Who was he, then, and what was his object in deserting Miss
Sutherland?"
The question was hardly out of my mouth, and Holmes had not yet
opened his lips to reply, when we heard a heavy footfall in the
passage and a tap at the door.
"This is the girl's stepfather, Mr. James Windibank," said Holmes.
"He has written to me to say that he would be here at six. Come in!"
The man who entered was a sturdy, middle-sized fellow, some thirty
years of age, clean-shaven, and sallow-skinned, with a bland,
insinuating manner, and a pair of wonderfully sharp and penetrating
grey eyes. He shot a questioning glance at each of us, placed his
shiny top-hat upon the sideboard, and with a slight bow sidled down
into the nearest chair.
"Good-evening, Mr. James Windibank," said Holmes. "I think that this
typewritten letter is from you, in which you made an appointment with
me for six o'clock?"
"Yes, sir. I am afraid that I am a little late, but I am not quite my
own master, you know. I am sorry that Miss Sutherland has troubled
you about this little matter, for I think it is far better not to
wash linen of the sort in public. It was quite against my wishes that
she came, but she is a very excitable, impulsive girl, as you may
have noticed, and she is not easily controlled when she has made up
her mind on a point. Of course, I did not mind you so much, as you
are not connected with the official police, but it is not pleasant to
have a family misfortune like this noised abroad. Besides, it is a
useless expense, for how could you possibly find this Hosmer Angel?"
"On the contrary," said Holmes quietly; "I have every reason to
believe that I will succeed in discovering Mr. Hosmer Angel."
Mr. Windibank gave a violent start and dropped his gloves. "I am
delighted to hear it," he said.
"It is a curious thing," remarked Holmes, "that a typewriter has
really quite as much individuality as a man's handwriting. Unless
they are quite new, no two of them write exactly alike. Some letters
get more worn than others, and some wear only on one side. Now, you
remark in this note of yours, Mr. Windibank, that in every case there
is some little slurring over of the 'e,' and a slight defect in the
tail of the 'r.' There are fourteen other characteristics, but those
are the more obvious."
"We do all our correspondence with this machine at the office, and no
doubt it is a little worn," our visitor answered, glancing keenly at
Holmes with his bright little eyes.
"And now I will show you what is really a very interesting study, Mr.
Windibank," Holmes continued. "I think of writing another little
monograph some of these days on the typewriter and its relation to
crime. It is a subject to which I have devoted some little attention.
I have here four letters which purport to come from the missing man.
They are all typewritten. In each case, not only are the 'e's'
slurred and the 'r's' tailless, but you will observe, if you care to
use my magnifying lens, that the fourteen other characteristics to
which I have alluded are there as well."
Mr. Windibank sprang out of his chair and picked up his hat. "I
cannot waste time over this sort of fantastic talk, Mr. Holmes," he
said. "If you can catch the man, catch him, and let me know when you
