第 8 页

fancy that my pal is all right, though I see you have got his

coat-tails."

"There are three men waiting for him at the door," said

Holmes.

"Oh, indeed! You seem to have done the thing very com-

pletely. I must compliment you."

"And I you," Holmes answered. "Your red-headed idea was

very new and effective."

"You'll see your pal again presently," said Jones. "He's

quicker at climbing down holes than I am. Just hold out while I

fix the derbies."

"I beg that you will not touch me with your filthy hands,"

remarked our prisoner as the handcuffs clattered upon his wrists.

"You may not be aware that I have royal blood in my veins.

Have the goodness, also, when you address me always to say

'sir' and 'please.' "

"All right," said Jones with a stare and a snigger. "Well,

would you please, sir, march upstairs, where we can get a cab to

carry your Highness to the police-station?"

"That is better," said John Clay serenely. He made a sweep-

ing bow to the three of us and walked quietly off in the custody

of the detective.

"Really, Mr. Holmes," said Mr. Merryweather as we fol-

lowed them from the cellar, "I do not know how the bank can

thank you or repay you. There is no doubt that you have detected

and defeated in the most complete manner one of the most

determined attempts at bank robbery that have ever come within

my experience."

"I have had one or two little scores of my own to settle with

Mr. John Clay," said Holmes. "I have been at some small

expense over this matter, which I shall expect the bank to

refund, but beyond that I am amply repaid by having had an

experience which is in many ways unique, and by hearing the

very remarkable narrative of the Red-headed League."

"You see, Watson," he explained in the early hours of the

morning as we sat over a glass of whisky and soda in Baker

Street, "it was perfectly obvious from the first that the only

possible object of this rather fantastic business of the advertise-

ment of the League, and the copying of the Encyclopedia, must

be to get this not over-bright pawnbroker out of the way for a

number of hours every day. It was a curious way of managing it,

but, really, it would be difficult to suggest a better. The method

was no doubt suggested to Clay's ingenious mind by the colour

of his accomplice's hair. The 4 pounds a week was a lure which must

draw him, and what was it to them, who were playing for

thousands? They put in the advertisement, one rogue has the

temporary office, the other rogue incites the man to apply for it.

and together they manage to secure his absence every morning in

the week. From the time that I heard of the assistant having

come for half wages, it was obvious to me that he had some

strong motive for securing the situation."

"But how could you guess what the motive was?"

"Had there been women in the house, I should have suspected

a mere vulgar intrigue. That, however, was out of the question.

The man's business was a small one, and there was nothing in

his house which could account for such elaborate preparations,

and such an expenditure as they were at. It must, then, be

something out of the house. What could it be? I thought of the

assistant's fondness for photography, and his trick of vanishing

into the cellar. The cellar! There was the end of this tangled

clue. Then I made inquiries as to this mysterious assistant and

found that I had to deal with one of the coolest and most daring

criminals in London. He was doing something in the cellar --

something which took many hours a day for months on end.

What could it be, once more? I could think of nothing save that

he was running a tunnel to some other building.

"So far I had got when we went to visit the scene of action. I

surprised you by beating upon the pavement with my stick. I was

ascertaining whether the cellar stretched out in front or behind. It

was not in front. Then I rang the bell, and, as I hoped, the

assistant answered it. We have had some skirmishes, but we had

never set eyes upon each other before. I hardly looked at his

face. His knees were what I wished to see. You must yourself

have remarked how worn, wrinkled, and stained they were.

They spoke of those hours of burrowing. The only remaining

point was what they were burrowing for. I walked round the

corner, saw the City and Suburban Bank abutted on our friend's

premises, and felt that I had solved my problem. When you

drove home after the concert I called upon Scotland Yard and

upon the chairman of the bank directors, with the result that you

have seen."

"And how could you tell that they would make their attempt

to-night?" I asked.

"Well, when they closed their League offices that was a sign

that they cared no longer about Mr. Jabez Wilson's presence -- in

other words, that they had completed their tunnel. But it was

essential that they should use it soon, as it might be discovered,

or the bullion might be removed. Saturday would suit them

better than any other day, as it would give them two days for

their escape. For all these reasons I expected them to come

to-night."

"You reasoned it out beautifully," I exclaimed in unfeigned

admiration "It is so long a chain, and yet every link rings true."

"It saved me from ennui," he answered, yawning. "Alas! I

already feel it closing in upon me. My life is spent in one long

effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little

problems help me to do so."

"And you are a benefactor of the race," said I.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, perhaps, after all, it is of

some little use," he remarked. " 'L'homme c'est rien -- l' oeuvre

c'est tout,' as Gustave Flaubert wrote to George Sand."

A Case of Identity

"My dear fellow." said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either

side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, "life is infinitely

stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We

would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere

commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window

hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the

roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the

strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the won-

derful chains of events, working through generation, and leading

to the most outre results, it would make all fiction with its

conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprof-

itable. "

"And yet I am not convinced of it," I answered. "The cases

which come to light in the papers are, as a rule, bald enough,

and vulgar enough. We have in our police reports realism pushed

to its extreme limits, and yet the result is, it must be confessed,

neither fascinating nor artistic."

"A certain selection and discretion must be used in producing

a realistic effect," remarked Holmes. "This is wanting in the

police report, where more stress is laid, perhaps, upon the

platitudes of the magistrate than upon the details, which to an

observer contain the vital essence of the whole matter. Depend

upon it, there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace."

I smiled and shook my head. "I can quite understand your

thinking so." I said. "Of course, in your position of unofficial

adviser and helper to everybody who is absolutely puzzled,

throughout three continents, you are brought in contact with all

that is strange and bizarre. But here" -- I picked up the morning

paper from the ground -- "let us put it to a practical test. Here is

the first heading upon which I come. 'A husband's cruelty to his

wife.' There is half a column of print, but I know without

reading it that it is all perfectly familiar to me. There is. of

course, the other woman, the drink, the push, the blow, the

bruise, the sympathetic sister or landlady. The crudest of writers

could invent nothing more crude."

"Indeed, your example is an unfortunate one for your argu-

ment," said Holmes, taking the paper and glancing his eye down

it. "This is the Dundas separation case, and, as it happens, I was

engaged in clearing up some small points in connection with it.

The husband was a teetotaler, there was no other woman, and

the conduct complained of was that he had drifted into the habit

of winding up every meal by taking out his false teeth and

hurling them at his wife, which, you will allow, is not an action

likely to occur to the imagination of the average story-teller.

Take a pinch of snuff, Doctor, and acknowledge that I have

scored over you in your example."

He held out his snuffbox of old gold, with a great amethyst in

the centre of the lid. Its splendour was in such contrast to his

homely ways and simple life that I could not help commenting

upon it.

"Ah," said he, "I forgot that I had not seen you for some

weeks. It is a little souvenir from the King of Bohemia in return

for my assistance in the case of the Irene Adler papers."

"And the ring?" I asked, glancing at a remarkable brilliant

which sparkled upon his finger.

"It was from the reigning family of Holland, though the

matter in which I served them was of such delicacy that I cannot

confide it even to you, who have been good enough to chronicle

one or two of my little problems."

"And have you any on hand just now?" I asked with interest.

"Some ten or twelve, but none which present any feature of

interest. They are important, you understand, without being

interesting. Indeed, I have found that it is usually in unimportant

matters that there is a field for the observation, and for the quick

analysis of cause and effect which gives the charm to an investi-

gation. The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the

bigger the crime thc more obvious, as a rule, is the motive. In

these cases, save for one rather intricate matter which has been

referred to me from Marseilles, there is nothing which presents

any features of interest. It is possible, however, that I may have

something better before very many minutes are over, for this is

one of my clients, or I am much mistaken."

He had risen from his chair and was standing between the

parted blinds gazing down into the dull neutral-tinted London

street. Looking over his shoulder, I saw that on the pavement

opposite there stood a large woman with a heavy fur boa round

her neck, and a large curling red feather in a broad-brimmed hat

which was tilted in a coquettish Duchess of Devonshire fashion

over her ear. From under this great panoply she peeped up in a

nervous, hesitating fashion at our windows, while her body

oscillated backward and forward, and her fingers fidgeted with

her glove buttons. Suddenly, with a plunge, as of the swimmer

who leaves the bank, she hurried across the road, and we heard

the sharp clang of the bell.

"I have seen those symptoms before," said Holmes, throwing

his cigarette into the fire. "Oscillation upon the pavement al-

ways means an affaire de coeur. She would like advice, but is

not sure that the matter is not too delicate for communication.

And yet even here we may discriminate. When a woman has

been seriously wronged by a man she no longer oscillates, and

the usual symptom is a broken bell wire. Here we may take it

that there is a love matter, but that the maiden is not so much

angry as perplexed, or grieved. But here she comes in person to

resolve our doubts."

As he spoke there was a tap at the door, and the boy in buttons.

entered to announce Miss Mary Sutherland, while the lady her-

self loomed behind his small black figure like a full-sailed

merchant-man behind a tiny pilot boat. Sherlock Holmes wel-

comed her with the easy courtesy for which he was remarkable,

and, having closed the door and bowed her into an armchair, he

looked her over in the minute and yet abstracted fashion which

was peculiar to him.

"Do you not find," he said, "that with your short sight it is a

little trying to do so much typewriting?"

"I did at first," she answered, "but now I know where the

letters are without looking." Then, suddenly realizing the full

purport of his words, she gave a violent start and looked up, with

fear and astonishment upon her broad, good-humoured face.

"You've heard about me, Mr. Holmes," she cried, "else how

could you know all that?"

"Never mind," said Holmes, laughing; "it is my business to

know things. Perhaps I have trained myself to see what others

overlook. If not, why should you come to consult me?"

"I came to you, sir, because I heard of you from Mrs.

Etherege, whose husband you found so easy when the police and

everyone had given him up for dead. Oh, Mr. Holmes, I wish

you would do as much for me. I'm not rich, but still I have a

hundred a year in my own right, besides the little that I make by

the machine, and I would give it all to know what has become of

Mr. Hosmer Angel."

"Why did you come away to consult me in such a hurry?"

asked Sherlock Holmes, with his finger-tips together and his

eyes to the ceiling.

Again a startled look came over the somewhat vacuous face of

Miss Mary Sutherland. "Yes, I did bang out of the house," she

said, "for it made me angry to see the easy way in which Mr.

Windibank -- that is, my father -- took it all. He would not go to

the police, and he would not go to you, and so at last, as he

would do nothing and kept on saying that there was no harm

done, it made me mad, and I just on with my things and came