elapt1c/ElapticAI-512 · Datasets at Hugging Face

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“God help us! said Holmes after a long silence. “Why does fate play
such tricks with poor, helpless worms? I never hear of such a case as
this that I do not think of Baxter’s words, and say, ‘There, but for
the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes.’

James McCarthy was acquitted at the Assizes on the strength of a number
of objections which had been drawn out by Holmes and submitted to the
defending counsel. Old Turner lived for seven months after our
interview, but he is now dead; and there is every prospect that the son
and daughter may come to live happily together in ignorance of the
black cloud which rests upon their past.

When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock Holmes cases
between the years ’82 and ’90, I am faced by so many which present
strange and interesting features that it is no easy matter to know
which to choose and which to leave. Some, however, have already gained
publicity through the papers, and others have not offered a field for
those peculiar qualities which my friend possessed in so high a degree,
and which it is the object of these papers to illustrate. Some, too,
have baffled his analytical skill, and would be, as narratives,
beginnings without an ending, while others have been but partially
cleared up, and have their explanations founded rather upon conjecture
and surmise than on that absolute logical proof which was so dear to
him. There is, however, one of these last which was so remarkable in
its details and so startling in its results that I am tempted to give
some account of it in spite of the fact that there are points in
connection with it which never have been, and probably never will be,
entirely cleared up.

The year ’87 furnished us with a long series of cases of greater or
less interest, of which I retain the records. Among my headings under
this one twelve months I find an account of the adventure of the
Paradol Chamber, of the Amateur Mendicant Society, who held a luxurious
club in the lower vault of a furniture warehouse, of the facts
connected with the loss of the British barque Sophy Anderson, of the
singular adventures of the Grice Patersons in the island of Uffa, and
finally of the Camberwell poisoning case. In the latter, as may be
remembered, Sherlock Holmes was able, by winding up the dead man’s
watch, to prove that it had been wound up two hours before, and that
therefore the deceased had gone to bed within that time—a deduction
which was of the greatest importance in clearing up the case. All these
I may sketch out at some future date, but none of them present such
singular features as the strange train of circumstances which I have
now taken up my pen to describe.

It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales had
set in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had screamed and the
rain had beaten against the windows, so that even here in the heart of
great, hand-made London we were forced to raise our minds for the
instant from the routine of life and to recognise the presence of those
great elemental forces which shriek at mankind through the bars of his
civilisation, like untamed beasts in a cage. As evening drew in, the
storm grew higher and louder, and the wind cried and sobbed like a
child in the chimney. Sherlock Holmes sat moodily at one side of the
fireplace cross-indexing his records of crime, while I at the other was
deep in one of Clark Russell’s fine sea-stories until the howl of the
gale from without seemed to blend with the text, and the splash of the
rain to lengthen out into the long swash of the sea waves. My wife was
on a visit to her mother’s, and for a few days I was a dweller once
more in my old quarters at Baker Street.

“Why, said I, glancing up at my companion, “that was surely the bell.
Who could come to-night? Some friend of yours, perhaps?

“Except yourself I have none, he answered. “I do not encourage
visitors.

“A client, then?

“If so, it is a serious case. Nothing less would bring a man out on
such a day and at such an hour. But I take it that it is more likely to
be some crony of the landlady’s.

Sherlock Holmes was wrong in his conjecture, however, for there came a
step in the passage and a tapping at the door. He stretched out his
long arm to turn the lamp away from himself and towards the vacant
chair upon which a newcomer must sit.

“Come in! said he.

The man who entered was young, some two-and-twenty at the outside,
well-groomed and trimly clad, with something of refinement and delicacy
in his bearing. The streaming umbrella which he held in his hand, and
his long shining waterproof told of the fierce weather through which he
had come. He looked about him anxiously in the glare of the lamp, and I
could see that his face was pale and his eyes heavy, like those of a
man who is weighed down with some great anxiety.

“I owe you an apology, he said, raising his golden pince-nez to his
eyes. “I trust that I am not intruding. I fear that I have brought some
traces of the storm and rain into your snug chamber.

“Give me your coat and umbrella, said Holmes. “They may rest here on
the hook and will be dry presently. You have come up from the
south-west, I see.

“Yes, from Horsham.

“That clay and chalk mixture which I see upon your toe caps is quite

“God help us! said Holmes after a long silence. “Why does fate play

such tricks with poor, helpless worms? I never hear of such a case as

this that I do not think of Baxter’s words, and say, ‘There, but for

the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes.’

James McCarthy was acquitted at the Assizes on the strength of a number

of objections which had been drawn out by Holmes and submitted to the

defending counsel. Old Turner lived for seven months after our

interview, but he is now dead; and there is every prospect that the son

and daughter may come to live happily together in ignorance of the

black cloud which rests upon their past.

When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock Holmes cases

between the years ’82 and ’90, I am faced by so many which present

strange and interesting features that it is no easy matter to know

which to choose and which to leave. Some, however, have already gained

publicity through the papers, and others have not offered a field for

those peculiar qualities which my friend possessed in so high a degree,

and which it is the object of these papers to illustrate. Some, too,

have baffled his analytical skill, and would be, as narratives,

beginnings without an ending, while others have been but partially

cleared up, and have their explanations founded rather upon conjecture

and surmise than on that absolute logical proof which was so dear to

him. There is, however, one of these last which was so remarkable in

its details and so startling in its results that I am tempted to give

some account of it in spite of the fact that there are points in

connection with it which never have been, and probably never will be,

entirely cleared up.

The year ’87 furnished us with a long series of cases of greater or

less interest, of which I retain the records. Among my headings under

this one twelve months I find an account of the adventure of the

Paradol Chamber, of the Amateur Mendicant Society, who held a luxurious

club in the lower vault of a furniture warehouse, of the facts

connected with the loss of the British barque Sophy Anderson, of the

singular adventures of the Grice Patersons in the island of Uffa, and

finally of the Camberwell poisoning case. In the latter, as may be

remembered, Sherlock Holmes was able, by winding up the dead man’s

watch, to prove that it had been wound up two hours before, and that

therefore the deceased had gone to bed within that time—a deduction

which was of the greatest importance in clearing up the case. All these

I may sketch out at some future date, but none of them present such

singular features as the strange train of circumstances which I have

now taken up my pen to describe.

It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales had

set in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had screamed and the

rain had beaten against the windows, so that even here in the heart of

great, hand-made London we were forced to raise our minds for the

instant from the routine of life and to recognise the presence of those

great elemental forces which shriek at mankind through the bars of his

civilisation, like untamed beasts in a cage. As evening drew in, the

storm grew higher and louder, and the wind cried and sobbed like a

child in the chimney. Sherlock Holmes sat moodily at one side of the

fireplace cross-indexing his records of crime, while I at the other was

deep in one of Clark Russell’s fine sea-stories until the howl of the

gale from without seemed to blend with the text, and the splash of the

rain to lengthen out into the long swash of the sea waves. My wife was

on a visit to her mother’s, and for a few days I was a dweller once

more in my old quarters at Baker Street.

“Why, said I, glancing up at my companion, “that was surely the bell.

Who could come to-night? Some friend of yours, perhaps?

“Except yourself I have none, he answered. “I do not encourage

visitors.

“A client, then?

“If so, it is a serious case. Nothing less would bring a man out on

such a day and at such an hour. But I take it that it is more likely to

be some crony of the landlady’s.

Sherlock Holmes was wrong in his conjecture, however, for there came a

step in the passage and a tapping at the door. He stretched out his

long arm to turn the lamp away from himself and towards the vacant

chair upon which a newcomer must sit.

“Come in! said he.

The man who entered was young, some two-and-twenty at the outside,

well-groomed and trimly clad, with something of refinement and delicacy

in his bearing. The streaming umbrella which he held in his hand, and

his long shining waterproof told of the fierce weather through which he

had come. He looked about him anxiously in the glare of the lamp, and I

could see that his face was pale and his eyes heavy, like those of a

man who is weighed down with some great anxiety.

“I owe you an apology, he said, raising his golden pince-nez to his

eyes. “I trust that I am not intruding. I fear that I have brought some

traces of the storm and rain into your snug chamber.

“Give me your coat and umbrella, said Holmes. “They may rest here on

the hook and will be dry presently. You have come up from the

south-west, I see.

“Yes, from Horsham.

“That clay and chalk mixture which I see upon your toe caps is quite