Part 24 (1/2)
Sherlock Holether and chuckled
” 'Ponwonderfully You have really done very well indeed It is true that you haveof importance, but you have hit upon the eneral impressions, lance 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 atraces 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 froht 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 re, which seemed to surprise her”
”It surprised me”
”But, surely, it was obvious I was thendown to observe that, though the boots which she earing were not unlike each other, they were really odd ones; the one having a slightly decorated toe-cape and the other a plain one One was buttoned only in the ter buttons out of five, and the other at the first, third, and fifth Nohen you see that a young lady, otherwise neatly dressed, has coreat deduction to say that she came away in a hurry”
”And what else?” I asked, keenly interested, as I alas, by , that she had written a note before leaving hoht 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 , or the er All this is ao back to business, Watson Would you el?”
I held the little printed slip to the light
”Missing [it said] on the el About five feet seven inches in height; strongly built, sallow complexion, black hair, a little bald in the centre, bushy, black side-whiskers and ht infirmity of speech Was dressed, when last seen, in black frock-coat faced with silk, black waistcoat, gold Albert chain, and gray Harris tweed trousers, with brown gaiters over elastic-sided boots Known to have been e--”
”That will do,” said Hol over them, ”they are very coel, save that he quotes Balzac once There is one remarkable point, however, which will no doubt strike you”
”They are typewritten,” I renature is typewritten Look at the neat little 'Hosel' 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 fir lady's stepfather, Mr Windibank, asking him whether he couldIt is just as well that we should do business with theuntil 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 y in action that I felt that he rounds for the assured and easy deular mystery which he had been called upon to fatho of Boheraph; but when I looked back to the weird business of 'The Sign of Four', and the extraordinary circumstances connected with 'A Study in Scarlet', I felt that it would be a strange tangle indeed which he could not unravel
I left hi at his black clay pipe, with the conviction that when I ca I would find that he held in his hands all the clues which would lead up to the identity of the disappearing bridegrooreat 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 foundinto a hansoht be too late to assist at the denouement of the little mystery I found Sherlock Hol, thin form curled up in the recesses of his armchair A forent cleanly smell of hydrochloric acid, told me that he had spent his day in the chemical hich 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 ht of the salt that I have been working upon There was never any h, 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 as his object in deserting Miss Sutherland?”
The question was hardly out of my mouth, and Holmes had not yet opened his lips to reply, e 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, e, clean-shaven, and sallow-skinned, with a bland, insinuating ray eyes He shot a questioning glance at each of us, placed his shi+ny 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 cairl, 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 Hosel?”
”On the contrary,” said Holmes quietly; ”I have every reason to believe that I will succeed in discovering Mr Hosave a violent start and dropped his gloves ”I a,” remarked Holmes, ”that a typewriter has really quite asUnless they are quite new, no two of theet 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 soht 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 Holht little eyes
”And noill show you what is really a very interesting study, Mr Windibank,” Holraph 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 co 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 uselens, 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 knohen you have done it”
”Certainly,” said Hol the key in the door ”I let you know, then, that I have caught hi white to his lips and glancing about him like a rat, in a trap
”Oh, it won't do-really it won't,” said Hol out of it, Mr Windibank It is quite too transparent, and it was a very bad compliment when you said that it was iht! Sit down and let us talk it over”
Our visitor collapsed into a chair, with a ghastly face and a glitter of moisture on his brow ”It-it's not actionable,” he stammered
”I am very much afraid that it is not But between ourselves, Windibank, it was as cruel and selfish and heartless a trick in a petty way as ever came before me Now, let me just run over the course of events, and you will contradict ”
The man sat huddled up in his chair, with his head sunk upon his breast, like one who is utterly crushed Holmes stuck his feet up on the corner of theback with his hands in his pockets, began talking, rather to himself, as it seemed, than to us
”The man married a woman very much older than himself for her money;” said he, ”and he enjoyed the use of theas she lived with them It was a considerable sum, for people in their position, and the loss of it would have made a serious difference It orth an effort to preserve it The daughter was of a good, amiable disposition, but affectionate and warm-hearted in her ways, so that it was evident that with her fair personal advantages, and her little inco Now her e would mean, of course, the loss of a hundred a year, so what does her stepfather do to prevent it? He takes the obvious course of keeping her at ho her to seek the coe But soon he found that that would not answer forever She becahts, and finally announced her positive intention of going to a certain ball What does her clever stepfather do then? He conceives an idea more creditable to his head than to his heart With the connivance and assistance of his wife he disguised hilasses, masked the face with a moustache and a pair of bushy whiskers, sunk that clear voice into an insinuating whisper, and doubly secure on account of the girl's short sight, he appears as Mr Hos love hiroaned our visitor ”We never thought that she would have been so carried away”
”Very likely not However thatlady was very decidedly carried away, and, having quite made up her mind that her stepfather was in France, the suspicion of treachery never for an instant entered her entleman's attentions, and the effect was increased by the loudly expressed adan to call, for it was obvious that the o if a real effect were to be produced There were irl's affections fro towards anyone else But the deception could not be kept up forever These pretended journeys to France were rather cu the business to an end in such a dramatic manner that it would leave a per lady'supon any other suitor for some time to come Hence those vows of fidelity exacted upon a Testament, and hence also the allusions to a possibility of so James Windibank wished Miss Sutherland to be so bound to Hosel, and so uncertain as to his fate, that for ten years to come, at any rate, she would not listen to another ht her, and then, as he could go no farther, he conveniently vanished away by the old trick of stepping in at one door of a four-wheeler and out at the other I think that was the chain of events, Mr Windibank!”
Our visitor had recovered so, and he rose from his chair noith a cold sneer upon his pale face
”It may be so, or it may not, Mr Holht to be sharp enough to know that it is you who are breaking the la, and notas you keep that door locked you lay yourself open to an action for assault and illegal constraint”
”The law cannot, as you say, touch you,” said Hol open the door, ”yet there never was alady has a brother or a friend, he ought to lay a whip across your shoulders By Jove!” he continued, flushi+ng up at the sight of the bitter sneer upon the man's face, ”it is not part ofcrop handy, and I think I shall just treat myself to--” He took tift steps to the whip, but before he could grasp it there was a wild clatter of steps upon the stairs, the heavy hall door banged, and fro at the top of his speed down the road
”There's a cold-blooded scoundrel!” said Hol, as he threw himself down into his chair once more ”That felloill rise fro very bad, and ends on a gallows The case has, in some respects, been not entirely devoid of interest”
”I cannot now entirely see all the steps of your reasoning,” I remarked
”Well, of course it was obvious fro object for his curious conduct, and it was equally clear that the only man who really profited by the incident, as far as we could see, was the stepfather Then the fact that the two ether, but that the one always appeared when the other as suggestive So were the tinted spectacles and the curious voice, which both hinted at a disguise, as did the bushy whiskers My suspicions were all confirnature, which, of course, inferred that his handwriting was so fanize even the sether with many minor ones, all pointed in the same direction”
”And how did you verify theet corroboration I knew the fir taken the printed description, I eliuise-the whiskers, the glasses, the voice, and I sent it to the firm, with a request that they would inform me whether it answered to the description of any of their travellers I had already noticed the peculiarities of the typewriter, and I wrote to thehim if he would come here As I expected, his reply was typewritten and revealed the saht me a letter from Westhouse & Marbank, of Fenchurch Street, to say that the description tallied in every respect with that of their e ”And Miss Sutherland?”
”If I tell her she will not believe er for hier also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman' There is as e of the world” as in Horace, and as e of the world”