The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
time later, I backed a bill for a friend and had a writ served upon me
for £ 25. I was at my wit’s end where to get the money, but a sudden
idea came to me. I begged a fortnight’s grace from the creditor, asked
for a holiday from my employers, and spent the time in begging in the
City under my disguise. In ten days I had the money and had paid the
debt.
“Well, you can imagine how hard it was to settle down to arduous work
at £ 2 a week when I knew that I could earn as much in a day by
smearing my face with a little paint, laying my cap on the ground, and
sitting still. It was a long fight between my pride and the money, but
the dollars won at last, and I threw up reporting and sat day after day
in the corner which I had first chosen, inspiring pity by my ghastly
face and filling my pockets with coppers. Only one man knew my secret.
He was the keeper of a low den in which I used to lodge in Swandam
Lane, where I could every morning emerge as a squalid beggar and in the
evenings transform myself into a well-dressed man about town. This
fellow, a Lascar, was well paid by me for his rooms, so that I knew
that my secret was safe in his possession.
“Well, very soon I found that I was saving considerable sums of money.
I do not mean that any beggar in the streets of London could earn £ 700
a year—which is less than my average takings—but I had exceptional
advantages in my power of making up, and also in a facility of
repartee, which improved by practice and made me quite a recognised
character in the City. All day a stream of pennies, varied by silver,
poured in upon me, and it was a very bad day in which I failed to take
£ 2.
“As I grew richer I grew more ambitious, took a house in the country,
and eventually married, without anyone having a suspicion as to my real
occupation. My dear wife knew that I had business in the City. She
little knew what.
“Last Monday I had finished for the day and was dressing in my room
above the opium den when I looked out of my window and saw, to my
horror and astonishment, that my wife was standing in the street, with
her eyes fixed full upon me. I gave a cry of surprise, threw up my arms
to cover my face, and, rushing to my confidant, the Lascar, entreated
him to prevent anyone from coming up to me. I heard her voice
downstairs, but I knew that she could not ascend. Swiftly I threw off
my clothes, pulled on those of a beggar, and put on my pigments and
wig. Even a wife’s eyes could not pierce so complete a disguise. But
then it occurred to me that there might be a search in the room, and
that the clothes might betray me. I threw open the window, reopening by
my violence a small cut which I had inflicted upon myself in the
bedroom that morning. Then I seized my coat, which was weighted by the
coppers which I had just transferred to it from the leather bag in
which I carried my takings. I hurled it out of the window, and it
disappeared into the Thames. The other clothes would have followed, but
at that moment there was a rush of constables up the stair, and a few
minutes after I found, rather, I confess, to my relief, that instead of
being identified as Mr. Neville St. Clair, I was arrested as his
murderer.
“I do not know that there is anything else for me to explain. I was
determined to preserve my disguise as long as possible, and hence my
preference for a dirty face. Knowing that my wife would be terribly
anxious, I slipped off my ring and confided it to the Lascar at a
moment when no constable was watching me, together with a hurried
scrawl, telling her that she had no cause to fear.”
“That note only reached her yesterday,” said Holmes.
“Good God! What a week she must have spent!”
“The police have watched this Lascar,” said Inspector Bradstreet, “and
I can quite understand that he might find it difficult to post a letter
unobserved. Probably he handed it to some sailor customer of his, who
forgot all about it for some days.”
“That was it,” said Holmes, nodding approvingly; “I have no doubt of
it. But have you never been prosecuted for begging?”
“Many times; but what was a fine to me?”
“It must stop here, however,” said Bradstreet. “If the police are to
hush this thing up, there must be no more of Hugh Boone.”
“I have sworn it by the most solemn oaths which a man can take.”
“In that case I think that it is probable that no further steps may be
taken. But if you are found again, then all must come out. I am sure,
Mr. Holmes, that we are very much indebted to you for having cleared
the matter up. I wish I knew how you reach your results.”
“I reached this one,” said my friend, “by sitting upon five pillows and
consuming an ounce of shag. I think, Watson, that if we drive to Baker
Street we shall just be in time for breakfast.”
VII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLUE CARBUNCLE
I had called upon my friend Sherlock Holmes upon the second morning
after Christmas, with the intention of wishing him the compliments of
the season. He was lounging upon the sofa in a purple dressing-gown, a
pipe-rack within his reach upon the right, and a pile of crumpled
morning papers, evidently newly studied, near at hand. Beside the couch
was a wooden chair, and on the angle of the back hung a very seedy and
disreputable hard-felt hat, much the worse for wear, and cracked in
several places. A lens and a forceps lying upon the seat of the chair
suggested that the hat had been suspended in this manner for the
purpose of examination.
“You are engaged,” said I; “perhaps I interrupt you.”
“Not at all. I am glad to have a friend with whom I can discuss my
results. The matter is a perfectly trivial one”—he jerked his thumb in
the direction of the old hat—“but there are points in connection with
it which are not entirely devoid of interest and even of instruction.”
I seated myself in his armchair and warmed my hands before his
crackling fire, for a sharp frost had set in, and the windows were
thick with the ice crystals. “I suppose,” I remarked, “that, homely as
it looks, this thing has some deadly story linked on to it—that it is
the clue which will guide you in the solution of some mystery and the
punishment of some crime.”
“No, no. No crime,” said Sherlock Holmes, laughing. “Only one of those
whimsical little incidents which will happen when you have four million
human beings all jostling each other within the space of a few square
miles. Amid the action and reaction of so dense a swarm of humanity,
every possible combination of events may be expected to take place, and
many a little problem will be presented which may be striking and
bizarre without being criminal. We have already had experience of
such.”
“So much so,” I remarked, “that of the last six cases which I have
added to my notes, three have been entirely free of any legal crime.”
“Precisely. You allude to my attempt to recover the Irene Adler papers,
to the singular case of Miss Mary Sutherland, and to the adventure of
the man with the twisted lip. Well, I have no doubt that this small
matter will fall into the same innocent category. You know Peterson,
the commissionaire?”
“Yes.”
“It is to him that this trophy belongs.”
“It is his hat.”
“No, no, he found it. Its owner is unknown. I beg that you will look
upon it not as a battered billycock but as an intellectual problem.
And, first, as to how it came here. It arrived upon Christmas morning,
in company with a good fat goose, which is, I have no doubt, roasting
at this moment in front of Peterson’s fire. The facts are these: about
four o’clock on Christmas morning, Peterson, who, as you know, is a
very honest fellow, was returning from some small jollification and was
making his way homeward down Tottenham Court Road. In front of him he
saw, in the gaslight, a tallish man, walking with a slight stagger, and
carrying a white goose slung over his shoulder. As he reached the
corner of Goodge Street, a row broke out between this stranger and a
little knot of roughs. One of the latter knocked off the man’s hat, on
which he raised his stick to defend himself and, swinging it over his
head, smashed the shop window behind him. Peterson had rushed forward
to protect the stranger from his assailants; but the man, shocked at
having broken the window, and seeing an official-looking person in
uniform rushing towards him, dropped his goose, took to his heels, and
vanished amid the labyrinth of small streets which lie at the back of
Tottenham Court Road. The roughs had also fled at the appearance of
Peterson, so that he was left in possession of the field of battle, and
also of the spoils of victory in the shape of this battered hat and a
most unimpeachable Christmas goose.”
“Which surely he restored to their owner?”
“My dear fellow, there lies the problem. It is true that ‘For Mrs.
Henry Baker’ was printed upon a small card which was tied to the bird’s
left leg, and it is also true that the initials ‘H. B.’ are legible
upon the lining of this hat, but as there are some thousands of Bakers,
and some hundreds of Henry Bakers in this city of ours, it is not easy
to restore lost property to any one of them.”
“What, then, did Peterson do?”
“He brought round both hat and goose to me on Christmas morning,
knowing that even the smallest problems are of interest to me. The
goose we retained until this morning, when there were signs that, in
spite of the slight frost, it would be well that it should be eaten
without unnecessary delay. Its finder has carried it off, therefore, to
fulfil the ultimate destiny of a goose, while I continue to retain the
hat of the unknown gentleman who lost his Christmas dinner.”
“Did he not advertise?”
“No.”
“Then, what clue could you have as to his identity?”
“Only as much as we can deduce.”
“From his hat?”
“Precisely.”
“But you are joking. What can you gather from this old battered felt?”
“Here is my lens. You know my methods. What can you gather yourself as
to the individuality of the man who has worn this article?”
I took the tattered object in my hands and turned it over rather
ruefully. It was a very ordinary black hat of the usual round shape,
hard and much the worse for wear. The lining had been of red silk, but
was a good deal discoloured. There was no maker’s name; but, as Holmes
had remarked, the initials “H. B.” were scrawled upon one side. It was
pierced in the brim for a hat-securer, but the elastic was missing. For
the rest, it was cracked, exceedingly dusty, and spotted in several
places, although there seemed to have been some attempt to hide the
discoloured patches by smearing them with ink.
“I can see nothing,” said I, handing it back to my friend.
“On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail, however, to
reason from what you see. You are too timid in drawing your
inferences.”
“Then, pray tell me what it is that you can infer from this hat?”
He picked it up and gazed at it in the peculiar introspective fashion
which was characteristic of him. “It is perhaps less suggestive than it
might have been,” he remarked, “and yet there are a few inferences
which are very distinct, and a few others which represent at least a
strong balance of probability. That the man was highly intellectual is
of course obvious upon the face of it, and also that he was fairly
well-to-do within the last three years, although he has now fallen upon
evil days. He had foresight, but has less now than formerly, pointing
to a moral retrogression, which, when taken with the decline of his
fortunes, seems to indicate some evil influence, probably drink, at
work upon him. This may account also for the obvious fact that his wife
has ceased to love him.”
“My dear Holmes!”
“He has, however, retained some degree of self-respect,” he continued,