The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
disregarding my remonstrance. “He is a man who leads a sedentary life,
goes out little, is out of training entirely, is middle-aged, has
grizzled hair which he has had cut within the last few days, and which
he anoints with lime-cream. These are the more patent facts which are
to be deduced from his hat. Also, by the way, that it is extremely
improbable that he has gas laid on in his house.”
“You are certainly joking, Holmes.”
“Not in the least. Is it possible that even now, when I give you these
results, you are unable to see how they are attained?”
“I have no doubt that I am very stupid, but I must confess that I am
unable to follow you. For example, how did you deduce that this man was
intellectual?”
For answer Holmes clapped the hat upon his head. It came right over the
forehead and settled upon the bridge of his nose. “It is a question of
cubic capacity,” said he; “a man with so large a brain must have
something in it.”
“The decline of his fortunes, then?”
“This hat is three years old. These flat brims curled at the edge came
in then. It is a hat of the very best quality. Look at the band of
ribbed silk and the excellent lining. If this man could afford to buy
so expensive a hat three years ago, and has had no hat since, then he
has assuredly gone down in the world.”
“Well, that is clear enough, certainly. But how about the foresight and
the moral retrogression?”
Sherlock Holmes laughed. “Here is the foresight,” said he putting his
finger upon the little disc and loop of the hat-securer. “They are
never sold upon hats. If this man ordered one, it is a sign of a
certain amount of foresight, since he went out of his way to take this
precaution against the wind. But since we see that he has broken the
elastic and has not troubled to replace it, it is obvious that he has
less foresight now than formerly, which is a distinct proof of a
weakening nature. On the other hand, he has endeavoured to conceal some
of these stains upon the felt by daubing them with ink, which is a sign
that he has not entirely lost his self-respect.”
“Your reasoning is certainly plausible.”
“The further points, that he is middle-aged, that his hair is grizzled,
that it has been recently cut, and that he uses lime-cream, are all to
be gathered from a close examination of the lower part of the lining.
The lens discloses a large number of hair-ends, clean cut by the
scissors of the barber. They all appear to be adhesive, and there is a
distinct odour of lime-cream. This dust, you will observe, is not the
gritty, grey dust of the street but the fluffy brown dust of the house,
showing that it has been hung up indoors most of the time, while the
marks of moisture upon the inside are proof positive that the wearer
perspired very freely, and could therefore, hardly be in the best of
training.”
“But his wife—you said that she had ceased to love him.”
“This hat has not been brushed for weeks. When I see you, my dear
Watson, with a week’s accumulation of dust upon your hat, and when your
wife allows you to go out in such a state, I shall fear that you also
have been unfortunate enough to lose your wife’s affection.”
“But he might be a bachelor.”
“Nay, he was bringing home the goose as a peace-offering to his wife.
Remember the card upon the bird’s leg.”
“You have an answer to everything. But how on earth do you deduce that
the gas is not laid on in his house?”
“One tallow stain, or even two, might come by chance; but when I see no
less than five, I think that there can be little doubt that the
individual must be brought into frequent contact with burning
tallow—walks upstairs at night probably with his hat in one hand and a
guttering candle in the other. Anyhow, he never got tallow-stains from
a gas-jet. Are you satisfied?”
“Well, it is very ingenious,” said I, laughing; “but since, as you said
just now, there has been no crime committed, and no harm done save the
loss of a goose, all this seems to be rather a waste of energy.”
Sherlock Holmes had opened his mouth to reply, when the door flew open,
and Peterson, the commissionaire, rushed into the apartment with
flushed cheeks and the face of a man who is dazed with astonishment.
“The goose, Mr. Holmes! The goose, sir!” he gasped.
“Eh? What of it, then? Has it returned to life and flapped off through
the kitchen window?” Holmes twisted himself round upon the sofa to get
a fairer view of the man’s excited face.
“See here, sir! See what my wife found in its crop!” He held out his
hand and displayed upon the centre of the palm a brilliantly
scintillating blue stone, rather smaller than a bean in size, but of
such purity and radiance that it twinkled like an electric point in the
dark hollow of his hand.
Sherlock Holmes sat up with a whistle. “By Jove, Peterson!” said he,
“this is treasure trove indeed. I suppose you know what you have got?”
“A diamond, sir? A precious stone. It cuts into glass as though it were
putty.”
“It’s more than a precious stone. It is _the_ precious stone.”
“Not the Countess of Morcar’s blue carbuncle!” I ejaculated.
“Precisely so. I ought to know its size and shape, seeing that I have
read the advertisement about it in _The Times_ every day lately. It is
absolutely unique, and its value can only be conjectured, but the
reward offered of £ 1000 is certainly not within a twentieth part of
the market price.”
“A thousand pounds! Great Lord of mercy!” The commissionaire plumped
down into a chair and stared from one to the other of us.
“That is the reward, and I have reason to know that there are
sentimental considerations in the background which would induce the
Countess to part with half her fortune if she could but recover the
gem.”
“It was lost, if I remember aright, at the Hotel Cosmopolitan,” I
remarked.
“Precisely so, on December 22nd, just five days ago. John Horner, a
plumber, was accused of having abstracted it from the lady’s
jewel-case. The evidence against him was so strong that the case has
been referred to the Assizes. I have some account of the matter here, I
believe.” He rummaged amid his newspapers, glancing over the dates,
until at last he smoothed one out, doubled it over, and read the
following paragraph:
“Hotel Cosmopolitan Jewel Robbery. John Horner, 26, plumber, was
brought up upon the charge of having upon the 22nd inst., abstracted
from the jewel-case of the Countess of Morcar the valuable gem known as
the blue carbuncle. James Ryder, upper-attendant at the hotel, gave his
evidence to the effect that he had shown Horner up to the dressing-room
of the Countess of Morcar upon the day of the robbery in order that he
might solder the second bar of the grate, which was loose. He had
remained with Horner some little time, but had finally been called
away. On returning, he found that Horner had disappeared, that the
bureau had been forced open, and that the small morocco casket in
which, as it afterwards transpired, the Countess was accustomed to keep
her jewel, was lying empty upon the dressing-table. Ryder instantly
gave the alarm, and Horner was arrested the same evening; but the stone
could not be found either upon his person or in his rooms. Catherine
Cusack, maid to the Countess, deposed to having heard Ryder’s cry of
dismay on discovering the robbery, and to having rushed into the room,
where she found matters as described by the last witness. Inspector
Bradstreet, B division, gave evidence as to the arrest of Horner, who
struggled frantically, and protested his innocence in the strongest
terms. Evidence of a previous conviction for robbery having been given
against the prisoner, the magistrate refused to deal summarily with the
offence, but referred it to the Assizes. Horner, who had shown signs of
intense emotion during the proceedings, fainted away at the conclusion
and was carried out of court.”
“Hum! So much for the police-court,” said Holmes thoughtfully, tossing
aside the paper. “The question for us now to solve is the sequence of
events leading from a rifled jewel-case at one end to the crop of a
goose in Tottenham Court Road at the other. You see, Watson, our little
deductions have suddenly assumed a much more important and less
innocent aspect. Here is the stone; the stone came from the goose, and
the goose came from Mr. Henry Baker, the gentleman with the bad hat and
all the other characteristics with which I have bored you. So now we
must set ourselves very seriously to finding this gentleman and
ascertaining what part he has played in this little mystery. To do
this, we must try the simplest means first, and these lie undoubtedly
in an advertisement in all the evening papers. If this fail, I shall
have recourse to other methods.”
“What will you say?”
“Give me a pencil and that slip of paper. Now, then: ‘Found at the
corner of Goodge Street, a goose and a black felt hat. Mr. Henry Baker
can have the same by applying at 6:30 this evening at 221B, Baker
Street.’ That is clear and concise.”
“Very. But will he see it?”
“Well, he is sure to keep an eye on the papers, since, to a poor man,
the loss was a heavy one. He was clearly so scared by his mischance in
breaking the window and by the approach of Peterson that he thought of
nothing but flight, but since then he must have bitterly regretted the
impulse which caused him to drop his bird. Then, again, the
introduction of his name will cause him to see it, for everyone who
knows him will direct his attention to it. Here you are, Peterson, run
down to the advertising agency and have this put in the evening
papers.”
“In which, sir?”
“Oh, in the _Globe_, _Star_, _Pall Mall_, _St. James’s Gazette_,
_Evening News_, _Standard_, _Echo_, and any others that occur to you.”
“Very well, sir. And this stone?”
“Ah, yes, I shall keep the stone. Thank you. And, I say, Peterson, just
buy a goose on your way back and leave it here with me, for we must
have one to give to this gentleman in place of the one which your
family is now devouring.”
When the commissionaire had gone, Holmes took up the stone and held it
against the light. “It’s a bonny thing,” said he. “Just see how it
glints and sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime.
Every good stone is. They are the devil’s pet baits. In the larger and
older jewels every facet may stand for a bloody deed. This stone is not
yet twenty years old. It was found in the banks of the Amoy River in
southern China and is remarkable in having every characteristic of the
carbuncle, save that it is blue in shade instead of ruby red. In spite
of its youth, it has already a sinister history. There have been two
murders, a vitriol-throwing, a suicide, and several robberies brought
about for the sake of this forty-grain weight of crystallised charcoal.
Who would think that so pretty a toy would be a purveyor to the gallows
and the prison? I’ll lock it up in my strong box now and drop a line to
the Countess to say that we have it.”
“Do you think that this man Horner is innocent?”
“I cannot tell.”
“Well, then, do you imagine that this other one, Henry Baker, had
anything to do with the matter?”
“It is, I think, much more likely that Henry Baker is an absolutely
innocent man, who had no idea that the bird which he was carrying was
of considerably more value than if it were made of solid gold. That,
however, I shall determine by a very simple test if we have an answer
to our advertisement.”
“And you can do nothing until then?”
“Nothing.”
“In that case I shall continue my professional round. But I shall come
back in the evening at the hour you have mentioned, for I should like
to see the solution of so tangled a business.”
“Very glad to see you. I dine at seven. There is a woodcock, I believe.