The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
throbbing in my head now, like a docker’s hammer, but that
morning I seemed to have all Niagara whizzing and buzzing in my
ears.
“Well, I took to my heels, and I ran after the cab. I had a heavy
oak stick in my hand, and I tell you I saw red from the first;
but as I ran I got cunning, too, and hung back a little to see
them without being seen. They pulled up soon at the railway
station. There was a good crowd round the booking-office, so I
got quite close to them without being seen. They took tickets for
New Brighton. So did I, but I got in three carriages behind them.
When we reached it they walked along the Parade, and I was never
more than a hundred yards from them. At last I saw them hire a
boat and start for a row, for it was a very hot day, and they
thought, no doubt, that it would be cooler on the water.
“It was just as if they had been given into my hands. There was a
bit of a haze, and you could not see more than a few hundred
yards. I hired a boat for myself, and I pulled after them. I
could see the blur of their craft, but they were going nearly as
fast as I, and they must have been a long mile from the shore
before I caught them up. The haze was like a curtain all round
us, and there were we three in the middle of it. My God, shall I
ever forget their faces when they saw who was in the boat that
was closing in upon them? She screamed out. He swore like a
madman and jabbed at me with an oar, for he must have seen death
in my eyes. I got past it and got one in with my stick that
crushed his head like an egg. I would have spared her, perhaps,
for all my madness, but she threw her arms round him, crying out
to him, and calling him ‘Alec.’ I struck again, and she lay
stretched beside him. I was like a wild beast then that had
tasted blood. If Sarah had been there, by the Lord, she should
have joined them. I pulled out my knife, and—well, there! I’ve
said enough. It gave me a kind of savage joy when I thought how
Sarah would feel when she had such signs as these of what her
meddling had brought about. Then I tied the bodies into the boat,
stove a plank, and stood by until they had sunk. I knew very well
that the owner would think that they had lost their bearings in
the haze, and had drifted off out to sea. I cleaned myself up,
got back to land, and joined my ship without a soul having a
suspicion of what had passed. That night I made up the packet for
Sarah Cushing, and next day I sent it from Belfast.
“There you have the whole truth of it. You can hang me, or do
what you like with me, but you cannot punish me as I have been
punished already. I cannot shut my eyes but I see those two faces
staring at me—staring at me as they stared when my boat broke
through the haze. I killed them quick, but they are killing me
slow; and if I have another night of it I shall be either mad or
dead before morning. You won’t put me alone into a cell, sir? For
pity’s sake don’t, and may you be treated in your day of agony as
you treat me now.’
“What is the meaning of it, Watson?” said Holmes solemnly as he
laid down the paper. “What object is served by this circle of
misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else
our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what
end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human
reason is as far from an answer as ever.”
III. The Yellow Face
In publishing these short sketches based upon the numerous cases
in which my companion’s singular gifts have made us the listeners
to, and eventually the actors in, some strange drama, it is only
natural that I should dwell rather upon his successes than upon
his failures. And this not so much for the sake of his
reputation—for, indeed, it was when he was at his wits’ end that
his energy and his versatility were most admirable—but because
where he failed it happened too often that no one else succeeded,
and that the tale was left forever without a conclusion. Now and
again, however, it chanced that even when he erred, the truth was
still discovered. I have noted of some half-dozen cases of the
kind, of which the Affair of the Second Stain and that which I am
now about to recount are the two which present the strongest
features of interest.
Sherlock Holmes was a man who seldom took exercise for exercise’s
sake. Few men were capable of greater muscular effort, and he was
undoubtedly one of the finest boxers of his weight that I have
ever seen; but he looked upon aimless bodily exertion as a waste
of energy, and he seldom bestirred himself save when there was
some professional object to be served. Then he was absolutely
untiring and indefatigable. That he should have kept himself in
training under such circumstances is remarkable, but his diet was
usually of the sparest, and his habits were simple to the verge
of austerity. Save for the occasional use of cocaine, he had no
vices, and he only turned to the drug as a protest against the
monotony of existence when cases were scanty and the papers
uninteresting.
One day in early spring he had so far relaxed as to go for a walk
with me in the Park, where the first faint shoots of green were
breaking out upon the elms, and the sticky spear-heads of the
chestnuts were just beginning to burst into their five-fold
leaves. For two hours we rambled about together, in silence for
the most part, as befits two men who know each other intimately.
It was nearly five before we were back in Baker Street once more.
“Beg pardon, sir,” said our page-boy, as he opened the door.
“There’s been a gentleman here asking for you, sir.”
Holmes glanced reproachfully at me. “So much for afternoon
walks!” said he. “Has this gentleman gone, then?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Didn’t you ask him in?”
“Yes, sir; he came in.”
“How long did he wait?”
“Half an hour, sir. He was a very restless gentleman, sir,
a-walkin’ and a-stampin’ all the time he was here. I was waitin’
outside the door, sir, and I could hear him. At last he outs into
the passage, and he cries, ‘Is that man never goin’ to come?’
Those were his very words, sir. ‘You’ll only need to wait a
little longer,’ says I. ‘Then I’ll wait in the open air, for I
feel half choked,’ says he. ‘I’ll be back before long.’ And with
that he ups and he outs, and all I could say wouldn’t hold him
back.”
“Well, well, you did your best,” said Holmes, as we walked into
our room. “It’s very annoying, though, Watson. I was badly in
need of a case, and this looks, from the man’s impatience, as if
it were of importance. Halloa! That’s not your pipe on the table.
He must have left his behind him. A nice old briar with a good
long stem of what the tobacconists call amber. I wonder how many
real amber mouthpieces there are in London. Some people think
that a fly in it is a sign. Well, he must have been disturbed in
his mind to leave a pipe behind him which he evidently values
highly.”
“How do you know that he values it highly?” I asked.
“Well, I should put the original cost of the pipe at seven and
sixpence. Now it has, you see, been twice mended, once in the
wooden stem and once in the amber. Each of these mends, done, as
you observe, with silver bands, must have cost more than the pipe
did originally. The man must value the pipe highly when he
prefers to patch it up rather than buy a new one with the same
money.”
“Anything else?” I asked, for Holmes was turning the pipe about
in his hand, and staring at it in his peculiar pensive way.
He held it up and tapped on it with his long, thin fore-finger,
as a professor might who was lecturing on a bone.
“Pipes are occasionally of extraordinary interest,” said he.
“Nothing has more individuality, save perhaps watches and
bootlaces. The indications here, however, are neither very marked
nor very important. The owner is obviously a muscular man,
left-handed, with an excellent set of teeth, careless in his
habits, and with no need to practise economy.”
My friend threw out the information in a very offhand way, but I
saw that he cocked his eye at me to see if I had followed his
reasoning.
“You think a man must be well-to-do if he smokes a seven-shilling
pipe,” said I.
“This is Grosvenor mixture at eightpence an ounce,” Holmes
answered, knocking a little out on his palm. “As he might get an
excellent smoke for half the price, he has no need to practise
economy.”
“And the other points?”
“He has been in the habit of lighting his pipe at lamps and
gas-jets. You can see that it is quite charred all down one side.
Of course a match could not have done that. Why should a man hold
a match to the side of his pipe? But you cannot light it at a
lamp without getting the bowl charred. And it is all on the right
side of the pipe. From that I gather that he is a left-handed
man. You hold your own pipe to the lamp, and see how naturally
you, being right-handed, hold the left side to the flame. You
might do it once the other way, but not as a constancy. This has
always been held so. Then he has bitten through his amber. It
takes a muscular, energetic fellow, and one with a good set of
teeth, to do that. But if I am not mistaken I hear him upon the
stair, so we shall have something more interesting than his pipe
to study.”
An instant later our door opened, and a tall young man entered
the room. He was well but quietly dressed in a dark-grey suit,
and carried a brown wide-awake in his hand. I should have put him
at about thirty, though he was really some years older.
“I beg your pardon,” said he, with some embarrassment; “I suppose
I should have knocked. Yes, of course I should have knocked. The
fact is that I am a little upset, and you must put it all down to
that.” He passed his hand over his forehead like a man who is
half dazed, and then fell rather than sat down upon a chair.
“I can see that you have not slept for a night or two,” said
Holmes, in his easy, genial way. “That tries a man’s nerves more
than work, and more even than pleasure. May I ask how I can help
you?”
“I wanted your advice, sir. I don’t know what to do and my whole
life seems to have gone to pieces.”
“You wish to employ me as a consulting detective?”
“Not that only. I want your opinion as a judicious man—as a man
of the world. I want to know what I ought to do next. I hope to
God you’ll be able to tell me.”
He spoke in little, sharp, jerky outbursts, and it seemed to me
that to speak at all was very painful to him, and that his will
all through was overriding his inclinations.
“It’s a very delicate thing,” said he. “One does not like to
speak of one’s domestic affairs to strangers. It seems dreadful
to discuss the conduct of one’s wife with two men whom I have