The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
“But how do you know that it is hereditary?”
“Because my brother Mycroft possesses it in a larger degree than
I do.”
This was news to me indeed. If there were another man with such
singular powers in England, how was it that neither police nor
public had heard of him? I put the question, with a hint that it
was my companion’s modesty which made him acknowledge his brother
as his superior. Holmes laughed at my suggestion.
“My dear Watson,” said he, “I cannot agree with those who rank
modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be
seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one’s self is as
much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one’s own powers.
When I say, therefore, that Mycroft has better powers of
observation than I, you may take it that I am speaking the exact
and literal truth.”
“Is he your junior?”
“Seven years my senior.”
“How comes it that he is unknown?”
“Oh, he is very well known in his own circle.”
“Where, then?”
“Well, in the Diogenes Club, for example.”
I had never heard of the institution, and my face must have
proclaimed as much, for Sherlock Holmes pulled out his watch.
“The Diogenes Club is the queerest club in London, and Mycroft
one of the queerest men. He’s always there from quarter to five
to twenty to eight. It’s six now, so if you care for a stroll
this beautiful evening I shall be very happy to introduce you to
two curiosities.”
Five minutes later we were in the street, walking towards
Regent’s Circus.
“You wonder,” said my companion, “why it is that Mycroft does not
use his powers for detective work. He is incapable of it.”
“But I thought you said—”
“I said that he was my superior in observation and deduction. If
the art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from an
armchair, my brother would be the greatest criminal agent that
ever lived. But he has no ambition and no energy. He will not
even go out of his way to verify his own solutions, and would
rather be considered wrong than take the trouble to prove himself
right. Again and again I have taken a problem to him, and have
received an explanation which has afterwards proved to be the
correct one. And yet he was absolutely incapable of working out
the practical points which must be gone into before a case could
be laid before a judge or jury.”
“It is not his profession, then?”
“By no means. What is to me a means of livelihood is to him the
merest hobby of a dilettante. He has an extraordinary faculty for
figures, and audits the books in some of the government
departments. Mycroft lodges in Pall Mall, and he walks round the
corner into Whitehall every morning and back every evening. From
year’s end to year’s end he takes no other exercise, and is seen
nowhere else, except only in the Diogenes Club, which is just
opposite his rooms.”
“I cannot recall the name.”
“Very likely not. There are many men in London, you know, who,
some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the
company of their fellows. Yet they are not averse to comfortable
chairs and the latest periodicals. It is for the convenience of
these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the
most unsociable and unclubable men in town. No member is
permitted to take the least notice of any other one. Save in the
Stranger’s Room, no talking is, under any circumstances, allowed,
and three offences, if brought to the notice of the committee,
render the talker liable to expulsion. My brother was one of the
founders, and I have myself found it a very soothing atmosphere.”
We had reached Pall Mall as we talked, and were walking down it
from the St. James’s end. Sherlock Holmes stopped at a door some
little distance from the Carlton, and, cautioning me not to
speak, he led the way into the hall. Through the glass paneling I
caught a glimpse of a large and luxurious room, in which a
considerable number of men were sitting about and reading papers,
each in his own little nook. Holmes showed me into a small
chamber which looked out into Pall Mall, and then, leaving me for
a minute, he came back with a companion whom I knew could only be
his brother.
Mycroft Holmes was a much larger and stouter man than Sherlock.
His body was absolutely corpulent, but his face, though massive,
had preserved something of the sharpness of expression which was
so remarkable in that of his brother. His eyes, which were of a
peculiarly light, watery grey, seemed to always retain that
far-away, introspective look which I had only observed in
Sherlock’s when he was exerting his full powers.
“I am glad to meet you, sir,” said he, putting out a broad, fat
hand like the flipper of a seal. “I hear of Sherlock everywhere
since you became his chronicler. By the way, Sherlock, I expected
to see you round last week, to consult me over that Manor House
case. I thought you might be a little out of your depth.”
“No, I solved it,” said my friend, smiling.
“It was Adams, of course.”
“Yes, it was Adams.”
“I was sure of it from the first.” The two sat down together in
the bow-window of the club. “To any one who wishes to study
mankind this is the spot,” said Mycroft. “Look at the magnificent
types! Look at these two men who are coming towards us, for
example.”
“The billiard-marker and the other?”
“Precisely. What do you make of the other?”
The two men had stopped opposite the window. Some chalk marks
over the waistcoat pocket were the only signs of billiards which
I could see in one of them. The other was a very small, dark
fellow, with his hat pushed back and several packages under his
arm.
“An old soldier, I perceive,” said Sherlock.
“And very recently discharged,” remarked the brother.
“Served in India, I see.”
“And a non-commissioned officer.”
“Royal Artillery, I fancy,” said Sherlock.
“And a widower.”
“But with a child.”
“Children, my dear boy, children.”
“Come,” said I, laughing, “this is a little too much.”
“Surely,” answered Holmes, “it is not hard to say that a man with
that bearing, expression of authority, and sunbaked skin, is a
soldier, is more than a private, and is not long from India.”
“That he has not left the service long is shown by his still
wearing his ammunition boots, as they are called,” observed
Mycroft.
“He had not the cavalry stride, yet he wore his hat on one side,
as is shown by the lighter skin of that side of his brow. His
weight is against his being a sapper. He is in the artillery.”
“Then, of course, his complete mourning shows that he has lost
some one very dear. The fact that he is doing his own shopping
looks as though it were his wife. He has been buying things for
children, you perceive. There is a rattle, which shows that one
of them is very young. The wife probably died in childbed. The
fact that he has a picture-book under his arm shows that there is
another child to be thought of.”
I began to understand what my friend meant when he said that his
brother possessed even keener faculties that he did himself. He
glanced across at me and smiled. Mycroft took snuff from a
tortoise-shell box, and brushed away the wandering grains from
his coat front with a large, red silk handkerchief.
“By the way, Sherlock,” said he, “I have had something quite
after your own heart—a most singular problem—submitted to my
judgment. I really had not the energy to follow it up save in a
very incomplete fashion, but it gave me a basis for some pleasing
speculation. If you would care to hear the facts—”
“My dear Mycroft, I should be delighted.”
The brother scribbled a note upon a leaf of his pocket-book, and,
ringing the bell, he handed it to the waiter.
“I have asked Mr. Melas to step across,” said he. “He lodges on
the floor above me, and I have some slight acquaintance with him,
which led him to come to me in his perplexity. Mr. Melas is a
Greek by extraction, as I understand, and he is a remarkable
linguist. He earns his living partly as interpreter in the law
courts and partly by acting as guide to any wealthy Orientals who
may visit the Northumberland Avenue hotels. I think I will leave
him to tell his very remarkable experience in his own fashion.”
A few minutes later we were joined by a short, stout man whose
olive face and coal-black hair proclaimed his Southern origin,
though his speech was that of an educated Englishman. He shook
hands eagerly with Sherlock Holmes, and his dark eyes sparkled
with pleasure when he understood that the specialist was anxious
to hear his story.
“I do not believe that the police credit me—on my word, I do
not,” said he in a wailing voice. “Just because they have never
heard of it before, they think that such a thing cannot be. But I
know that I shall never be easy in my mind until I know what has
become of my poor man with the sticking-plaster upon his face.”
“I am all attention,” said Sherlock Holmes.
“This is Wednesday evening,” said Mr. Melas. “Well then, it was
Monday night—only two days ago, you understand—that all this
happened. I am an interpreter, as perhaps my neighbour there has
told you. I interpret all languages—or nearly all—but as I am a
Greek by birth and with a Grecian name, it is with that
particular tongue that I am principally associated. For many
years I have been the chief Greek interpreter in London, and my
name is very well known in the hotels.
“It happens not unfrequently that I am sent for at strange hours
by foreigners who get into difficulties, or by travelers who
arrive late and wish my services. I was not surprised, therefore,
on Monday night when a Mr. Latimer, a very fashionably dressed
young man, came up to my rooms and asked me to accompany him in a
cab which was waiting at the door. A Greek friend had come to see
him upon business, he said, and as he could speak nothing but his
own tongue, the services of an interpreter were indispensable. He
gave me to understand that his house was some little distance
off, in Kensington, and he seemed to be in a great hurry,
bustling me rapidly into the cab when we had descended to the
street.
“I say into the cab, but I soon became doubtful as to whether it
was not a carriage in which I found myself. It was certainly more
roomy than the ordinary four-wheeled disgrace to London, and the
fittings, though frayed, were of rich quality. Mr. Latimer seated
himself opposite to me and we started off through Charing Cross
and up the Shaftesbury Avenue. We had come out upon Oxford Street
and I had ventured some remark as to this being a roundabout way
to Kensington, when my words were arrested by the extraordinary
conduct of my companion.
“He began by drawing a most formidable-looking bludgeon loaded