In choosing a few typical cases which illustrate the remarkablemental qualities of my friend, Sherlock Holmes, I haveendeavoured, as far as possible, to select those which presentedthe minimum of sensationalism, while offering a fair field forhis talents. It is, however, unfortunately impossible entirely toseparate the sensational from the criminal, and a chronicler isleft in the dilemma that he must either sacrifice details which areessential to his statement and so give a false impression of theproblem, or he must use matter which chance, and not choice,The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge 1113
has provided him with. With this short preface I shall turn to mynotes of what proved to be a strange, though a peculiarly terrible,chain of events.
It was a blazing hot day in August. Baker Street was like anoven, and the glare of the sunlight upon the yellow brickwork ofthe house across the road was painful to the eye. It was hard tobelieve that these were the same walls which loomed so gloomilythrough the fogs of winter. Our blinds were half-drawn, andHolmes lay curled upon the sofa, reading and re-reading a letterwhich he had received by the morning post. For myself, my termof service in India had trained me to stand heat better than cold,and a thermometer at ninety was no hardship. But the morningpaper was uninteresting. Parliament had risen. Everybody was outof town, and I yearned for the glades of the New Forest or theshingle of Southsea. A depleted bank account had caused me topostpone my holiday, and as to my companion, neither the countrynor the sea presented the slightest attraction to him. He loved tolie in the very centre of five millions of people, with his filamentsstretching out and running through them, responsive to everylittle rumour or suspicion of unsolved crime. Appreciation ofnature found no place among his many gifts, and his only changewas when he turned his mind from the evil-doer of the town totrack down his brother of the country.
Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for conversation I hadtossed aside the barren paper, and leaning back in my chair I fellinto a brown study. Suddenly my companion’s voice broke in uponmy thoughts:
“You are right, Watson,” said he. “It does seem a mostpreposterous way of settling a dispute.”
“Most preposterous!” I exclaimed, and then suddenly realizinghow he had echoed the inmost thought of my soul, I sat up in mychair and stared at him in blank amazement.
“What is this, Holmes?” I cried. “This is beyond anything whichI could have imagined.”
He laughed heartily at my perplexity.
“You remember,” said he, “that some little time ago when I readyou the passage in one of Poe’s sketches in which a close reasonerfollows the unspoken thoughts of his companion, you wereinclined to treat the matter as a mere tour-de-force of the author.
On my remarking that I was constantly in the habit of doing thesame thing you expressed incredulity.”
“Oh, no!”
“Perhaps not with your tongue, my dear Watson, but certainlywith your eyebrows. So when I saw you throw down your paperand enter upon a train of thought, I was very happy to have the1114 The Complete Sherlock Holmes
opportunity of reading it off, and eventually of breaking into it, asproof that I had been in rapport with you.”
But I was still far from satisfied. “In the example which you readto me,” said I, “the reasoner drew his conclusions from the actionsof the man whom he observed. If I remember right, he stumbledover a heap of stones, looked up at the stars, and so on. But I havebeen seated quietly in my chair, and what clues can I have givenyou?”
“You do yourself an injustice. The features are given to man asthe means by which he shall express his emotions, and yours arefaithful servants.”
“Do you mean to say that you read my train of thoughts frommy features?”
“Your features and especially your eyes. Perhaps you cannotyourself recall how your reverie commenced?”
“No, I cannot.”
“Then I will tell you. After throwing down your paper, whichwas the action which drew my attention to you, you sat for half aminute with a vacant expression. Then your eyes fixed themselvesupon your newly framed picture of General Gordon, and I sawby the alteration in your face that a train of thought had beenstarted. But it did not lead very far. Your eyes flashed across to theunframed portrait of Henry Ward Beecher which stands upon thetop of your books. Then you glanced up at the wall, and of courseyour meaning was obvious. You were thinking that if the portraitwere framed it would just cover that bare space and correspondwith Gordon’s picture over there.”
“You have followed me wonderfully!” I exclaimed.
“So far I could hardly have gone astray. But now your thoughtswent back to Beecher, and you looked hard across as if you werestudying the character in his features. Then your eyes ceasedto pucker, but you continued to look across, and your face wasthoughtful. You were recalling the incidents of Beecher’s career.
was well aware that you could not do this without thinkingof the mission which he undertook on behalf of the North atthe time of the Civil War, for I remember your expressing yourpassionate indignation at the way in which he was received bythe more turbulent of our people. You felt so strongly about itthat I knew you could not think of Beecher without thinkingof that also. When a moment later I saw your eyes wander awayfrom the picture, I suspected that your mind had now turned tothe Civil War, and when I observed that your lips set, your eyessparkled, and your hands clenched I was positive that you wereindeed thinking of the gallantry which was shown by both sidesin that desperate struggle. But then, again, your face grew sadder,The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge 1115