“Well, I think we must wait for a little more material. After all,you have nothing to complain of. You have received your rent, andhe is not a troublesome lodger, though he is certainly an unusualone. He pays you well, and if he chooses to lie concealed it is nodirect business of yours. We have no excuse for an intrusion uponhis privacy until we have some reason to think that there is a guiltyreason for it. I’ve taken up the matter, and I won’t lose sight of it.
Report to me if anything fresh occurs, and rely upon my assistanceif it should be needed.
“There are certainly some points of interest in this case,Watson,” he remarked when the landlady had left us. “It may, ofcourse, be trivial—individual eccentricity; or it may be very muchdeeper than appears on the surface. The first thing that strike oneis the obvious possibility that the person now in the rooms may beentirely different from the one who engaged them.”
“Why should you think so?”
“Well, apart form this cigarette-end, was it not suggestive thatthe only time the lodger went out was immediately after his takingthe rooms? He came back—or someone came back—when allwitnesses were out of the way. We have no proof that the personwho came back was the person who went out. Then, again, theman who took the rooms spoke English well. This other, however,prints ‘match’ when it should have been ‘matches.’ I can imaginethat the word was taken out of a dictionary, which would give thenoun but not the plural. The laconic style may be to conceal theabsence of knowledge of English. Yes, Watson, there are goodreasons to suspect that there has been a substitution of lodgers.”
“But for what possible end?”
“Ah! there lies our problem. There is one rather obvious line ofinvestigation.” He took down the great book in which, day by day,he filed the agony columns of the various London journals. “Dearme!” said he, turning over the pages, “what a chorus of groans,cries, and bleatings! What a rag-bag of singular happenings! Butsurely the most valuable hunting-ground that ever was givento a student of the unusual! This person is alone and cannot beapproached by letter without a breach of that absolute secrecywhich is desired. How is any news or any message to reach himfrom without? Obviously by advertisement through a newspaper.
There seems no other way, and fortunately we need concernourselves with the one paper only. Here are the Daily Gazetteextracts of the last fortnight. ‘Lady with a black boa at Prince’sSkating Club’ —that we may pass. ‘Surely Jimmy will not breakhis mother’s heart’ —that appears to be irrelevant. ‘If the lady1134 The Complete Sherlock Holmes
who fainted in Brixton bus’ —she does not interest me. ‘Everyday my heart longs—’ Bleat, Watson—unmitigated bleat! Ah,this is a little more possible. Listen to this: ‘Be patient. Will findsome sure means of communications. Meanwhile, this column.
G.’ That is two days after Mrs. Warren’s lodger arrived. It soundsplausible, does it not? The mysterious one could understandEnglish, even if he could not print it. Let us see if we can pick upthe trace again. Yes, here we are—three days later. ‘Am makingsuccessful arrangements. Patience and prudence. The clouds willpass. G.’ Nothing for a week after that. Then comes something muchmore definite: ‘The path is clearing. If I find chance signal messageremember code agreed—One A, two B, and so on. You will hear soon.
G.’ That was in yesterday’s paper, and there is nothing in to-day’s.
It’s all very appropriate to Mrs. Warren’s lodger. If we wait a little,Watson, I don’t doubt that the affair will grow more intelligible.”
So it proved; for in the morning I found my friend standing onthe hearthrug with his back to the fire and a smile of completesatisfaction upon his face.
“How’s this, Watson?” he cried, picking up the paper from thetable. “ ‘High red house with white stone facings. Third floor.
Second window left. After dusk. G.’ That is definite enough. Ithink after breakfast we must make a little reconnaissance of Mrs.
Warren’s neighbourhood. Ah, Mrs. Warren! what news do youbring us this morning?”
Our client had suddenly burst into the room with an explosiveenergy which told of some new and momentous development.
“It’s a police matter, Mr. Holmes!” she cried. “I’ll have no moreof it! He shall pack out of there with his baggage. I would havegone straight up and told him so, only I thought it was but fair toyou to take your opinion first. But I’m at the end of my patience,and when it comes to knocking my old man about—”
“Knocking Mr. Warren about?”
“Using him roughly, anyway.”
“But who used him roughly?”
“Ah! that’s what we want to know! It was this morning, sir. Mr.
Warren is a timekeeper at Morton and Waylight’s, in TottenhamCourt Road. He has to be out of the house before seven. Well, thismorning he had not gone ten paces down the road when two mencame up behind him, threw a coat over his head, and bundled himinto a cab that was beside the curb. They drove him an hour, andthen opened the door and shot him out. He lay in the roadwayso shaken in his wits that he never saw what became of the cab.
When he picked himself up he found he was on HampsteadHeath; so he took a bus home, and there he lies now on his sofa,while I came straight round to tell you what had happened.”
The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge 1135
“Most interesting,” said Holmes. “Did he observe the appearanceof these men—did he hear them talk?”
“No; he is clean dazed. He just knows that he was lifted up as ifby magic and dropped as if by magic. Two a least were in it, andmaybe three.”
“And you connect this attack with your lodger?”
“Well, we’ve lived there fifteen years and no such happeningsever came before. I’ve had enough of him. Money’s not everything.
I’ll have him out of my house before the day is done.”
“Wait a bit, Mrs. Warren. Do nothing rash. I begin to think thatthis affair may be very much more important than appeared at firstsight. It is clear now that some danger is threatening your lodger.