ADVENTURE III. A CASE OF IDENTITY

"My dear fellow," said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his

lodgings at Baker Street, "life is infinitely stranger than anything which the

mind of man could invent.

We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of

existence.

If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently

remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange

coincidences, the plannings, the cross-

purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to

the most outré results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and

foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable."

"And yet I am not convinced of it," I answered.

"The cases which come to light in the papers are, as a rule, bald enough, and

vulgar enough.

We have in our police reports realism pushed to its extreme limits, and yet the

result is, it must be confessed, neither fascinating nor artistic."

"A certain selection and discretion must be used in producing a realistic effect,"

remarked Holmes.

"This is wanting in the police report, where more stress is laid, perhaps, upon

the platitudes of the magistrate than upon the details, which to an observer contain

the vital essence of the whole matter.

Depend upon it, there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace."

I smiled and shook my head. "I can quite understand your thinking so,"

I said.

"Of course, in your position of unofficial adviser and helper to everybody who is

absolutely puzzled, throughout three continents, you are brought in contact with

all that is strange and bizarre.

But here"--I picked up the morning paper from the ground--"let us put it to a

practical test. Here is the first heading upon which I

come.

'A husband's cruelty to his wife.' There is half a column of print, but I know

without reading it that it is all perfectly familiar to me.

There is, of course, the other woman, the drink, the push, the blow, the bruise, the

sympathetic sister or landlady. The crudest of writers could invent nothing

more crude."

"Indeed, your example is an unfortunate one for your argument," said Holmes, taking the

paper and glancing his eye down it.

"This is the Dundas separation case, and, as it happens, I was engaged in clearing up

some small points in connection with it.

The husband was a teetotaler, there was no other woman, and the conduct complained of

was that he had drifted into the habit of winding up every meal by taking out his

false teeth and hurling them at his wife,

which, you will allow, is not an action likely to occur to the imagination of the

average story-teller.

Take a pinch of snuff, Doctor, and acknowledge that I have scored over you in

your example." He held out his snuffbox of old gold, with

a great amethyst in the centre of the lid.

Its splendour was in such contrast to his homely ways and simple life that I could

not help commenting upon it. "Ah," said he, "I forgot that I had not

seen you for some weeks.

It is a little souvenir from the King of Bohemia in return for my assistance in the

case of the Irene Adler papers." "And the ring?"

I asked, glancing at a remarkable brilliant which sparkled upon his finger.

"It was from the reigning family of Holland, though the matter in which I

served them was of such delicacy that I cannot confide it even to you, who have

been good enough to chronicle one or two of my little problems."

"And have you any on hand just now?" I asked with interest.

"Some ten or twelve, but none which present any feature of interest.

They are important, you understand, without being interesting.

Indeed, I have found that it is usually in unimportant matters that there is a field

for the observation, and for the quick analysis of cause and effect which gives

the charm to an investigation.

The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime the more

obvious, as a rule, is the motive.

In these cases, save for one rather intricate matter which has been referred to

me from Marseilles, there is nothing which presents any features of interest.

It is possible, however, that I may have something better before very many minutes

are over, for this is one of my clients, or I am much mistaken."

He had risen from his chair and was standing between the parted blinds gazing

down into the dull neutral-tinted London street.

Looking over his shoulder, I saw that on the pavement opposite there stood a large

woman with a heavy fur boa round her neck, and a large curling red feather in a broad-

brimmed hat which was tilted in a

coquettish Duchess of Devonshire fashion over her ear.

From under this great panoply she peeped up in a nervous, hesitating fashion at our

windows, while her body oscillated backward and forward, and her fingers fidgeted with

her glove buttons.

Suddenly, with a plunge, as of the swimmer who leaves the bank, she hurried across the

road, and we heard the sharp clang of the bell.

"I have seen those symptoms before," said Holmes, throwing his cigarette into the

fire. "Oscillation upon the pavement always means

an affaire de coeur.

She would like advice, but is not sure that the matter is not too delicate for

communication. And yet even here we may discriminate.

When a woman has been seriously wronged by a man she no longer oscillates, and the

usual symptom is a broken bell wire.

Here we may take it that there is a love matter, but that the maiden is not so much

angry as perplexed, or grieved. But here she comes in person to resolve our

doubts."

As he spoke there was a tap at the door, and the boy in buttons entered to announce

Miss Mary Sutherland, while the lady herself loomed behind his small black

figure like a full-sailed merchant-man behind a tiny pilot boat.

Sherlock Holmes welcomed her with the easy courtesy for which he was remarkable, and,

having closed the door and bowed her into an armchair, he looked her over in the

minute and yet abstracted fashion which was peculiar to him.

"Do you not find," he said, "that with your short sight it is a little trying to do so

much typewriting?"

"I did at first," she answered, "but now I know where the letters are without

looking."

Then, suddenly realising the full purport of his words, she gave a violent start and

looked up, with fear and astonishment upon her broad, good-humoured face.

"You've heard about me, Mr. Holmes," she cried, "else how could you know all that?"

"Never mind," said Holmes, laughing; "it is my business to know things.

Perhaps I have trained myself to see what others overlook.

If not, why should you come to consult me?"

"I came to you, sir, because I heard of you from Mrs. Etherege, whose husband you found

so easy when the police and everyone had given him up for dead.

Oh, Mr. Holmes, I wish you would do as much for me.

I'm not rich, but still I have a hundred a year in my own right, besides the little

that I make by the machine, and I would give it all to know what has become of Mr.

Hosmer Angel."

"Why did you come away to consult me in such a hurry?" asked Sherlock Holmes, with

his finger-tips together and his eyes to the ceiling.

Again a startled look came over the somewhat vacuous face of Miss Mary

Sutherland.

"Yes, I did bang out of the house," she said, "for it made me angry to see the easy

way in which Mr. Windibank--that is, my father--took it all.

He would not go to the police, and he would not go to you, and so at last, as he would

do nothing and kept on saying that there was no harm done, it made me mad, and I

just on with my things and came right away to you."

"Your father," said Holmes, "your stepfather, surely, since the name is

different."

"Yes, my stepfather. I call him father, though it sounds funny,

too, for he is only five years and two months older than myself."

"And your mother is alive?"

"Oh, yes, mother is alive and well. I wasn't best pleased, Mr. Holmes, when she

married again so soon after father's death, and a man who was nearly fifteen years

younger than herself.

Father was a plumber in the Tottenham Court Road, and he left a tidy business behind

him, which mother carried on with Mr. Hardy, the foreman; but when Mr. Windibank

came he made her sell the business, for he

was very superior, being a traveller in wines.

They got 4700 pounds for the goodwill and interest, which wasn't near as much as

father could have got if he had been alive."

I had expected to see Sherlock Holmes impatient under this rambling and

inconsequential narrative, but, on the contrary, he had listened with the greatest

concentration of attention.

"Your own little income," he asked, "does it come out of the business?"

"Oh, no, sir. It is quite separate and was left me by my

uncle Ned in Auckland.

It is in New Zealand stock, paying 4 1/2 per cent.

Two thousand five hundred pounds was the amount, but I can only touch the interest."

"You interest me extremely," said Holmes.

"And since you draw so large a sum as a hundred a year, with what you earn into the

bargain, you no doubt travel a little and indulge yourself in every way.

I believe that a single lady can get on very nicely upon an income of about 60

pounds."

"I could do with much less than that, Mr. Holmes, but you understand that as long as

I live at home I don't wish to be a burden to them, and so they have the use of the

money just while I am staying with them.

Of course, that is only just for the time. Mr. Windibank draws my interest every

quarter and pays it over to mother, and I find that I can do pretty well with what I

earn at typewriting.

It brings me twopence a sheet, and I can often do from fifteen to twenty sheets in a

day." "You have made your position very clear to

me," said Holmes.

"This is my friend, Dr. Watson, before whom you can speak as freely as before myself.

Kindly tell us now all about your connection with Mr. Hosmer Angel."

A flush stole over Miss Sutherland's face, and she picked nervously at the fringe of

her jacket. "I met him first at the gasfitters' ball,"

she said.

"They used to send father tickets when he was alive, and then afterwards they

remembered us, and sent them to mother. Mr. Windibank did not wish us to go.

He never did wish us to go anywhere.

He would get quite mad if I wanted so much as to join a Sunday-school treat.

But this time I was set on going, and I would go; for what right had he to prevent?

He said the folk were not fit for us to know, when all father's friends were to be

there.

And he said that I had nothing fit to wear, when I had my purple plush that I had never

so much as taken out of the drawer.

At last, when nothing else would do, he went off to France upon the business of the

firm, but we went, mother and I, with Mr. Hardy, who used to be our foreman, and it

was there I met Mr. Hosmer Angel."

"I suppose," said Holmes, "that when Mr. Windibank came back from France he was very

annoyed at your having gone to the ball." "Oh, well, he was very good about it.

He laughed, I remember, and shrugged his shoulders, and said there was no use

denying anything to a woman, for she would have her way."

"I see.

Then at the gasfitters' ball you met, as I understand, a gentleman called Mr. Hosmer

Angel." "Yes, sir.

I met him that night, and he called next day to ask if we had got home all safe, and

after that we met him--that is to say, Mr. Holmes, I met him twice for walks, but

after that father came back again, and Mr.

Hosmer Angel could not come to the house any more."

"No?" "Well, you know father didn't like anything

of the sort.

He wouldn't have any visitors if he could help it, and he used to say that a woman

should be happy in her own family circle.

But then, as I used to say to mother, a woman wants her own circle to begin with,

and I had not got mine yet." "But how about Mr. Hosmer Angel?

Did he make no attempt to see you?"

"Well, father was going off to France again in a week, and Hosmer wrote and said that

it would be safer and better not to see each other until he had gone.

We could write in the meantime, and he used to write every day.

I took the letters in in the morning, so there was no need for father to know."

"Were you engaged to the gentleman at this time?"

"Oh, yes, Mr. Holmes. We were engaged after the first walk that

we took.

Hosmer--Mr. Angel--was a cashier in an office in Leadenhall Street--and--"