Book: "A case of identity'', a short walk down Baker street, adventure 3 in the chronicles of detective Sherlock Holmes life by author Arthur Conan Doyle. One evening read.
one of many short stories from the world of Sherlock Holmes “life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent." Sherlock said.
Short story number 3 from the adventures and life of English master detective Sherlock Holmes.
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“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.
“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.
“A certain selection and discretion must be used in producing a realistic effect,” remarked Holmes.
“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.
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.
“And the ring?” I asked, glancing at a remarkable brilliant which sparkled upon his finger.
“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.
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.
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.
“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.
“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.
Known symptoms and any given day.
“You interest me extremely,” said Holmes.
“You have made your position very clear to me,” said Holmes.
“To the Leadenhall Street Post Office, to be left till called for. He said that if they were sent to the office he would be chaffed by all the other clerks about having letters from a lady, so I offered to typewrite them, like he did his, but he wouldn’t have that, for he said that when I wrote them they seemed to come from me, but when they were typewritten he always felt that the machine had come between us.
“Mr. Hosmer Angel came to the house again and proposed that we should marry before father came back. He was in dreadful earnest and made me swear, with my hands on the Testament, that whatever happened I would always be true to him. Mother said he was quite right to make me swear, and that it was a sign of his passion.
Mother was all in his favour from the first and was even fonder of him than I was.
Then, when they talked of marrying within the week, I began to ask about father; but they both said never to mind about father, but just to tell him afterwards, and mother said she would make it all right with him.
I didn’t quite like that, Mr. Holmes.
“It seems to me that you have been very shamefully treated,” said Holmes.
“Yes; and he seemed to think, with me, that something had happened, and that I should hear of Hosmer again. As he said, what interest could anyone have in bringing me to the doors of the church, and then leaving me? Now, if he had borrowed my money, or if he had married me and got my money settled on him, there might be some reason, but Hosmer was very independent about money and never would look at a shilling of mine.
She pulled a little handkerchief out of her muff and began to sob heavily into it.
For all the preposterous hat and the vacuous face, there was something noble in the simple faith of our visitor which compelled our respect.
She laid her little bundle of papers upon the table and went her way, with a promise to come again whenever she might be summoned.
Sherlock Holmes sat silent for a few minutes with his fingertips still pressed together, his legs stretched out in front of him, and his gaze directed upward to the ceiling. Then he took down from the rack the old and oily clay pipe, which was to him as a counsellor, and, having lit it, he leaned back in his chair, with the thick blue cloud-wreaths spinning up from him, and a look of infinite languor in his face.
“Quite an interesting study, that maiden,” he observed.
“I found her more interesting than her little problem, which, by the way, is rather a trite one. You will find parallel cases, if you consult my index, in Andover in ’77, and there was something of the sort at The Hague last year.
“You appeared to read a good deal upon her which was quite invisible to me,” I remarked.
“Not invisible but unnoticed, Watson. You did not know where to look, and so you missed all that was important. I can never bring you to realise the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumb-nails, or the great issues that may hang from a boot-lace.
“Well, she had a slate-coloured, broad-brimmed straw hat, with a feather of a brickish red. Her jacket was black, with black beads sewn upon it, and a fringe of little black jet ornaments. Her dress was brown, rather darker than coffee colour, with a little purple plush at the neck and sleeves.
Her gloves were greyish and were worn through at the right forefinger.
Her boots I didn’t observe.
“ ’Pon my word, Watson, you are coming along wonderfully. You have really done very well indeed. It is true that you have missed everything of importance, but you have hit upon the method, and you have a quick eye for colour. Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details.
My first glance is always at a woman’s sleeve.
In a man it is perhaps better first to take the knee of the trouser.
As you observe, this woman had plush upon her sleeves, which is a most useful material for showing traces.
The double line a little above the wrist, where the typewritist presses against the table, was beautifully defined. The sewing-machine, of the hand type, leaves a similar mark, but only on the left arm, and on the side of it farthest from the thumb, instead of being right across the broadest part, as this was.
“But, surely, it was obvious. I was then much surprised and interested on glancing down to observe that, though the boots which she was wearing were not unlike each other, they were really odd ones; the one having a slightly decorated toe-cap, and the other a plain one.
One was buttoned only in the two lower buttons out of five, and the other at the first, third, and fifth.
“And what else?” I asked, keenly interested, as I always was, by my friend’s incisive reasoning.
“I noted, in passing, that she had written a note before leaving home but after being fully dressed.
You observed that her right glove was torn at the forefinger, but you did not apparently see that both glove and finger were stained with violet ink. She had written in a hurry and dipped her pen too deep. It must have been this morning, or the mark would not remain clear upon the finger.
All this is amusing, though rather elementary, but I must go back to business, Watson.
“on the morning of the fourteenth, a gentleman named Hosmer Angel. About five ft. seven in. in height; strongly built, sallow complexion, black hair, a little bald in the centre, bushy, black side-whiskers and moustache; tinted glasses, slight infirmity of speech.
“That will do,” said Holmes.
“They are typewritten,” I remarked.
“Not only that, but the signature is typewritten. Look at the neat little ‘Hosmer Angel’ at the bottom. There is a date, you see, but no superscription except Leadenhall Street, which is rather vague.
“No, that was not the point. However, I shall write two letters, which should settle the matter.
I left him then, still puffing at his black clay pipe, with the conviction that when I came again on the next evening I would find that he held in his hands all the clues which would lead up to the identity of the disappearing bridegroom of Miss Mary Sutherland.
It was not until close upon six o’clock that I found myself free and was able to spring into a hansom and drive to Baker Street, half afraid that I might be too late to assist at the dénouement of the little mystery. I found Sherlock Holmes alone, however, half asleep, with his long, thin form curled up in the recesses of his armchair.
A formidable array of bottles and test-tubes, with the pungent cleanly smell of hydrochloric acid, told me that he had spent his day in the chemical work which was so dear to him.
“Well, have you solved it?” I asked as I entered.
“No, no, the mystery!” I cried.
“Good-evening, Mr. James Windibank,” said Holmes.
“Yes, sir. I am afraid that I am a little late, but I am not quite my own master, you know. I am sorry that Miss Sutherland has troubled you about this little matter, for I think it is far better not to wash linen of the sort in public.
It was quite against my wishes that she came, but she is a very excitable, impulsive girl, as you may have noticed, and she is not easily controlled when she has made up her mind on a point. Of course, I did not mind you so much, as you are not connected with the official police, but it is not pleasant to have a family misfortune like this noised abroad.
Mr. Windibank gave a violent start and dropped his gloves. “I am delighted to hear it,” he said.
“It is a curious thing,” remarked Holmes, “that a typewriter has really quite as much individuality as a man’s handwriting.
Unless they are quite new, no two of them write exactly alike. Some letters get more worn than others, and some wear only on one side.
“We do all our correspondence with this machine at the office, and no doubt it is a little worn,” our visitor answered, glancing keenly at Holmes with his bright little eyes.
“And now I will show you what is really a very interesting study, Mr. Windibank,” Holmes continued.
“I think of writing another little monograph some of these days on the typewriter and its relation to crime.
It is a subject to which I have devoted some little attention. I have here four letters which purport to come from the missing man.
Mr. Windibank sprang out of his chair and picked up his hat.
“I cannot waste time over this sort of fantastic talk, Mr. Holmes,” he said.
“What! where?” shouted Mr. Windibank, turning white to his lips and glancing about him like a rat in a trap.
“Oh, it won’t do—really it won’t,” said Holmes suavely.
Our visitor collapsed into a chair, with a ghastly face and a glitter of moisture on his brow.
“It—it’s not actionable,” he stammered.
Holmes stuck his feet up on the corner of the mantelpiece and, leaning back with his hands in his pockets, began talking, rather to himself, as it seemed, than to us.
“The man married a woman very much older than himself for her money,” said he, “and he enjoyed the use of the money of the daughter as long as she lived with them. It was a considerable sum, for people in their position, and the loss of it would have made a serious difference.
It was worth an effort to preserve it.
The daughter was of a good, amiable disposition, but affectionate and warm-hearted in her ways, so that it was evident that with her fair personal advantages, and her little income, she would not be allowed to remain single long. Now her marriage would mean, of course, the loss of a hundred a year, so what does her stepfather do to prevent it?
He takes the obvious course of keeping her at home and forbidding her to seek the company of people of her own age.
But soon he found that that would not answer forever. She became restive, insisted upon her rights, and finally announced her positive intention of going to a certain ball. What does her clever stepfather do then? He conceives an idea more creditable to his head than to his heart.
“Very likely not. However that may be, the young lady was very decidedly carried away, and, having quite made up her mind that her stepfather was in France, the suspicion of treachery never for an instant entered her mind. She was flattered by the gentleman’s attentions, and the effect was increased by the loudly expressed admiration of her mother. Then Mr. Angel began to call, for it was obvious that the matter should be pushed as far as it would go if a real effect were to be produced.
There were meetings, and an engagement, which would finally secure the girl’s affections from turning towards anyone else.
But the deception could not be kept up forever. These pretended journeys to France were rather cumbrous. The thing to do was clearly to bring the business to an end in such a dramatic manner that it would leave a permanent impression upon the young lady’s mind and prevent her from looking upon any other suitor for some time to come. Hence those vows of fidelity exacted upon a Testament, and hence also the allusions to a possibility of something happening on the very morning of the wedding.
James Windibank wished Miss Sutherland to be so bound to Hosmer Angel, and so uncertain as to his fate, that for ten years to come, at any rate, she would not listen to another man. As far as the church door he brought her, and then, as he could go no farther, he conveniently vanished away by the old trick of stepping in at one door of a four-wheeler and out at the other.
“There’s a cold-blooded scoundrel!” said Holmes, laughing, as he threw himself down into his chair once more.
“I cannot now entirely see all the steps of your reasoning,” I remarked.
“Well, of course it was obvious from the first that this Mr. Hosmer Angel must have some strong object for his curious conduct, and it was equally clear that the only man who really profited by the incident, as far as we could see, was the stepfather. Then the fact that the two men were never together, but that the one always appeared when the other was away, was suggestive. So were the tinted spectacles and the curious voice, which both hinted at a disguise, as did the bushy whiskers.
How did you verify them?
“Having once spotted my man, it was easy to get corroboration. I knew the firm for which this man worked.
Having taken the printed description. I eliminated everything from it which could be the result of a disguise—the whiskers, the glasses, the voice, and I sent it to the firm, with a request that they would inform me whether it answered to the description of any of their travellers.
I had already noticed the peculiarities of the typewriter, and I wrote to the man himself at his business address asking him if he would come here.
'The life and adventures of Sherlock Holmes', Part 3. a thrilling slice of adventure from the life of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle continues with another short story in Part 4.