“It is so long a chain, and yet every link rings true.”

“It saved me from ennui,” he answered, yawning
I already feel
it closing in upon me
My life is spent in one long effort to escape
from the commonplaces of existence
These little problems help me to do
so.”

“And you are a benefactor of the race,” said I
“Well, perhaps, after all, it is of some
little use,” he remarked
“‘_L’homme c’est rien—l’œuvre c’est tout_,’
as Gustave Flaubert wrote to George Sand.”




III
We would not dare to
conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence
“The cases which come
to light in the papers are, as a rule, bald enough, and vulgar enough
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
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
“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
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 cœur_
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
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
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
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
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
“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