LITMIR.BIZ

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have not yet described to you the most singular part. About six years ago—to be exact, upon the 4th of May, 1882—an advertisement appeared in The Times asking for the address of Miss Mary Morstan and stating that it would be to her advantage to come forward. There was no name or address appended. I had at that time just entered the family of Mrs. Cecil Forrester in the capacity of governess. By her advice I published my address in the advertisement column. The same day there arrived through the post a small card-board box addressed to me, which I found to contain a very large and lustrous pearl. No word of writing was enclosed. Since then every year upon the same date there has always appeared a similar box, containing a similar pearl, without any clue as to the sender. They have been pronounced by an expert to be of a rare variety and of considerable value. You can see for yourselves that they are very handsome.” She opened a flat box as she spoke, and showed me six of the finest pearls that I had ever seen.

      “Your statement is most interesting,” said Sherlock Holmes. “Has anything else occurred to you?”

      “Yes, and no later than to-day. That is why I have come to you. This morning I received this letter, which you will perhaps read for yourself.”

      “Thank you,” said Holmes. “The envelope too, please. Postmark, London, S.W. Date, July 7. Hum! Man’s thumb-mark on corner,—probably postman. Best quality paper. Envelopes at sixpence a packet. Particular man in his stationery. No address.

      ‘Be at the third pillar from the left outside the Lyceum Theatre tonight at seven o’clock. If you are distrustful, bring two friends. You are a wronged woman, and shall have justice. Do not bring police. If you do, all will be in vain.—Your unknown friend.’

      “Well, really, this is a very pretty little mystery. What do you intend to do, Miss Morstan?”

      “That is exactly what I want to ask you.”

      “Then we shall most certainly go. You and I and—yes, why, Dr. Watson is the very man. Your correspondent says two friends. He and I have worked together before.”

      “But would he come?” she asked, with something appealing in her voice and expression.

      “I should be proud and happy,” said I, fervently, “if I can be of any service.”

      “You are both very kind,” she answered. “I have led a retired life, and have no friends whom I could appeal to. If I am here at six it will do, I suppose?”

      “You must not be later,” said Holmes. “There is one other point, however. Is this handwriting the same as that upon the pearl-box addresses?”

      “I have them here,” she answered, producing half a dozen pieces of paper.

      “You are certainly a model client. You have the correct intuition. Let us see, now.” He spread out the papers upon the table, and gave little darting glances from one to the other. “They are disguised hands, except the letter,” he said, presently, “but there can be no question as to the authorship. See how the irrepressible Greek e will break out, and see the twirl of the final s. They are undoubtedly by the same person. I should not like to suggest false hopes, Miss Morstan, but is there any resemblance between this hand and that of your father?”

      “Nothing could be more unlike.”

      “I expected to hear you say so. We shall look out for you, then, at six. Pray allow me to keep the papers. I may look into the matter before then. It is only half-past three. Au revoir, then.”

      “Au revoir,” said our visitor, and, with a bright, kindly glance from one to the other of us, she replaced her pearl-box in her bosom and hurried away. Standing at the window, I watched her walking briskly down the street, until the grey turban and white feather were but a speck in the sombre crowd.

      “What a very attractive woman!” I exclaimed, turning to my companion.

      He had lit his pipe again, and was leaning back with drooping eyelids. “Is she?” he said, languidly. “I did not observe.”

      “You really are an automaton,—a calculating-machine!” I cried. “There is something positively inhuman in you at times.”

      He smiled gently. “It is of the first importance,” he said, “not to allow your judgement to be biased by personal qualities. A client is to me a mere unit,—a factor in a problem. The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellent man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor.”

      “In this case, however—”

      “I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule. Have you ever had occasion to study character in handwriting? What do you make of this fellow’s scribble?”

      “It is legible and regular,” I answered. “A man of business habits and some force of character.”

      “Holmes shook his head. “Look at his long letters,” he said. “They hardly rise above the common herd. That d might be an a, and that l an e. Men of character always differentiate their long letters, however illegibly they may write. There is vacillation in his k’s and self-esteem in his capitals. I am going out now. I have some few references to make. Let me recommend this book,—one of the most remarkable ever penned. It is Winwood Reade’s Martyrdom of Man . I shall be back in an hour.”

      I sat in the window with the volume in my hand, but my thoughts were far from the daring speculations of the writer. My mind ran upon our late visitor,—her smiles, the deep rich tones of her voice, the strange mystery which overhung her life. If she were seventeen at the time of her father’s disappearance she must be seven-and-twenty now,—a sweet age, when youth has lost its self-consciousness and become a little sobered by experience. So I sat and mused, until such dangerous thoughts came into my head that I hurried away to my desk and plunged furiously into the latest treatise upon pathology. What was I, an army surgeon with a weak leg and a weaker banking-account, that I should dare to think of such things? She was a unit, a factor,—nothing more. If my future were black, it was better surely to face it like a man than to attempt to brighten it by mere will-o’-the-wisps of the imagination.

      Chapter III.

       In Quest of a Solution

       Table of Contents

      It was half-past five before Holmes returned. He was bright, eager, and in excellent spirits,—a mood which in his case alternated with fits of the blackest depression.

      “There is no great mystery in this matter,” he said, taking the cup of tea which I had poured out for him. “The facts appear to admit of only one explanation.”

      “What! you have solved it already?”

      “Well, that would be too much to say. I have discovered a suggestive fact, that is all. It is, however, very suggestive. The details are still to be added. I have just found, on consulting the back files of The Times, that Major Sholto, of Upper Norword, late of the 34th Bombay Infantry, died upon the 28th of April, 1882.”

      “I may be very obtuse, Holmes, but I fail to see what this suggests.”

      “No? You surprise me. Look at it in this way, then. Captain Morstan disappears. The only person in London whom he could have visited is Major Sholto. Major Sholto denies having heard that he was in London. Four years later Sholto dies. Within a week of his death Captain Morstan’s daughter receives a valuable present, which is repeated from year to year, and now culminates in a letter which describes her as a wronged woman. What wrong can it refer to except this deprivation of her father? And why should the presents begin immediately after Sholto’s death, unless it is that Sholto’s heir knows something of the mystery and desires to make compensation? Have you any alternative theory which will meet the facts?”

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