menu_book Chapter 5

library of the world's best mystery and detective stories volume two by julian hawthorne editor section five a case of identity part one by sir arthur conan doyle 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 can 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 strange coincidences the plannings the cross-purposes the wonderful chains of events working through generations and leading to the most outre 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 advisor 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 unsympathetic 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 Dunder 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 snuff-box 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 features 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 a cigarette into the fire. Oscillation upon the pavement always means an affair 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 her 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 a small black figure like a full-sailed merchantman 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 arm-chair,

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 realizing the full purport of his words she gave a violent start and looked up with fear and astonishment upon her broad good-humored 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 etheridge whose husband you found so easily when the police and every one 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 make 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 tiny 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 four thousand seven hundred for the good-will and interest which wasn't near as much as father could have got if he'd been alive i'd 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 a new zealand stock paying four and a half 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 sixty 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 a 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 gas fitters 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 winderbank 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 was due 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 hosma 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 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-what office that's the worst of it mr holmes i don't know where did he live then he slept on the premises and you don't know his address no except that it was leadenhall street where did you address your letters then 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 chafed 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 that would just show you how fond he was of me mr holmes and the little things that he would think of it was most suggestive said holmes it has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important can you remember any other little things about mr hosmer angel he was a very shy man mr holmes he would rather walk with me in the evening than in the daylight for he said that he hated to be conspicuous very retiring and gentlemanly he was even his voice was gentle he had had the quincy and swollen glands when he was young he told me and it had left him with a weak throat and a hesitating whispering fashion of speech

he was always well dressed very neat and plain but his eyes were weak just as mine are and he wore tinted glasses against the glare well and what happened when mr windibank your stepfather returned to france 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 seemed funny that i should ask his leave as he was only a few years older than me but i didn't want to do anything on the sly so i wrote to father at bordeaux where the company has its french offices but the letter came back to me on the very morning of the wedding it missed him then yes sir for he had started to england just before it arrived ha that was unfortunate your wedding was arranged then for the friday was it to be in church yes sir but very quietly it was to be at st saviour's near king's cross and we were to have breakfast afterwards at the st pancras hotel

hosma came for us in a hansom but as there were two of us he put us both into it and stepped himself into a four-wheeler which happened to be the only other cab in the street we got to the church first and when the four-wheeler drove up we waited for him to step out but he never did and when the cabman got down from the box and looked there was no one there the cabman said that he could not imagine what had become of him for he had seen him get in with his own eyes that was last friday mr holmes and i have never seen or heard anything since then to throw any light upon what became of him it seems to me that you have been very shamefully treated said holmes oh no sir he was too good and kind to leave me so why all the morning he was saying to me that whatever happened i was to be true and that even if something quite unforeseen occurred to separate us i was always to remember that i was pledged to him and that he would claim his pledge sooner or later it seems strange talk for a wedding morning but what has happened since gives a meaning to it most certainly it does your own opinion is then that some unforeseen catastrophe has occurred to him

yes sir i believe that he foresaw some danger or else he would not have talked so and then i think that what he foresaw happened but you have no notion as to what it could have been none one more question how did your mother take the matter she was angry and said i was never to speak of the matter again and your father did you tell him 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 any one have in bringing me to the door of the church and then leaving me now if he'd borrowed my money or if he'd married me and got my money settled on him there might be some reason but hosman was very independent about money and never but look at a shilling of mine and yet what could have happened and why could he not write oh it drives me half mad to think of and i can't sleep a wink at night she pulled a little handkerchief out of her muff and began to sob heavily into it i shall glance into the case for you said holmes rising and i have no doubt that we shall reach some definite result let the weight of the matter rest upon me now and do not let your mind dwell upon it further above all try to let mr hosmer angel vanish from your memory as he has done from your life

Then you don't think I'll see him again? I fear not. Then what has happened to him? You will leave that question in my hands. I should like an accurate description of him, and any letters of his which you can spare.

I advertised for him in last Saturday's Chronicle, said she. Here is a slip, and here are four letters from him. Thank you. And your address? Number 31, Lion Place, Camberwell.

Mr. Angel's address you never had, I understand. Where is your father's place of business? he travels for westhouse and marbank the great claret importers of fenchurch street thank you you have made your statement very clearly you will leave the papers here and remember the advice which i have given you let the whole incident be a sealed book and do not allow it to affect your life you are very kind mr holmes but i cannot do that i shall be true to hosmer he shall find me ready when he comes back 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 end of section five