The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes

experience book about his deep-sea fishing expeditions, was brought up in the tradition of the Victorian era and in close contact with his father. The son, like the father, has a lust for adventure, cherishes relics of the past, and above all has the same sense of chivalry that so completely characterized his father—or should we say Holmes?

Adrian Conan Doyle uses the very desk on which his father wrote. He is surrounded by the same objects that his father handled, and he has in every way endeavored to recreate each particle of atmosphere that formed Sir Arthur's environment.

The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes are based on the unsolved cases to which Watson refers in the original fifty- six short stories and four novels. Sherlockians will find added interest in the quotations which appear at the end of each story. Here are the references to the unsolved cases of Sherlock Holmes as they appeared in the original stories by Arthur Conan Doyle and which the present authors used as their points of departure for the twelve cases which follow. The plots are new, but the stories are painstaking reproductions of the originals, in construc­tion as well as in texture. Conan Doyle and Carr wrote together 'The Adventure of the Seven Clocks' and 'The Adventure of the Gold Hunter.' 'The Adventure of the Wax Gamblers' and 'The Adventure of the Highgate Miracle' were written almost entirely by Carr. 'The Adventure of the Black Baronet' and 'The Adventure of the Sealed Room' were written almost entirely by Conan Doyle. The last six stories were conceived and written by Adrian Conan Doyle after John Dickson Carr suffered a brief illness.

The Exploits were inspired by the single desire of pro­ducing stories of the 'old vintage'; of recreating those moments of true delight when the approaching step of a new client tells us that 'the game's afoot,' or when Holmes unravels his solutions to the astonished questioning of his colleagues, as in these celebrated four lines from 'Silver Blaze,' when the inspector asks Holmes:

'Is there any point to which you wish to draw my attention?'

'To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time'

'The dog did nothing in the night-time.'

'That was the curious incident,' remarked Holmes.

—THE PUBLISHERS

THE EXPLOITS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

1

The Adventure of the Seven Clocks

I find recorded in my notebook that it was on the after­noon of Wednesday, the 16th of November, 1887, when the attention of my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes was first drawn to the singular affair of the man who hated clocks.

I have written elsewhere that I had heard only a vague account of this matter, since it occurred shortly after my marriage. Indeed, I have gone so far as to state that my first post-nuptial call on Holmes was in March of the following year. But the case in question was a matter of such extreme delicacy that I trust my readers will forgive its suppression by one whose pen has ever been guided by discretion rather than by sensationalism.

A few weeks following my marriage, then, my wife was obliged to leave London on a matter which concerned Thaddeus Sholto and vitally affected our future fortunes. Finding our new home insupportable without her presence, for eight days I returned to the old rooms in Baker Street. Sherlock Holmes made me welcome without ques­tion or comment. Yet I must confess that the next day, the 16th of November, began inauspiciously.

It was bitter, frosty weather. All morning the yellow-brown fog pressed against the windows. Lamps and gas-jets were burning, as well as a good fire, and their light shone on a breakfast-table uncleared at past midday.

Sherlock Holmes was moody and distraught. Curled up in his arm-chair in the old mouse-coloured dressing- gown and with a cherry-wood pipe in his mouth, he scanned the morning newspapers, now and again utter­ing some derisive comment.

'You find little of interest?' I asked.

'My dear Watson,' said he, 'I begin to fear that life has become one flat and monotonous plain ever since the affair of the notorious Blessington.'

'And yet,' I remonstrated, 'surely this has been a year of memorable cases? You are over-stimulated, my dear fellow.'

' 'Pon my word, Watson, you are scarcely the man to preach on that subject. Last night, after I had ventured to offer you a bottle of Beaune at dinner, you held forth so interminably on the joys of wedlock that I feared you would never have done.'

'My dear fellow! You imply that I was over-stimulated with wine!' My friend regarded me in his singular fashion.

'Not with wine, perhaps,' said he. 'However!' And he indicated the newspapers. 'Have you glanced over the balderdash with which the press have seen fit to regale us!'

'I fear not. This copy of the British Medical Journal—'

'Well, well!' said he. 'Here we find column upon column devoted to next year's racing season. For some reason it seems perpetually to astonish the British public that one horse can run faster than another. Again, for the dozenth time, we have the Nihilists hatching some dark plot against the Grand Duke Alexei at Odessa. One entire leading article is devoted to the doubtless trenchant question, 'Should Shop-Assistants Marry?' '

I forbore to interrupt him, lest his bitterness increase.

'Where is crime, Watson? Where is the weird, where that touch of the outrй without which a problem in itself is as sand and dry grass? Have we lost them forever?'

'Hark!' said I. 'Surely that was the bell?'

'And someone in a hurry, if we may judge from its clamour.'

With one accord we stepped to the window, and looked down into Baker Street. The fog had partly lifted. At the kerb before our door stood a handsome closed car­riage. A top-hatted coachman in livery was just closing the carriage-door, whose panel bore the letter 'M.' From below came the murmur of voices followed by light, quick footsteps on the stairs, and the door of our sitting-room was flung open.

Both of us were surprised, I think, to perceive that our caller was a young lady: a girl, rather, since she could hardly have been as much as eighteen, and seldom in a young face have I seen such beauty and refinement as well as sensitiveness. Her large blue eyes regarded us with agitated appeal. Her abundant auburn hair was confined in a small hat; and over her travelling-dress she wore a dark-red jacket trimmed with strips of astrakhan. In one gloved hand she held a travelling-case with the letters 'C.F.' over some sort of label. Her other hand was pressed to her heart.

'Oh, please, please forgive this intrusion!' she pleaded, in a breathless but low and melodious voice. 'Which of you, I beg, is Mr. Sherlock Holmes?'

My companion inclined his head.

'I am Mr. Holmes. This is my friend and colleague, Dr. Watson.'

'Thank heaven I have found you at home! My er­rand—'

But our visitor could go no further than 'My errand.' She stammered, a deep blush spread up over her face, and she lowered her eyes. Gently Sherlock Holmes took the travelling-case from her hand, and pushed an arm­chair towards the fire.

'Pray be seated, madam, and compose yourself,' said he, laying aside his cherry-wood pipe.

'I thank you, Mr. Holmes,' replied the young lady, shrinking into the chair and giving him a grateful look. 'They say, sir, that you can read the human heart.'

'H'm! For poetry, I fear, you must address yourself to Watson.'

'That you can read the secrets of your clients, and even the—the errands upon which they come, when they have said not a single word!'

'They over-estimate my powers,' he answered, smiling. 'Beyond the obvious facts that you are a lady's companion, that you seldom travel yet have recently returned from a journey to Switzerland, and that your errand here concerns a man who has engaged your affections, I can deduce nothing.'

The young lady gave a violent start, and I myself was taken aback.