The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes

or eight turns, but it still is not wound!'

'Precisely so,' returned Holmes, 'but I do not em­phasize this particular watch. Any watch, if it be wound up at ten o'clock in the evening, cannot possibly be fully wound on the following morning with only two turns.'

'My God!' muttered the doctor, staring at Holmes.

'Hence the late Mr. Trelawney did not go to bed at ten o'clock. Surely, considering his badly disturbed nerves and the continued thunder-storm, it is far more likely that he sat up reading his Bible until an unearthly hour, as the vicar said he sometimes did. Though he wound up his watch as usual, he did not retire until three o'clock. The murderer caught him in a heavy sleep.'

'And therefore?' almost screamed Dolores.

'Therefore—since one person tells  us he saw Trelawney asleep at ten-thirty, at midnight, and again at one o'clock—that person has told us a provable and damning falsehood.'

'Holmes,' cried I, 'at last I see the direction in which all this points. The culprit is—'

Jeffrey Ainsworth sprang for the door.

'Ah, would you!' shouted Lestrade. He hurled himself on the young man, and there was a snap of closing handcuffs.

Miss Dolores Dale ran sobbing forward. She did not run towards Ainsworth. Instead she rushed into the outstretched arms of Dr. Paul Griffin.

'You see, Watson,' concluded Mr. Sherlock Holmes, as that night we sat once more in Baker Street, refresh­ ing ourselves with whisky and soda, 'the probable guilt of young Ainsworth, who fervently desired to marry the young lady for her money, was at least indicated without even the evidence of the watch.'

'Surely not!' I objected.

'My dear fellow, consider Trelawney's will.'

'Then, after all, Trelawney did not make that unjust will?'

'Indeed, he did. He let it be known that such was his intention and he carried out that intention. But there was only one person who was aware of the final outcome; namely, that he never actually signed it.'

'You mean Trelawney himself?'

'I mean Ainsworth, the solicitor who drew the will. He has admitted as much in his confession.'

Holmes leaned back in his chair and placed his finger­tips together.

'Chloroform is easily obtainable, as the British public knows from the Bartlett case. In such a small community, a friend of the family, like Ainsworth, would have easy access to the medical works in the vicar's library. He evolved rather a clever plan at his leisure. In my little analysis last night, I should have been less confident had not examination of the dead man's face with a lens revealed jury-proof evidence in the form of minute burns and traces of vaseline in the skin-pores.'

'But Miss Dale and Dr. Griffin!'

'Their conduct puzzled you?'

'Well, women are strange.'

'My dear Watson, when I hear of a young woman, all fire and temperament, who is thrown into the company of a man of exactly similar characteristics—in sharp con­trast to a cold-minded solicitor who watches her carefully —my suspicions are aroused, especially when she ex­presses unprovoked dislike on all public occasions.'

'Then why did she not simply break her engagement!'

'You overlook the fact that her uncle always upbraided her for fickleness. Had she revoked her pledge, she would have lost dignity in her own eyes. But why on earth, Watson, are you chuckling now?'

'Merely a sense of incongruity. I was thinking of the singular name of that village in Somerset.'

'The village of Camberwell?' said Holmes, smiling. 'Yes, it is indeed different from our London district of Camberwell. You must give the chronicle a different title, Watson, lest readers be confused as to the true locale of the Camberwell poisoning case.'

----:----

The year '87 furnished us with a long series of cases of greater or less interest, of which I retain the records. Among my headings under this one twelve months I find . . . the Camberwell poisoning case.

FROM 'THE FIVE ORANGE PIPS.'

3

The Adventure of the Wax Gamblers

When my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes sprained his ankle, irony followed upon irony. Within a matter of hours he was presented with a problem whose singular nature seemed to make imperative a visit to that sinister, underground room so well known to the public.

My friend's accident had been an unlucky one. Purely for the sport of it, he had consented to an impromptu glove-match with Bully Boy Rasher, the well-known pro­fessional middle-weight, at the old Cribb Sporting Club in Panton Street. To the amazement of the spectators, Holmes knocked out the Bully Boy before the latter could settle down to a long, hard mill.

Having broken Rasher's hanging guard and survived his right hand, my friend was leaving the sparring-saloon when he tripped on those ill-lighted, rickety stairs which I trust the Honorary Secretary of the club has since caused to be mended.

The intelligence of this mishap reached me as my wife and I finished our midday meal one cold season of rain and screaming winds. Though I have not my note-book at hand, I believe it was the first week in March, 1890. Uttering an exclamation as I read the telegram from Mrs. Hudson, I handed the message to my wife.

'You must go at once and see to the comfort of Mr. Sherlock Holmes for a day or two,' said she. 'Anstruther will always do your work for you.'

Since at that time my house was in the Paddington area, it took me no great time to be in Baker Street.

Holmes was, as I expected, seated upon the sofa with his back to the wall, wearing a purple dressing-gown and with his bandaged right ankle upon a heap of cushions. A low-power microscope stood on a small table at his left hand, while on the sofa at his right lay a perfect drift of discarded newspapers.

Despite the weary, heavy-lidded expression which veiled his keen and eager nature, I could see that the misfortune had not sweetened his temper. Since Mrs. Hudson's telegram had mentioned only a fall on some stairs, I asked for an explanation and received that with which I have prefaced this chronicle.

'I was proud of myself, Watson,' he added bitterly, 'and careless of my step. The more fool I!'

'Yet surely some modest degree of pride was per­missible! The Bully Boy is no mean opponent.'

'On the contrary, I found him much overrated and half drunk. But I see, Watson, that you yourself are troubled about your health.'

'Good heavens, Holmes! It is true that I suspect the advent of a cold. But, since there is as yet no sign in my appearance or voice, it is astonishing that you can have known it!'

'Astonishing? It is elementary. You have been taking your own pulse. A minute trace of the silver nitrate upon your right forefinger has been transferred to a significant spot on your left wrist. But what on earth are you doing now?'

Heedless of his protests, I examined and re-bandaged his ankle.

'And yet, my dear fellow,' I went on, endeavouring to raise his spirits as I might cheer any patient, 'in one sense it gives me great pleasure to see you thus in­capacitated.'

Holmes looked at me fixedly, but did not speak.

'Yes,' said I, continuing to cheer him, 'we must curb our impatience while we are confined to our sofa for a fortnight or perhaps more. But do not misunderstand me. When last summer I had the privilege of meeting your brother,  Mycroft,  you  stated  that he was  your superior in observation and deduction.'

'I spoke the truth. If the art of detection began and ended in reasoning from an arm-chair, my brother would be the greatest criminal agent that ever lived.'

'A proposition which I take the liberty of doubting. Now behold! Here are you enforced to the seated position. It will delight me to see you demonstrate your superiority when you are presented with some case—'

'Case? I have no case!'

'Be of good cheer. A case will come.'

'The agony column of The Times,' said he, nodding towards the drift of newspapers, 'is quite featureless. And even the joys of studying a new disease germ are not inexhaustible. As between you and another comforter,