The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes

'Capital, Watson. You improve with the years. What else?'

Inspiration rushed upon me.

'Holmes, the word, 'Mrs.,' in so compressed a message, is totally unnecessary! I think I see it all!'

'Better still, my dear fellow,' said Sherlock Holmes, throwing down his napkin and clapping his hands together without noise. 'I shall be happy to hear your analysis.'

'Mrs. Gloria Cabpleasure, Holmes, is a young bride. Being still in the proud flush of her newly wedded name, she is so insistent upon it that she uses it even in this message. What could be more natural? Especially when we think of a happy, perhaps beautiful young woman—'

'Yes, yes. But be good enough, Watson, to omit the descriptive passages and come to the point.'

'By Jove, I am sure of it!' said I. 'It supports my first modest deduction too. The poor girl is inconsiderate, let us say, merely because she is pampered by an affectionate young husband.'

But my friend shook his head.

'I think not, Watson. If she were in the first strong pride of so-called wedded bliss, she would have signed herself 'Mrs. Henry Cabpleasure,' or 'Mrs. George Cabpleasure,' or whatever the name of her husband chanced to be. But in one respect, at least, you are correct. There is   something  odd—even  disturbing—about  that  word 'Mrs.' She insists upon it too much.'

'My dear fellow!'

Abruptly Holmes rose to his feet and wandered towards his arm-chair. Our gas was lit, and there was a cheery fire against the dark, bleak drizzle which we could hear dripping outside the window.

But he did not sit down. Deep in concentration, his brows knitted, he slowly stretched out his hand towards the right side angle of the chimney-piece. A genuine thrill of emotion shot through my being as he picked up his violin, the old and beloved Stradivarius which, in his moodiness and black humor, he told me he had not touched for weeks.

The light ran along satiny wood as he tucked the violin under his chin and whisked up the bow. None the less, my friend hesitated. He lowered both violin and bow with something like a snarl.

'No, I have not yet enough data,' said he, 'and it is a cardinal error to theorize without data.'

'Then at least,' said I, 'it is a pleasure to think that I have deduced from the telegram as much as you have deduced yourself.'

'Oh, the telegram?' said Holmes, as though he had never heard of it.

'Yes. Is there any point which I have overlooked?'

'Well, Watson, I fear you were wrong in almost every particular. The woman who dispatched that telegram has been married for some years, and is no longer in her first youth. She is of either Scottish or American origin, well educated and well-to-do, but unhappily married and of a domineering disposition. On the other hand, it is probable that she is quite handsome. Though these are only trifling and obvious deductions, perhaps they may do.'

A few moments ago I had hoped to see Sherlock Holmes in such a mood, vigorous and alert, with the old mocking light in his eyes. Yet the bright-patterned china rattled upon the snowy napery as I smote the table a blow with my fist.

'Holmes, this time you have carried a jest too far!'

'My dear Watson, I do really beg your pardon. I had no idea you would take the matter so seri—'

'For shame! In popular esteem, at least, only the vulgar live at Hampstead and Highgate, which are usually pronounced without the aspirate. You may be making sport of some wretched, ill-educated female who is on the point of starving!'

'Hardly, Watson. Though an ill-educated woman might attempt such words as 'irrational' and 'chicanery,' she would be unlikely to spell them correctly. Similarly, since Mrs. Cabpleasure tells us that she suspects false dealing in a matter of diamonds, we may assume she does not scavenge her bread from dustbins.'

'She has been married for some years? And unhappily?'

'We live in an age of propriety, Watson; and I confess I prefer it so.'

'What on earth has that to do with the matter?'

'Only a woman who has been married for years, and hence past her first youth, will so candidly write in a telegram—under the eye of a post-office clerk—her belief that all husbands are irrational. You must perceive some sign of unhappiness, together with a domineering nature? Secondary inference: since the charge of chicanery appears to relate to her husband, this marriage must be even more unhappy than are most.'

'But her origin?'

'Pray re-peruse the last sentence of the telegram. Only a Scot or an American says, 'Will call upon you,' when he, or in this case she, means the 'shall' of simple futurity, which would be used as a matter of course by any Englishwoman educated or uneducated. Are you an­swered?'

'I—I—stay a moment! You stated, not as fancy but as fact, that she must be handsome!'

'Ah, I can say only that it is probable. And the hypothesis comes not from the telegram.'

'Then from where?'

'Come, did I not tell you I believe her to have been a beauty-specialist? Such ladies are seldom actually hideous-looking, else they are no strong advertisement for their own wares. But this, if I mistake not, is our client now.'

While he had been speaking, we heard a loud and decisive ring of the bell from below. There was some delay, during which the caller presumably expected our landlady to escort her formally to our sitting-room. Sher­lock Holmes, putting away the violin and its bow, waited expectantly until Mrs. Gloria Cabpleasure entered the room.

She was certainly handsome—tall, stately, of almost queenly bearing, though perhaps too haughty, with an abundance of rather brassy fair hair and cold, blue eyes. Clad in sables over a costly gown of dark-blue velvet, she wore a beige hat ornamented with a large white bird.

Disdaining my offer to remove her outer coat, while Holmes performed introductions with easy courtesy, Mrs. Cabpleasure cast round one glance which seemed to sum up unfavourably our humble room, with its worn bearskin hearth-rug and acid-stained chemical table. Yet she consented to be seated in my arm-chair, clasping her white- gloved hands in her lap.

'One moment, Mr. Holmes!' said she, politely, but in a hard, brisk voice. 'Before I commit myself to anything, I must ask you to state the fee for your pro­fessional services.'

There was a slight pause before my friend answered.

'My fees never vary, save when I remit them alto­gether.'

'Come, Mr. Holmes, I fear you think to take advantage of a poor weak woman! But in this case it will not do.'

'Indeed, madam?'

'No, sir. Before I employ what you will forgive me for terming a professional spy, and risk being overcharged, I must again ask you to state your exact fee.'

Sherlock Holmes rose from his chair.

'I am afraid, Mrs. Cabpleasure,' said he, smiling, 'that such small talents as I possess might be unavailing to assist you in your problem, and I regret exceedingly that you have been troubled by this call. Good-day, madam. Watson, will you kindly escort our guest downstairs?'

'Stop!' cried Mrs. Cabpleasure, biting hard at her handsome lip.

Holmes shrugged his shoulders and sank back again into the easy-chair.

'You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Holmes. But it would be worth ten shillings or even a guinea to know why on earth my husband cherishes, worships, idolizes that pesti­lent shabby umbrella, and will never allow it away from his presence even at night!'

Whatever Holmes might have felt, it was gone in his sense of starvation for a fresh problem.

'Ah! Then your husband worships the umbrella in a literal sense?'

'Did I not say so?'

'No doubt the umbrella has some great financial or sentimental value?'

'Stuff and nonsense! I was with him when he bought it two and a half years ago. He paid seven-and-six- pence for it at a shop in the Tottenham Court Road.'

'Yet perhaps some idiosyncrasy—?'