Cynthia Manson (ed) (5 page)

“Which surely he restored to their
owner?”

“My dear fellow, there lies the
problem. It is true that ‘For Mrs. Henry Baker’ was printed upon a small card
which was tied to the bird’s left leg, and it is also true that the initials
‘H. B.‘ are legible upon the lining of this hat; but as there are some
thousands of Bakers, and some hundreds of Henry Bakers in this city of ours, it
is not easy to restore lost property to any of them.”

“What, then, did Peterson do?”

“He brought round both hat and goose
to me on Christmas morning, knowing that even the smallest problems are of
interest to me. The goose we retained until this morning, when there were signs
that, in spite of the slight frost, it would be well that it should be eaten
without unnecessary delay. Its finder has carried it off, therefore, to fulfil
the ultimate destiny of a goose, while I continue to retain the hat of the
unknown gentleman who lost his Christmas dinner.”

“Did he not advertise?”

“No.”

“Then, what clue could you have as
to his identity?”

“Only as much as we can deduce.”

“From his hat?”

“Precisely.”

“But you are joking. What can you
gather from this old battered felt?”

“Here is my lens. You know my
methods. What can you gather yourself as to the individuality of the man who
has worn this article?”

I took the tattered object in my
hands and turned it over rather ruefully. It was a very ordinary black hat of
the usual round shape, hard and much the worse for wear. The lining had been of
red silk, but was a good deal discoloured. There was no maker’s name; but. as
Holmes had remarked, the initials “H. B.” were scrawled upon one side. It was
pierced in the brim for a hat-securer, but the elastic was missing. For the
rest, it was cracked, exceedingly dusty, and spotted in several places,
although there seemed to have been some attempt to hide the discoloured patches
by smearing them with ink.

“I can see nothing,” said I, handing
it back to my friend.

“On the contrary, Watson, you can
see everything. You fail, however, to reason from what you see. You are too
timid in drawing your inferences.”

“Then, pray tell me what it is that
you can infer from this hat?”

He picked it up and gazed at it in
the peculiar introspective fashion which was characteristic of him. “It is
perhaps less suggestive than it might have been,” he remarked, “and yet there
are a few inferences which are very distinct, and a few others which represent
at least a strong balance of probability. That the man was highly intellectual
is of course obvious upon the face of it, and also that he was fairly
well-to-do within the last three years, although he has now fallen upon evil
days. He had foresight, but has less now than formerly, pointing to a moral
retrogression, which, when taken with the decline of his fortunes, seems to
indicate some evil influence, probably drink, at work upon him. This may
account also for the obvious fact that his wife has ceased to love him.”

“My dear Holmes!”

“He has, however, retained some
degree of self-respect,” he continued, disregarding my remonstrance. “He is a
man who leads a sedentary life, goes out little, is out of training entirely,
is middle-aged, has grizzled hair which he has had cut within the last few
days, and which he anoints with lime-cream. These are the more patent facts
which are to be deduced from his hat. Also, by the way, that it is extremely
improbable that he has gas laid on in his house.”

“You are certainly joking. Holmes.”

“Not in the least. Is it possible
that even now, when I give you these results, you are unable to see how they
are attained?”

“I have no doubt that I am very
stupid, but I must confess that I am unable to follow you. For example, how did
you deduce that this man was intellectual?”

For answer Holmes clapped the hat
upon his head. It came right over the forehead and settled upon the bridge of
his nose. “It is a question of cubic capacity,” said he; “a man with so large a
brain must have something in it.”

“The decline of his fortunes, then?”

“This hat is three years old. These
flat brims curled at the edge came in then. It is a hat of the very best
quality. Look at the band of ribbed silk and the excellent lining. If this man
could afford to buy so expensive a hat three years ago, and has had no hat
since, then he has assuredly gone down in the world.”

“Well, that is clear enough,
certainly. But how about the foresight and the moral retrogression?”

Sherlock Holmes laughed. “Here is
the foresight,” said he. putting his finger upon the little disc and loop of
the hat-securer. “They are never sold upon hats. If this man ordered one. it is
a sign of a certain amount of foresight, since he went out of his way to take
this precaution against the wind. But since we see that he has broken the
elastic and has not troubled to replace it. it is obvious that he has less
foresight now than formerly, which is a distinct proof of a weakening nature.
On the other hand, he has endeavored to conceal some of these stains upon the
felt by daubing them with ink, which is a sign that he has not entirely lost
his self-respect.”

“Your reasoning is certainly
plausible.”

“The further points, that he is
middle-aged, that his hair is grizzled, that it has been recently cut, and that
he uses lime-cream, are all to be gathered from a close examination of the
lower part of the lining. The lens discloses a large number of hair-ends, clean
cut by the scissors of the barber. They all appear to be adhesive, and there is
a distinct odour of lime-cream. This dust, you will observe, is not the gritty,
gray dust of the street but the fluffy brown dust of the house, showing that it
has been hung up indoors most of the time; while the marks of moisture upon the
inside are proof positive that the wearer perspired very freely, and could
therefore, hardly be in the best of training.”

“But his wife—you said that she had
ceased to love him.”

“This hat has not been brushed for
weeks. When I see you, my dear Watson, with a week’s accumulation of dust upon your
hat, and when your wife allows you to go out in such a state, I shall fear that
you also have been unfortunate enough to lose your wife’s affection.”

“But he might be a bachelor.”

“Nay, he was bringing home the goose
as a peace-offering to his wife. Remember the card upon the bird’s leg.”

“You have an answer to everything.
But how on earth do you deduce that the gas is not laid on in his house?”

“One tallow stain, or even two,
might come by chance; but when I see no less than five. I think that there can
be little doubt that the individual must be brought into frequent contact with
burning tallow—walks upstairs at night probably with his hat in one hand and a
guttering candle in the other. Anyhow, he never got tallow-stains from a
gas-jet. Are you satisfied?”

“Well, it is very ingenious,” said
I, laughing; “but since, as you said just now. there has been no crime
committed, and no harm done save the loss of a goose, all this seems to be
rather a waste of energy.”

Sherlock Holmes had opened his mouth
to reply, when the door flew open, and Peterson, the commissionaire, rushed
into the apartment with flushed cheeks and the face of a man who is dazed with
astonishment.

“The goose, Mr. Holmes! The goose,
sir!” he gasped.

“Eh? What of it, then? Has it
returned to life and flapped off through the kitchen window?” Holmes twisted
himself round upon the sofa to get a fairer view of the man’s excited face.

“See here, sir! See what my wife
found in its crop!” He held out his hand and displayed upon the center of the palm
a brilliantly scintillating blue stone, rather smaller than a bean in size, but
of such purity and radiance that it twinkled like an electric point in the dark
hollow of his hand.

Sherlock Holmes sat up with a
whistle. “By Jove, Peterson!” said he, “this is treasure trove indeed. I
suppose you know what you have got?”

“A diamond, sir? A precious stone.
It cuts into glass as though it were putty.”

“It’s more than a precious stone. It
is
the
precious stone.”

“Not the Countess of Morcar’s blue
carbuncle!” I ejaculated.

“Precisely so. I ought to know its
size and shape, seeing that I have read the advertisement about it in
The
Times
every day lately. It is absolutely unique, and its value can only be
conjectured, but the reward offered of one thousand pounds is certainly not
within a twentieth part of the market price.”

“A thousand pounds! Great Lord of
mercy!” The commissionaire plumped down into a chair and stared from one to the
other of us.

“That is the reward, and I have
reason to know that there are sentimental considerations in the background
which would induce the Countess to part with half her fortune if she could but
recover the gem.”

“It was lost, if I remember aright,
at the Hotel Cosmopolitan,” I remarked.

“Precisely so, on December 22nd,
just five days ago. John Horner, a plumber, was accused of having abstracted it
from the lady’s jewel-case. The evidence against him was so strong that the
case has been referred to the Assizes. I have some account of the matter here,
I believe.” He rummaged amid his newspapers, glancing over the dates, until at
last he smoothed one out, doubled it over, and read the following paragraph:

“Hotel Cosmopolitan Jewel Robbery.
John Horner, 26, plumber, was brought up upon the charge of having upon the 22d
inst., abstracted from the jewel-case of the Countess of Morcar the valuable
gem known as the blue carbuncle. James Ryder, upper-attendant at the hotel,
gave his evidence to the effect that he had shown Horner up to the
dressing-room of the Countess of Morcar upon the day of the robbery in order
that he might solder the second bar of the grate, which was loose. He had
remained with Horner some little time, but had finally been called away. On
returning, he found that Horner had disappeared, that the bureau had been forced
open, and that the small morocco casket in which, as it afterwards transpired,
the Countess was accustomed to keep her jewel, was lying empty upon the
dressing-table. Ryder instantly gave the alarm, and Horner was arrested the
same evening; but the stone could not be found either upon his person or in his
rooms. Catherine Cusack, maid to the Countess, deposed to having heard Ryder’s
cry of dismay on discovering the robbery, and to having rushed into the room,
where she found matters as described by the last witness. Inspector Bradstreet,
B division, gave evidence as to the arrest of Horner, who struggled
frantically, and protested his innocence in the strongest terms. Evidence of a
previous conviction for robbery having been given against the prisoner, the
magistrate refused to deal summarily with the offence, but referred it to the
Assizes. Horner, who had shown signs of intense emotion during the proceedings,
fainted away at the conclusion and was carried out of the court.

“Hum! So much for the police-court.”
said Holmes thoughtfully, tossing aside the paper. “The question for us now to
solve is the sequence of events leading from a rifled jewel-case at one end to
the crop of a goose in Tottenham Court Road at the other. You see. Watson, our
little deductions have suddenly assumed a much more important and less innocent
aspect. Here is the stone; the stone came from the goose, and the goose came
from Mr. Henry Baker, the gentleman with the bad hat and all the other
characteristics with which I have bored you. So now we must set ourselves very
seriously to finding this gentleman and ascertaining what part he has played in
this little mystery. To do this, we must try the simplest means first, and
these lie undoubtedly in an advertisement in all the evening papers. If this
fails. I shall have recourse to other methods.”

“What will you say?”

“Give me a pencil and that slip of
paper. Now, then:

“Found at the corner of Goodge
Street, a goose and a black felt hat. Mr. Henry Baker can have the same by
applying at 6: 30 this evening at 22IB Baker Street.

That is clear and concise.”

“Very. But will he see it?”

“Well, he is sure to keep an eye on
the papers, since, to a poor man, the loss was a heavy one. He was clearly so
scared by his mischance in breaking the window and by the approach of Peterson
that he thought of nothing but flight, but since then he must have bitterly
regretted the impulse which caused him to drop his bird. Then, again, the
introduction of his name will cause him to see it, for everyone who knows him
will direct his attention to it. Here you are, Peterson, run down to the
advertising agency and have this put in the evening papers.”

“In which, sir?”

“Oh, in the
Globe, Star, Pall
Mall, St. James’s, Evening News Standard, Echo
, and any others that occur
to you.”

“Very well, sir. And this stone?”

“Ah, yes, I shall keep the stone.
Thank you. And, I say, Peterson, just buy a goose on your way back and leave it
here with me, for we must have one to give to this gentleman in place of the
one which your family is now devouring.”