The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Part 8 (2/2)
”Then put on your hat and coh the City first, and we can have soood deal of Gerramme, which is rather more to my taste than Italian or French It is introspective, and I want to introspect Coround as far as Aldersgate; and a short walk took us to Saxe-Coburg Square, the scene of the singular story which we had listened to in the enteel place, where four lines of dingy two-storied brick houses looked out into a srass and a few cluainst a silt balls and a brown board with ”JABEZ WILSON” in white letters, upon a corner house, announced the place where our red-headed client carried on his business
Sherlock Holmes stopped in front of it with his head on one side and looked it all over, with his eyes shi+ning brightly between puckered lids Then he walked slowly up the street, and then down again to the corner, still looking keenly at the houses Finally he returned to the pawnbroker's, and, having thuorously upon the pavement with his stick two or three times, he went up to the door and knocked It was instantly opened by a bright-looking, clean-shaven young felloho asked him to step in
”Thank you,” said Holo froht, fourth left,” answered the assistant pro the door
”Smart fellow, that,” observed Hol I am not sure that he has not a clai of him before”
”Evidently,” said I, ”Mr Wilson's assistant counts for a good deal in this ue I aht see him”
”Not him”
”What then?”
”The knees of his trousers”
”And what did you see?”
”What I expected to see”
”Why did you beat the pavement?”
”My dear doctor, this is a time for observation, not for talk We are spies in an ene Square Let us now explore the parts which lie behind it”
The road in which we found ourselves as we turned round the corner froreat a contrast to it as the front of a picture does to the back It was one of the main arteries which conveyed the traffic of the City to the north and west The roadas blocked with the i in a double tide inward and outward, while the footpaths were black with the hurrying swarm of pedestrians It was difficult to realise as we looked at the line of fine shops and stately business premises that they really abutted on the other side upon the faded and stagnant square which we had just quitted
”Letalong the line, ”I should like just to remember the order of the houses here It is a hobby of e of London There is Morti branch of the City and Suburban Bank, the Vegetarian Restaurant, and McFarlane's carriage-building depot That carries us right on to the other block And now, Doctor, we've done our work, so it's time we had some play A sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then off to violin-land, where all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony, and there are no red-headed clients to vex us with their conundru himself not only a very capable performer but a composer of no ordinary merit All the afternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the ers in tiuid, dreamy eyes were as unlike those of Holmes the sleuth-hound, Holent, as it was possible to conceive In his singular character the dual nature alternately asserted itself, and his extreht, the reaction against the poetic and contemplativeof his nature took hiy; and, as I kneell, he was never so truly for in his armchair amid his improvisations and his black-letter editions Then it was that the lust of the chase would suddenly co poould rise to the level of intuition, until those ere unacquainted with his e was not that of other mortals When I saw him that afternoon so enwrapped in the ht be co upon those whoo hoed
”Yes, it would be as well”
”And I have some business to do which will take so Square is serious”
”Why serious?”
”A considerable crime is in contemplation I have every reason to believe that we shall be in ti Saturday rather coht”
”At what tih”
”I shall be at Baker Street at ten”
”Very well And, I say, Doctor, there er, so kindly put your army revolver in your pocket” He waved his hand, turned on his heel, and disappeared in an instant a the crowd