The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes Part 14 (1/2)
”Well, at least I have got their identity This so-called Blessington is, as I expected, well known at headquarters, and so are his assailants Their nadon bank gang,” cried the inspector
”Precisely,” said Holton must have been Sutton”
”Exactly,” said Holmes
”Why, that makes it as clear as crystal,” said the inspector
But Trevelyan and I looked at each other in bewilderdon bank business,” said Holmes ”Five ht Tobin, the care-taker, was ot aith seven thousand pounds This was in 1875 They were all five arrested, but the evidence against theton or Sutton, as the worst of the gang, turned infored and the other three got fifteen years apiece When they got out the other day, which was some years before their full term, they set themselves, as you perceive, to hunt down the traitor and to avenge the death of their coet at him and failed; a third ti further which I can explain, Dr Trevelyan?”
”I think you have made it all remarkable clear,” said the doctor ”No doubt the day on which he was perturbed was the day when he had seen of their release in the newspapers”
”Quite so His talk about a burglary was the merest blind”
”But why could he not tell you this?”
”Well,the vindictive character of his old associates, he was trying to hide his own identity fro as he could His secret was a shae it However, wretch as he was, he was still living under the shi+eld of British law, and I have no doubt, Inspector, that you will see that, though that shi+eld uard, the sword of justice is still there to avenge”
Such were the singular circumstances in connection with the Resident Patient and the Brook Street Doctor Fro has been seen of the three murderers by the police, and it is surers of the ill-fated steao with all hands upon the Portuguese coast, soainst the page broke down for want of evidence, and the Brook Street Mystery, as it was called, has never until now been fully dealt with in any public print
Adventure IX
The Greek Interpreter
Duringand intimate acquaintance with Mr Sherlock Holmes I had never heard him refer to his relations, and hardly ever to his own early life This reticence upon his part had increased the somewhat inhuman effect which he produced uponhim as an isolated phenomenon, a brain without a heart, as deficient in huence His aversion to women and his disinclination to form new friendshi+ps were both typical of his unemotional character, but not more so than his complete suppression of every reference to his own people I had co, but one day, to an to talk to me about his brother
It was after tea on a su, and the conversation, which had roaolf clubs to the causes of the change in the obliquity of the ecliptic, came round at last to the question of atavism and hereditary aptitudes The point under discussion was, how far any singular gift in an individual was due to his ancestry and how far to his own early training
”In your own case,” said I, ”from all that you have told me, it seems obvious that your faculty of observation and your peculiar facility for deduction are due to your own systehtfully ”My ancestors were country squires, who appear to have led much the same life as is natural to their class But, none the less, randmother, as the sister of Vernet, the French artist Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms”
”But how do you know that it is hereditary?”
”Because ree than I do”
This was news to ular powers in England, hoas it that neither police nor public had heard of him? I put the question, with a hint that it was e his brother as his superior Holestion
”My dear Watson,” said he, ”I cannot agree with those who rank s should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestierate one's oers When I say, therefore, that Mycroft has better powers of observation than I, youthe exact and literal truth”
”Is he your junior?”
”Seven years my senior”
”How comes it that he is unknown?”
”Oh, he is very well known in his own circle”
”Where, then?”
”Well, in the Diogenes Club, for example”
I had never heard of the institution, and my face must have proclaimed as much, for Sherlock Holenes Club is the queerest club in London, and Mycroft one of the queerest ht It's six now, so if you care for a stroll this beautiful evening I shall be very happy to introduce you to two curiosities”
Five ent's Circus
”You wonder,” said my companion, ”why it is that Mycroft does not use his powers for detective work He is incapable of it”
”But I thought you said--”
”I said that he was my superior in observation and deduction If the art of the detective began and ended in reasoning froent that ever lived But he has no ao out of his way to verify his own solutions, and would rather be considered wrong than take the trouble to prove hiain I have taken a problem to him, and have received an explanation which has afterwards proved to be the correct one And yet he was absolutely incapable of working out the practical points which e or jury”
”It is not his profession, then?”
”By no means What is to me a means of livelihood is to him the merest hobby of a dilettante He has an extraordinary faculty for figures, and audits the books in soes in Pall Mall, and he walks round the corner into Whitehall everyFrom year's end to year's end he takes no other exercise, and is seen nowhere else, except only in the Diogenes Club, which is just opposite his rooms”
”I cannot recall the name”
”Very likely not There are many men in London, you knoho, some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellows Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest periodicals It is for the convenience of these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the most unsociable and unclubable men in town No member is permitted to take the least notice of any other one Save in the Stranger's Roo is, under any circuht to the notice of the committee, render the talker liable to expulsion My brother was one of the founders, and I haveatmosphere”
We had reached Pall Mall as we talked, and alking down it from the St James's end Sherlock Holmes stopped at a door so lass paneling I caught a glie and luxurious roo about and reading papers, each in his own little nook Holmes showed me into a small cha me for a minute, he came back with a companion whom I knew could only be his brother
Mycroft Holer and stouter man than Sherlock His body was absolutely corpulent, but his face, thoughof the sharpness of expression which was so remarkable in that of his brother His eyes, which were of a peculiarly light, watery gray, seemed to always retain that far-away, introspective look which I had only observed in Sherlock's when he was exerting his full powers
”I a out a broad, fat hand like the flipper of a seal ”I hear of Sherlock everywhere since you became his chronicler By the way, Sherlock, I expected to see you round last week, to consult ht be a little out of your depth”
”No, I solved it,” said
”It was Adams, of course”
”Yes, it was Adams”
”I was sure of it froether in the bo of the club ”To any one ishes to study nificent types! Look at these twotowards us, for example”
”The billiard-marker and the other?”