The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes (2 page)

November, 1887, when the attention of my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes was first drawn to

the singular affair of the man who hated clocks.

I have written elsewhere that I had heard only a vague account of this matter, since it

occurred shortly after my marriage. Indeed, I have gone so far as to state that my first post-

nuptial call on Holmes was in March of the following year. But the case in question was a

matter of such extreme delicacy that I trust my readers will forgive its suppression by one

whose pen has ever been guided by discretion rather than by sensationalism.

A few weeks following my marriage, then, my wife was obliged to leave London on a matter

which concerned Thaddeus Sholto and vitally affected our future fortunes. Finding our new

home insupportable without her presence, for eight days I returned to the old rooms in Baker

Street. Sherlock Holmes made me welcome without question or comment. Yet I must confess

that the next day, the 16th of November, began inauspiciously.

It was bitter, frosty weather. All morning the yellow-brown fog pressed against the

windows. Lamps and gas-jets were burning, as well as a good fire, and their light shone on a

breakfast-table uncleared at past midday.

Sherlock Holmes was moody and distraught. Curled up in his arm-chair in the old mouse-

coloured dressing-gown and with a cherry-wood pipe in his mouth, he scanned the

morning newspapers, now and again uttering some derisive comment.

"You find little of interest?" I asked.

"My dear Watson," said he, "I begin to fear that life has become one flat and

monotonous plain ever since the affair of the notorious Blessington."

"And yet," I remonstrated, "surely this has been a year of memorable cases? You are over-

stimulated, my dear fellow."

" 'Pon my word, Watson, you are scarcely the man to preach on that subject. Last night, after

I had ventured to offer you a bottle of Beaune at dinner, you held forth so interminably on the

joys of wedlock that I feared you would never have done."

"My dear fellow! You imply that I was over-stimulated with wine!" My friend regarded me in

his singular fashion.

"Not with wine, perhaps," said he. "However!" And he indicated the newspapers. "Have you

glanced over the balderdash with which the press have seen fit to regale us!"

"I fear not. This copy of the
British Medical Journal
—"

"Well, well!" said he. "Here we find column upon column devoted to next year's racing

season. For some reason it seems perpetually to astonish the British public that one horse can

run faster than another. Again, for the dozenth time, we have the Nihilists hatching some

dark plot against the Grand Duke Alexei at Odessa. One entire leading article is devoted to the

doubtless trenchant question, 'Should Shop-Assistants Marry?' "

I forbore to interrupt him, lest his bitterness increase.

"Where is crime, Watson? Where is the
weird,
where that touch of the
outré
without which

a problem in itself is as sand and dry grass? Have we lost them forever?"

"Hark!" said I. "Surely that was the bell?"

"And someone in a hurry, if we may judge from its clamour."

With one accord we stepped to the window, and looked down into Baker Street. The fog

had partly lifted. At the kerb before our door stood a handsome closed carriage. A top-

hatted coachman in livery was just closing the carriage-door, whose panel bore the letter

"M." From below came the murmur of voices followed by light, quick footsteps on the stairs,

and the door of our sitting-room was flung open.

Both of us were surprised, I think, to perceive that our caller was a young lady: a girl, rather,

since she could hardly have been as much as eighteen, and seldom in a young face have I

seen such beauty and refinement as well as sensitiveness. Her large blue eyes regarded us

with agitated appeal. Her abundant auburn hair was confined in a small hat; and over her

travelling-dress she wore a dark-red jacket trimmed with strips of astrakhan. In one gloved

hand she held a travelling-case with the letters "C.F." over some sort of label. Her other

hand was pressed to her heart.

"Oh, please, please forgive this intrusion!" she pleaded, in a breathless but low and

melodious voice. "Which of you, I beg, is Mr. Sherlock Holmes?"

My companion inclined his head.

"I am Mr. Holmes. This is my friend and colleague, Dr. Watson."

"Thank heaven I have found you at home! My errand—"

But our visitor could go no further than "My errand." She stammered, a deep blush spread

up over her face, and she lowered her eyes. Gently Sherlock Holmes took the travelling-case

from her hand, and pushed an armchair towards the fire.

"Pray be seated, madam, and compose yourself," said he, laying aside his cherry-wood pipe.

"I thank you, Mr. Holmes," replied the young lady, shrinking into the chair and giving him a

grateful look. "They say, sir, that you can read the human heart."

"H'm! For poetry, I fear, you must address yourself to Watson."

"That you can read the secrets of your clients, and even the—the errands upon which

they come, when they have said not a single word!"

"They over-estimate my powers," he answered, smiling. "Beyond the obvious facts that

you are a lady's companion, that you seldom travel yet have recently returned from a journey

to Switzerland, and that your errand here concerns a man who has engaged your affections, I

can deduce nothing."

The young lady gave a violent start, and I myself was taken aback.

"Holmes," cried I, "this is too much. How could you possibly know this?"

"How, indeed?" echoed the young lady.

"I see it, I observe it. The travelling-case, though far from new, is neither worn nor

battered by travel. Yet I need not insult your intelligence by calling attention to the paper

label of the Hotel Splendide, at Grindelwald in Switzerland, which has been affixed with gum to

the side of the case."

"But the other point?" I insisted.

"The lady's attire, though in impeccable taste, is neither new nor costly. Yet she has stayed at

the best hotel in Grindelwald, and she arrives in a carriage of the well-to-do. Since her own

initials, 'C.F.,' do not match the 'M.' on the carriage-panel, we may assume her to occupy a

position of equality in some well-to-do family. Her youth precludes the position of governess,

and we are left with a lady's companion. As for the man who has engaged her affections, her

blushes and lowered eyelids proclaim as much. Absurd, is it not?"

"But it is true, Mr. Holmes!" cried our visitor, clasping her hands together in even deeper

agitation. "My name is Celia Forsythe, and for over a year I have been companion to Lady

Mayo, of Groxton Low Hall, in Surrey. Charles—"

"Charles? That is the name of the gentleman in question?"

Miss Forsythe nodded her head without looking up.

"If I hesitate to speak of him," she continued, "it is because I fear you may laugh at me. I

fear you may think me mad; or, worse still, that poor Charles himself is mad."

"And why should I think so, Miss Forsythe?"

"Mr. Holmes, he cannot endure the sight of a clock!"

"Of a clock?"

"In the past fortnight, sir, and for no explicable reason, he has destroyed seven clocks. Two

of them he smashed in public, and before my own eyes!"

Sherlock Holmes rubbed his long, thin fingers together.

"Come," said he, "this is most satis—most curious. Pray continue your narrative."

"I despair of doing so, Mr. Holmes. Yet I will try. For the past year I have been very

happy in the employ of Lady Mayo. I must tell you that both my parents are dead, but I

received a good education and such references as I could obtain were fortunately satisfactory.

Lady Mayo, I must acknowledge, is of somewhat forbidding appearance. She is of the old

school, stately and austere. Yet to me she has been kindness itself. In fact, it was she who

suggested that we take the holiday in Switzerland, fearing that the isolation of Groxton Low

Hall might depress my spirits. In the train between Paris and Grindelwald we met—met

Charles. I should say Mr. Charles Hendon."

Holmes had relapsed into the arm-chair, putting his finger-tips together as was his wont

when he was in a judicial mood.

"Then this was the first time you had met the gentleman?" he asked.

"Oh, yes!"

"I see. And how did the acquaintanceship come about?"

"A trifling matter, Mr. Holmes. We three were alone in a first-class carriage. Charles's

manners are so beautiful, his voice so fine, his smile so captivating—"

"No doubt. But pray be precise as to details."

Miss Forsythe opened wide her large blue eyes.

"I believe it was the window," said she. "Charles (I may tell you that he has remarkable

eyes and a heavy brown moustache) bowed and requested Lady Mayo's permission to lower

the window. She assented, and in a few moments they were chatting together like old friends."

"H'm! I see."

"Lady Mayo, in turn, presented me to Charles. The journey to Grindelwald passed quickly

and happily. And yet, no sooner had we entered the foyer of the Hotel Splendide, than

there occurred the first of the horrible shocks which have since made my life wretched.

"Despite its name, the hotel proved to be rather small and charming. Even then, I knew Mr.

Hendon for a man of some importance, though he had described himself modestly as a single

gentleman travelling with only one manservant. The manager of the hotel, M. Branger,

approached and bowed deeply both to Lady Mayo and to Mr. Hendon. With M. Branger he

exchanged some words in a low voice and the manager bowed deeply again. Whereupon

Charles turned round, smiling, and then quite suddenly his whole demeanour altered.

"I can still see him standing there, in his long coat and top hat, with a heavy malacca

walking-stick under his arm. His back was turned towards an ornamental half-circle of ferns

and evergreens surrounding a fireplace with a low mantelshelf on which stood a Swiss clock of

exquisite design.

"Up to this time I had not even observed the clock. But Charles, uttering a stifled cry,

rushed towards the fireplace. Lifting the heavy walking-stick, he brought it crashing down on

the hood of the clock, and rained blow after blow until the clock fell in tinkling ruins on

the hearth.

"Then he turned round and walked slowly back. Without a word of explanation he took

out a pocketbook, gave to M. Branger a bank-note which would ten times over have paid for

the clock, and began lightly to speak of other matters.

"You may well imagine, Mr. Holmes, that we stood as though stunned. My impression

was that Lady Mayo, for all her dignity, was frightened. Yet I swear Charles had not

been frightened; he had been merely furious and determined. At this point I caught sight

of Charles's manservant, who was standing in the background amid luggage. He is a

small, spare man with mutton-chop whiskers; and upon his face there was an expression only

of embarrassment and, though it hurts me to breathe the word, of deep shame.

"No word was spoken at the time, and the incident was forgotten. For two days Charles was

his usual serene self. On the third morning, when we met him in the dining-room for breakfast,

it happened again.

"The windows of the dining-room had their heavy curtains partly drawn against the dazzle of

sun on the first snow. The room was fairly well filled with other guests taking breakfast. Only

then did I remark that Charles, who had just returned from a morning walk, still carried the

malacca stick in his hand.

" 'Breathe this air, madame!' he was saying gaily to Lady Mayo. 'You will find it as

invigorating as any food or drink!'

"At this he paused, and glanced towards one of the windows. Plunging past us, he struck

heavily at the curtain and then tore it aside to disclose the ruins of a large clock shaped like a

smiling sun-face. I think I should have fainted if Lady Mayo had not grasped my arm."

Miss Forsythe, who had removed her gloves, now pressed her hands against her cheeks.

"But not only does Charles smash clocks," she went on. "He buries them in the snow, and

even hides them in the cupboard of his own room."

Sherlock Holmes had been leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, and his head sunk

into a cushion, but he now half opened his lids.

"In the cupboard?" exclaimed he, frowning. "This is even more singular! How did you

become aware of the circumstance?"

"To my shame, Mr. Holmes, I was reduced to questioning his servant."

"To your shame?"

"I had no right to do so. In my humble position, Charles would never—that is, I could

mean nothing to him! I had no right!"

"You had every right, Miss Forsythe," answered Holmes kindly. "Then you questioned the

servant, whom you describe as a small, spare man with muttonchop whiskers. His name?"

"His name is Trepley, I believe. More than once I have heard Charles address him as

'Trep." And I vow, Mr. Holmes, he is the faithfullest creature alive. Even the sight of his

dogged English face was a comfort to me. He knew, he felt, he sensed my—my interest, and he