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DarqueDante
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test2

Dataset card Data Studio Files
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"Yes. He waved his hands."
"But it might have been a cry of surprise. Astonishment at the
unexpected sight of you might cause him to throw up his hands?"
"It is possible."
"And you thought he was pulled back?"
"He disappeared so suddenly."
"He might have leaped back. You did not see anyone else in the room?"
"No, but this horrible man confessed to having been there, and the
Lascar was at the foot of the stairs."
"Quite so. Your husband, as far as you could see, had his ordinary
clothes on?"
"But without his collar or tie. I distinctly saw his bare throat."
"Had he ever spoken of Swandam Lane?"
"Never."
"Had he ever showed any signs of having taken opium?"
"Never."
"Thank you, Mrs. St. Clair. Those are the principal points about
which I wished to be absolutely clear. We shall now have a little
supper and then retire, for we may have a very busy day to-morrow."
A large and comfortable double-bedded room had been placed at our
disposal, and I was quickly between the sheets, for I was weary after
my night of adventure. Sherlock Holmes was a man, however, who, when
he had an unsolved problem upon his mind, would go for days, and even
for a week, without rest, turning it over, rearranging his facts,
looking at it from every point of view until he had either fathomed
it or convinced himself that his data were insufficient. It was soon
evident to me that he was now preparing for an all-night sitting. He
took off his coat and waistcoat, put on a large blue dressing-gown,
and then wandered about the room collecting pillows from his bed and
cushions from the sofa and armchairs. With these he constructed a
sort of Eastern divan, upon which he perched himself cross-legged,
with an ounce of shag tobacco and a box of matches laid out in front
of him. In the dim light of the lamp I saw him sitting there, an old
briar pipe between his lips, his eyes fixed vacantly upon the corner
of the ceiling, the blue smoke curling up from him, silent,
motionless, with the light shining upon his strong-set aquiline
features. So he sat as I dropped off to sleep, and so he sat when a
sudden ejaculation caused me to wake up, and I found the summer sun
shining into the apartment. The pipe was still between his lips, the
smoke still curled upward, and the room was full of a dense tobacco
haze, but nothing remained of the heap of shag which I had seen upon
the previous night.
"Awake, Watson?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Game for a morning drive?"
"Certainly."
"Then dress. No one is stirring yet, but I know where the stable-boy
sleeps, and we shall soon have the trap out." He chuckled to himself
as he spoke, his eyes twinkled, and he seemed a different man to the
sombre thinker of the previous night.
As I dressed I glanced at my watch. It was no wonder that no one was
stirring. It was twenty-five minutes past four. I had hardly finished
when Holmes returned with the news that the boy was putting in the
horse.
"I want to test a little theory of mine," said he, pulling on his
boots. "I think, Watson, that you are now standing in the presence of
one of the most absolute fools in Europe. I deserve to be kicked from
here to Charing Cross. But I think I have the key of the affair now."
"And where is it?" I asked, smiling.
"In the bathroom," he answered. "Oh, yes, I am not joking," he
continued, seeing my look of incredulity. "I have just been there,
and I have taken it out, and I have got it in this Gladstone bag.
Come on, my boy, and we shall see whether it will not fit the lock."
We made our way downstairs as quietly as possible, and out into the
bright morning sunshine. In the road stood our horse and trap, with
the half-clad stable-boy waiting at the head. We both sprang in, and
away we dashed down the London Road. A few country carts were
stirring, bearing in vegetables to the metropolis, but the lines of
villas on either side were as silent and lifeless as some city in a
dream.
"It has been in some points a singular case," said Holmes, flicking
the horse on into a gallop. "I confess that I have been as blind as a
mole, but it is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at
all."