In glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did, he never acquired a case that did not tend towards the unusual or even the fantastic.
It was early in May, in the year '82, that I woke one morning to find Holmes sitting in silence, smoking his malodorous product. When he has no case to solve and no information to deduce he has to get a high from something, so that is his alternative. He escapes into a world of his own where I would only dream of knowing what he thinks about. He was a late riser as a rule, and, as the clock on the mantelpiece showed me that it was only a quarter past seven I blinked up in some surprise and a little resentment, for I was myself regular in my habits.
' Very sorry to knock you up, Watson,' said he, 'but Mrs Hudson knocked me up for we have a case today and he should be arriving any minute now.
A slow and heavy step, which I had heard approaching us stopped outside the door. The door opened and a smartly dressed man entered. He sat down and he introduced himself to be a Mr Utterson. I asked him whether he wanted a drink to which he declined. He started talking straight away.
'I have just heard of a very odd story from Mr Enfield who you no doubt have heard about being the man about town. He said that in this area last night, on his way home, he witnessed an accidental collision between a man walking quickly and a young girl running. This took place at the corner of the street. There was nothing unusual about this but the man's reaction was in Enfield's words, hellish to see, for he trampled calmly over the body of the girl, leaving her screaming in pain and terror. Enfield told me that he chased after the man and caught him, taking him back to the scene of the crime where the child's family and doctor had gathered about her. When threatened with a scandal the man agreed with apparent coolness to compensate the girl with £100. He then produced a key and opened a strange door. A minute later he walked out with some cash and a cheque signed by another gentleman familiar to me. The cheque was surprisingly found to be genuine and the matter was left'.
'What is so strange about the door?' Holmes remarked swiftly.
It was early in May, in the year '82, that I woke one morning to find Holmes sitting in silence, smoking his malodorous product. When he has no case to solve and no information to deduce he has to get a high from something, so that is his alternative. He escapes into a world of his own where I would only dream of knowing what he thinks about. He was a late riser as a rule, and, as the clock on the mantelpiece showed me that it was only a quarter past seven I blinked up in some surprise and a little resentment, for I was myself regular in my habits.
' Very sorry to knock you up, Watson,' said he, 'but Mrs Hudson knocked me up for we have a case today and he should be arriving any minute now.
A slow and heavy step, which I had heard approaching us stopped outside the door. The door opened and a smartly dressed man entered. He sat down and he introduced himself to be a Mr Utterson. I asked him whether he wanted a drink to which he declined. He started talking straight away.
'I have just heard of a very odd story from Mr Enfield who you no doubt have heard about being the man about town. He said that in this area last night, on his way home, he witnessed an accidental collision between a man walking quickly and a young girl running. This took place at the corner of the street. There was nothing unusual about this but the man's reaction was in Enfield's words, hellish to see, for he trampled calmly over the body of the girl, leaving her screaming in pain and terror. Enfield told me that he chased after the man and caught him, taking him back to the scene of the crime where the child's family and doctor had gathered about her. When threatened with a scandal the man agreed with apparent coolness to compensate the girl with £100. He then produced a key and opened a strange door. A minute later he walked out with some cash and a cheque signed by another gentleman familiar to me. The cheque was surprisingly found to be genuine and the matter was left'.
'What is so strange about the door?' Holmes remarked swiftly.
