Arthur Conan Doyle - The Adventure of the Cardboard Box

In choosing a few typical cases which illustrate the remarkable mentalqualities of my friend, Sherlock Holmes, I have endeavoured, as far aspossible, to select those which presented the minimum ofsensationalism, while offering a fair field for his talents. It is,however, unfortunately impossible entirely to separate the sensationalfrom the criminal, and a chronicler is left in the dilemma that he musteither sacrifice details which are essential to his statement and sogive a false impression of the problem, or he must use matter whichchance, and not choice, has provided him with. With this short prefaceI shall turn to my notes of what proved to be a strange, though apeculiarly terrible, chain of events.

It was a blazing hot day in August. Baker Street was like an oven, andthe glare of the sunlight upon the yellow brickwork of the house acrossthe road was painful to the eye. It was hard to believe that thesewere the same walls which loomed so gloomily through the fogs ofwinter. Our blinds were half-drawn, and Holmes lay curled upon thesofa, reading and re-reading a letter which he had received by themorning post. For myself, my term of service in India had trained meto stand heat better than cold, and a thermometer at ninety was nohardship. But the morning paper was uninteresting. Parliament hadrisen. Everybody was out of town, and I yearned for the glades of theNew Forest or the shingle of Southsea. A depleted bank account hadcaused me to postpone my holiday, and as to my companion, neither thecountry nor the sea presented the slightest attraction to him. Heloved to lie in the very center of five millions of people, with hisfilaments stretching out and running through them, responsive to everylittle rumour or suspicion of unsolved crime. Appreciation of naturefound no place among his many gifts, and his only change was when heturned his mind from the evil-doer of the town to track down hisbrother of the country.

Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for conversation I had tossed sidethe barren paper, and leaning back in my chair I fell into a brownstudy. Suddenly my companion's voice broke in upon my thoughts:

"You are right, Watson," said he. "It does seem a most preposterousway of settling a dispute."

"Most preposterous!" I exclaimed, and then suddenly realizing how hehad echoed the inmost thought of my soul, I sat up in my chair andstared at him in blank amazement.

"What is this, Holmes?" I cried. "This is beyond anything which Icould have imagined."

He laughed heartily at my perplexity.

"You remember," said he, "that some little time ago when I read you thepassage in one of Poe's sketches in which a close reasoner follows theunspoken thoughts of his companion, you were inclined to treat thematter as a mere tour-de-force of the author. On my remarking that Iwas constantly in the habit of doing the same thing you expressedincredulity."

"Oh, no!"

"Perhaps not with your tongue, my dear Watson, but certainly with youreyebrows. So when I saw you throw down your paper and enter upon atrain of thought, I was very happy to have the opportunity of readingit off, and eventually of breaking into it, as a proof that I had beenin rapport with you."

But I was still far from satisfied. "In the example which you read tome," said I, "the reasoner drew his conclusions from the actions of theman whom he observed. If I remember right, he stumbled over a heap ofstones, looked up at the stars, and so on. But I have been seatedquietly in my chair, and what clues can I have given you?"

"You do yourself an injustice. The features are given to man as themeans by which he shall express his emotions, and yours are faithfulservants."

"Do you mean to say that you read my train of thoughts from myfeatures?"

"Your features and especially your eyes. Perhaps you cannot yourselfrecall how your reverie commenced?"

"No, I cannot."

"Then I will tell you. After throwing down your paper, which was theaction which drew my attention to you, you sat for half a minute with avacant expression. Then your eyes fixed themselves upon your newlyframed picture of General Gordon, and I saw by the alteration in yourface that a train of thought had been started. But it did not leadvery far. Your eyes flashed across to the unframed portrait of HenryWard Beecher which stands upon the top of your books. Then you glancedup at the wall, and of course your meaning was obvious. You werethinking that if the portrait were framed it would just cover that barespace and correspond with Gordon's picture there."

"You have followed me wonderfully!" I exclaimed.

"So far I could hardly have gone astray. But now your thoughts wentback to Beecher, and you looked hard across as if you were studying thecharacter in his features. Then your eyes ceased to pucker, but youcontinued to look across, and your face was thoughtful. You wererecalling the incidents of Beecher's career. I was well aware that youcould not do this without thinking of the mission which he undertook onbehalf of the North at the time of the Civil War, for I remember yourexpressing your passionate indignation at the way in which he wasreceived by the more turbulent of our people. You felt so stronglyabout it that I knew you could not think of Beecher without thinking ofthat also. When a moment later I saw your eyes wander away from thepicture, I suspected that your mind had now turned to the Civil War,and when I observed that your lips set, your eyes sparkled, and yourhands clenched I was positive that you were indeed thinking of thegallantry which was shown by both sides in that desperate struggle. Butthen, again, your face grew sadder, you shook your head. You weredwelling upon the sadness and horror and useless waste of life. Yourhand stole towards your own old wound and a smile quivered on yourlips, which showed me that the ridiculous side of this method ofsettling international questions had forced itself upon your mind. Atthis point I agreed with you that it was preposterous and was glad tofind that all my deductions had been correct."

"Absolutely!" said I. "And now that you have explained it, I confessthat I am as amazed as before."

"It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I assure you. I should nothave intruded it upon your attention had you not shown some incredulitythe other day. But I have in my hands here a little problem which mayprove to be more difficult of solution than my small essay I thoughtreading. Have you observed in the paper a short paragraph referring tothe remarkable contents of a packet sent through the post to MissCushing, of Cross Street, Croydon?"

"No, I saw nothing."

"Ah! then you must have overlooked it. Just toss it over to me. Hereit is, under the financial column. Perhaps you would be good enough toread it aloud."