Sherlock Holmes and The July Crisis by Arthur Conan Doyle & James Carlopio

Author:Arthur Conan Doyle & James Carlopio
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sherlock Holmes, mystery, crime, british crime, sherlock holmes novels, sherlock holmes fiction, sherlock holmes short fiction
ISBN: 9781780928715
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2015
Published: 2015-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

The Gold Robbery

“Sarasate plays at the St. James’s Hall this afternoon,” Holmes remarked the next morning. “What do you think, Watson? Could your patients spare you for a few more hours?”

“I have nothing to do to-day. My practice is never very absorbing.”

“Then put on your hat and come. I am going through the City first, and we can have some lunch on the way. I observe that there is a good deal of German music on the programme, which is rather more to my taste than Italian or French. It is introspective, and I want to introspect. Come along!”

We travelled by the Underground as far as Westminster; and a short walk took us down Whitehall and Downing Streets, then on to St James Park, singularly lovely; a splendid park with fine old timber surrounding two buildings at its edge, and the lake lay close to the avenue. The far-ground was covered with golden patches of flowering gorse, gleaming magnificently in the light of the bright summer sunshine.

It was the park offices that occupied Holmes’ attention where two brick houses looked out into the lake and on to a railed-in enclosure, and where extensive gardens surrounded three sides of the cottages. The immediate area surrounding the houses, however, was so thick with dirt in irregular mounds and curious earthworks which hinted at some strife. The whole place, with its scattered dirt-heaps and ill-grown shrubs, had a blighted, ill-omened look and bore the foreshadowed reflection of some great disaster. Several garden and digging implements lay about. Sherlock Holmes stopped in front of it with his head on one side and looked it all over, with his eyes shining brightly between puckered lids. Then he walked slowly up the footpath and then the street, and then down again to the corner, still looking keenly at the little offices and the nearby houses of Parliament and back toward Downing Street. Finally he returned to the offices, and, having thumped vigorously upon the pavement with his stick two or three times, he went up to the door of the nearest and knocked. It was eventually opened by a bright-looking, clean-shaven young fellow, who asked him to step in.

“Thank you,” said Holmes, “I only wished to ask you how you would go from here to Trafalgar Square.”

“Third right, fourth left,” answered the man promptly, closing the door.

“Smart fellow, that,” observed Holmes as we walked away. “He is, in my judgment, the fourth smartest man in London, and for daring I am not sure that he has not a claim to be third. I have known something of him before.”

“Evidently,” said I, “you consider this place counts for a good deal in this mystery of the French Gold. I am sure that you inquired your way merely in order that you might see this man.”

“Not him. I already knew what he looks like. He is small, stout-built, very quick in his ways, no hair on his face, though he’s not short of thirty. Has a white splash of acid upon his forehead and his ears are pierced for earrings.

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