This dust, you will observe, is not the gritty, grey dust of the street but the

fluffy brown dust of the house, showing that it has been hung up indoors most

of the time, while the marks of moisture upon the inside are proof positive

that the wearer perspired very freely, and could therefore, hardly be in the

best of training.”


“But his wife—you said that she had ceased to love him.”


“This hat has not been brushed for weeks. When I see you, my dear Watson,

with a week’s accumulation of dust upon your hat, and when your wife

allows you to go out in such a state, I shall fear that you also have been

unfortunate enough to lose your wife’s affection.”


“But he might be a bachelor.”


“Nay, he was bringing home the goose as a peace-offering to his wife.

Remember the card upon the bird’s leg.”


“You have an answer to everything. But how on earth do you deduce that

the gas is not laid on in his house?”


“One tallow stain, or even two, might come by chance; but when I see no

less than five, I think that there can be little doubt that the individual must

be brought into frequent contact with burning tallow—walks upstairs at

night probably with his hat in one hand and a guttering candle in the other.

Anyhow, he never got tallow-stains from a gas-jet. Are you satisfied?”


“Well, it is very ingenious,” said I, laughing; “but since,

as you said just now, there has been no crime committed, and no harm done save

the loss of a goose, all this seems to be rather a waste of energy.”


Sherlock Holmes had opened his mouth to reply, when the door flew open, and

Peterson, the commissionaire, rushed into the apartment with flushed cheeks and

the face of a man who is dazed with astonishment.


“The goose, Mr. Holmes! The goose, sir!” he gasped.


“Eh? What of it, then? Has it returned to life and flapped off through

the kitchen window?” Holmes twisted himself round upon the sofa to get a

fairer view of the man’s excited face.