and I beg that you won’t speak to me for fifty minutes.” He curled

himself up in his chair, with his thin knees drawn up to his hawk-like nose,

and there he sat with his eyes closed and his black clay pipe thrusting out

like the bill of some strange bird. I had come to the conclusion that he had

dropped asleep, and indeed was nodding myself, when he suddenly sprang out of

his chair with the gesture of a man who has made up his mind and put his pipe

down upon the mantelpiece.


“Sarasate plays at the St. James’s Hall this afternoon,” he

remarked. “What do you think, Watson? Could your patients spare you for a

few 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 Aldersgate; and a short walk took us

to Saxe-Coburg Square, the scene of the singular story which we had listened to

in the morning. It was a poky, little, shabby-genteel place, where four lines

of dingy two-storied brick houses looked out into a small railed-in enclosure,

where a lawn of weedy grass and a few clumps of faded laurel bushes made a hard

fight against a smoke-laden and uncongenial atmosphere. Three gilt balls and a

brown board with “JABEZ WILSON” in white letters, upon a corner

house, announced the place where our red-headed client carried on his business.

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 street, and then down again to the corner, still looking keenly

at the houses. Finally he returned to the pawnbroker’s, and, having