Lord St. Simon shook his head. “I am afraid that it will take wiser heads

than yours or mine,” he remarked, and bowing in a stately, old-fashioned

manner he departed.


“It is very good of Lord St. Simon to honour my head by putting it on a

level with his own,” said Sherlock Holmes, laughing. “I think that

I shall have a whisky and soda and a cigar after all this cross-questioning. I

had formed my conclusions as to the case before our client came into the

room.”


“My dear Holmes!”


“I have notes of several similar cases, though none, as I remarked

before, which were quite as prompt. My whole examination served to turn my

conjecture into a certainty. Circumstantial evidence is occasionally very

convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk, to quote Thoreau’s

example.”


“But I have heard all that you have heard.”


“Without, however, the knowledge of pre-existing cases which serves me so

well. There was a parallel instance in Aberdeen some years back, and something

on very much the same lines at Munich the year after the Franco-Prussian War.

It is one of these cases—but, hullo, here is Lestrade! Good-afternoon,

Lestrade! You will find an extra tumbler upon the sideboard, and there are

cigars in the box.”


The official detective was attired in a pea-jacket and cravat, which gave him a

decidedly nautical appearance, and he carried a black canvas bag in his hand.

With a short greeting he seated himself and lit the cigar which had been

offered to him.


“What’s up, then?” asked Holmes with a twinkle in his eye.

“You look dissatisfied.”


“And I feel dissatisfied. It is this infernal St. Simon marriage case. I

can make neither head nor tail of the business.”


“Really! You surprise me.”


“Who ever heard of such a mixed affair? Every clue seems to slip through

my fingers. I have been at work upon it all day.”


“And very wet it seems to have made you,” said Holmes laying his

hand upon the arm of the pea-jacket.