The Cas of Sherlock Holmes | Page 4

about the man?"
"He has expensive tastes. He is a horse fancier. For a short time he
played polo at Hurlingham, but then this Prague affair got noised about
and he had to leave. He collects books and pictures. He is a man with a
considerable artistic side to his nature. He is, I believe, a
recognized authority upon Chinese pottery and has written a book upon
the subject."
"A complex mind," said Holmes. "All great criminals have that. My old
friend Charlie Peace was a violin virtuoso. Wainwright was no mean
artist. I could quote many more. Well, Sir James, you will inform your
client that I am turning my mind upon Baron Gruner. I can say no more.
I have some sources of information of my own, and I dare say we may
find some means of opening the matter up."
When our visitor had left us Holmes sat so long in deep thought that it
seemed to me that he had forgotten my presence. At last, however, he
came briskly back to earth.
"Well, Watson, any views?" he asked.
"I should think you had better see the young lady herself."
"My dear Watson, if her poor old broken father cannot move her, how
shall I, a stranger, prevail? And yet there is something in the
suggestion if all else fails. But I think we must begin from a
different angle. I rather fancy that Shinwell Johnson might be a help."
I have not had occasion to mention Shinwell Johnson in these memoirs
because I have seldom drawn my cases from the latter phases of my
friend's career. During the first years of the century he became a
valuable assistant. Johnson, I grieve to say, made his name first as a
very dangerous villain and served two terms at Parkhurst. Finally he
repented and allied himself to Holmes, acting as his agent in the huge
criminal underworld of London and obtaining information which often
proved to be of vital importance. Had Johnson been a "nark" of the
police he would soon have been exposed, but as he dealt with cases
which never came directly into the courts, his activities were never
realized by his companions. With the glamour of his two convictions
upon him, he had the entree of every night-club, doss house, and
gamblingden in the town, and his quick observation and active brain
made him an ideal agent for gaining information. It was to him that
Sherlock Holmes now proposed to turn.
It was not possible for me to follow the immediate steps taken by my
friend, for I had some pressing professional business of my own, but I
met him by appointment that evening at Simpson's, where, sitting at a
small table in the front window and looking down at the rushing stream
of life in the Strand, he told me something of what had passed.
"Johnson is on the prowl," said he. "He may pick up some garbage in the
darker recesses of the underworld, for it is down there, amid the black
roots of crime, that we must hunt for this man's secrets."
"But if the lady will not accept what is already known, why should any
fresh discovery of yours turn her from her purpose?"
"Who knows, Watson? Woman's heart and mind are insoluble puzzles to the
male. Murder might be condoned or explained, and yet some smaller
offence might rankle. Baron Gruner remarked to me--"
"He remarked to you!"
"Oh, to be sure, I had not told you of my plans. Well, Watson, I love
to come to close grips with my man. I like to meet him eye to eye and
read for myself the stuff that he is made of. When I had given Johnson
his instructions I took a cab out to Kingston and found the Baron in a
most affable mood."
"Did he recognize you?"
"There was no difficulty about that, for I simply sent in my card. He
is an excellent antagonist, cool as ice, silky voiced and soothing as
one of your fashionable consultants, and poisonous as a cobra. He has
breeding in him--a real aristocrat of crime with a superficial
suggestion of afternoon tea and all the cruelty of the grave behind it.
Yes, I am glad to have had my attention called to Baron Adelbert
Gruner."
"You say he was affable?"
"A purring cat who thinks he sees prospective mice. Some people's
affability is more deadly than the violence of coarser souls. His
greeting was characteristic. 'I rather thought I should see you sooner
or later, Mr. Holmes,' said he. 'You have been engaged, no doubt by
General de Merville, to endeavour to stop my marriage with his
daughter, Violet. That is so, is it not?'
"I acquiesced.
"'My dear man,' said he. 'you will only ruin your own well-deserved
reputation. It is not a case in which you can possibly succeed. You
will have barren work, to say nothing of incurring some danger. Let me
very strongly advise you to draw off at once.'
"'It is curious,' I answered, 'but that was the very advice which I
had intended to give you. I have a respect for your brains, Baron, and
the little which I have seen of your personality