elements blown in upon us like a sheet of sea-weed in a gale and now to
have been reabsorbed by them once more.
Sherlock Holmes sat for some time in silence, with his head sunk
forward and his eyes bent upon the red glow of the fire. Then he lit
his pipe, and leaning back in his chair he watched the blue smoke-rings
as they chased each other up to the ceiling.
I think, Watson, he remarked at last, that of all our cases we have
had none more fantastic than this.
Save, perhaps, the Sign of Four.
Well, yes. Save, perhaps, that. And yet this John Openshaw seems to me
to be walking amid even greater perils than did the Sholtos.
But have you, I asked, formed any definite conception as to what
these perils are?
There can be no question as to their nature, he answered.
Then what are they? Who is this K. K. K., and why does he pursue this
unhappy family?
Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes and placed his elbows upon the arms of
his chair, with his finger-tips together. The ideal reasoner, he
remarked, would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its
bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up
to it but also all the results which would follow from it. As Cuvier
could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a
single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in
a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all the other
ones, both before and after. We have not yet grasped the results which
the reason alone can attain to. Problems may be solved in the study
which have baffled all those who have sought a solution by the aid of
their senses. To carry the art, however, to its highest pitch, it is
necessary that the reasoner should be able to utilise all the facts
which have come to his knowledge; and this in itself implies, as you
will readily see, a possession of all knowledge, which, even in these
days of free education and encyclop dias, is a somewhat rare
112