convinced himself that his data were insufficient. It was soon evident
to me that he was now preparing for an all-night sitting. He took off
his coat and waistcoat, put on a large blue dressing-gown, and then
wandered about the room collecting pillows from his bed and cushions
from the sofa and armchairs. With these he constructed a sort of
Eastern divan, upon which he perched himself cross-legged, with an
ounce of shag tobacco and a box of matches laid out in front of him. In
the dim light of the lamp I saw him sitting there, an old briar pipe
between his lips, his eyes fixed vacantly upon the corner of the
ceiling, the blue smoke curling up from him, silent, motionless, with
the light shining upon his strong-set aquiline features. So he sat as I
dropped off to sleep, and so he sat when a sudden ejaculation caused me
to wake up, and I found the summer sun shining into the apartment. The
pipe was still between his lips, the smoke still curled upward, and the
room was full of a dense tobacco haze, but nothing remained of the heap
of shag which I had seen upon the previous night.
Awake, Watson? he asked.
Yes.
Game for a morning drive?
Certainly.
Then dress. No one is stirring yet, but I know where the stable-boy
sleeps, and we shall soon have the trap out. He chuckled to himself as
he spoke, his eyes twinkled, and he seemed a different man to the
sombre thinker of the previous night.
As I dressed I glanced at my watch. It was no wonder that no one was
stirring. It was twenty-five minutes past four. I had hardly finished
when Holmes returned with the news that the boy was putting in the
horse.
I want to test a little theory of mine, said he, pulling on his
boots. I think, Watson, that you are now standing in the presence of
one of the most absolute fools in Europe. I deserve to be kicked from
here to Charing Cross. But I think I have the key of the affair now.
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