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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Arthur Conan Doyle Public domain text from Project Gutenberg. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle Contents I. A Scandal in Bohemia II. The Red-Headed League III. A Case of Identity IV. The Boscombe Valley Mystery V. The Five Orange Pips VI. The Man with the Twisted Lip VII. The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle VIII. The Adventure of the Speckled Band IX. The Adventure of the Engineer s Thumb X. The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor XI. The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet XII. The Adventure of the Copper Beeches I. A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA I. To Sherlock Holmes she is always _the_ woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, 1 were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer excellent for drawing the veil from men s motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questi…

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Page 290 of 299, printed 290

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I am naturally observant, as you may have remarked, Mr. Holmes, and I soon had a pretty good plan of the whole house in my head. There was one wing, however, which appeared not to be inhabited at all. A door which faced that which led into the quarters of the Tollers opened into this suite, but it was invariably locked. One day, however, as I ascended the stair, I met Mr. Rucastle coming out through this door, his keys in his hand, and a look on his face which made him a very different person to the round, jovial man to whom I was accustomed. His cheeks were red, his brow was all crinkled with anger, and the veins stood out at his temples with passion. He locked the door and hurried past me without a word or a look. This aroused my curiosity, so when I went out for a walk in the grounds with my charge, I strolled round to the side from which I could see the windows of this part of the house. There were four of them in a row, three of which were simply dirty, while the fourth was shuttered up. They were evidently all deserted. As I strolled up and down, glancing at them occasionally, Mr. Rucastle came out to me, looking as merry and jovial as ever. Ah! said he, you must not think me rude if I passed you without a word, my dear young lady. I was preoccupied with business matters. I assured him that I was not offended. By the way, said I, you seem to have quite a suite of spare rooms up there, and one of them has the shutters up. He looked surprised and, as it seemed to me, a little startled at my remark. Photography is one of my hobbies, said he. I have made my dark room up there. But, dear me! what an observant young lady we have come upon. Who would have believed it? Who would have ever believed it? He spoke in a jesting tone, but there was no jest in his eyes as he looked at me. I read suspicion there and annoyance, but no jest. Well, Mr. Holmes, from the moment that I understood that there was something about that suite of rooms which I was not to know, I was all on fire to go over them. It was not mere curiosity, though I have my 290

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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes