asked.
Well, when they closed their League offices that was a sign that they
cared no longer about Mr. Jabez Wilson s presence in other words, that
they had completed their tunnel. But it was essential that they should
use it soon, as it might be discovered, or the bullion might be
removed. Saturday would suit them better than any other day, as it
would give them two days for their escape. For all these reasons I
expected them to come to-night.
You reasoned it out beautifully, I exclaimed in unfeigned admiration.
It is so long a chain, and yet every link rings true.
It saved me from ennui, he answered, yawning. Alas! I already feel
it closing in upon me. My life is spent in one long effort to escape
from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to do
so.
And you are a benefactor of the race, said I.
He shrugged his shoulders. Well, perhaps, after all, it is of some
little use, he remarked. _L homme c est rien l uvre c est tout_,
as Gustave Flaubert wrote to George Sand.
III. A CASE OF IDENTITY
My dear fellow, said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the
fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, life is infinitely stranger than
anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to
conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If
we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great
city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which
are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the
cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through
generations, and leading to the most _outre_ results, it would make all
fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale
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