to a conclusion."

"Well, Watson," said Holmes, when our visitor had left us, "what do you
make of it all?"

"I make nothing of it," I answered frankly. "It is a most mysterious
business."

"As a rule," said Holmes, "the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious
it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are
really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to
identify. But I must be prompt over this matter."

"What are you going to do, then?" I asked.

"To smoke," he answered. "It is quite a three-pipe problem, and I beg that
you won't speak to me for fifty minutes." He curled himself up in his
chair, with his thin knees drawn up to his hawklike nose, and there he sat
with his eyes closed and his black clay pipe thrusting out like the bill
of some strange bird. I had come to the conclusion that he had dropped
asleep, and indeed was nodding myself, when he suddenly sprang out of his
chair with the gesture of a man who has made up his mind, and put his pipe
down upon the mantelpiece.

"Sarasate plays at St. James's Hall this afternoon," he remarked. "What do
you think, Watson? Could your patients spare you for a few hours?"

"I have nothing to do to-day. My practice is never very absorbing."

"Then put on your hat and come. I am going through the City first, and we
can have some lunch on the way. I observe that there is a good deal of
German music on the programme, which is rather more to my taste than
Italian or French. It is introspective, and I want to introspect. Come
along!"

We traveled by the Underground as far as Aldersgate; and a short walk took
us to Saxe-Coburg Square, the scene of the singular story which we had
listened to in the morning. It was a poky, little, shabby-genteel place,
where four lines of dingy, two-storied brick houses looked out into a
small railed-in inclosure, where a lawn of weedy grass, and a few clumps
of faded laurel bushes made a hard fight against a smoke-laden and
uncongenial atmosphere. Three gilt balls and a brown board with JABEZ
WILSON in white letters, upon a corner house, announced the place where
our red-headed client carried on his business. Sherlock Holmes stopped in
front of it with his head on one side, and looked it all over, with his
eyes shining brightly between puckered lids. Then he walked slowly up the
street, and then down again to the corner, still looking keenly at the
houses. Finally he returned to the pawnbroke