A Study in Terror Read Online Free PDF

her hand into his.
    â€œI like you very much, sir,” said she gravely.
    It was a charming moment. Holmes appeared embarrassed by this open-hearted confession. Her small hand remained in his as he said, “Granted, Lord Carfax, that your father is an unbending man. Still, to disown a son! A decision such as that is not made lightly. Your brother’s transgression must indeed have been a serious one.”
    â€œMichael married against my father’s wishes.” Lord Carfax shrugged his shoulders. “I am not in the habit, Mr. Holmes, of discussing my family’s affairs with strangers, but—” he touched his daughter’s shining head “—Deborah is my barometer of character.” I thought his Lordship was going to ask what Holmes’s interest in Michael Osbourne was based upon, but he did not.
    Holmes, too, appeared to have expected such a question. When it did not come, he extended the surgical-case. “Perhaps you would like to have this, your Lordship.”
    Lord Carfax took the case with a silent bow.
    â€œAnd now—our train will not wait, I fear—we must be off.” Holmes looked down from his great height. “Goodbye, Deborah. Meeting you is the most agreeable thing that has happened to Dr. Watson and me in a very long time.”
    â€œI hope you will come again, sir,” replied the child. “It gets so lonely here when Papa is away.”
    Holmes said little as we drove back to the village. He scarcely replied to my comments, and it was not until we were flying back towards London that he invited conversation. His lean features set in that abstracted look I knew so well, he said, “An interesting man, Watson.”
    â€œPerhaps,” I replied, tartly. “But also as repulsive a one as ever I care to meet. It is men of his calibre—they are few, thank heaven!—who stain the reputation of the British nobility.”
    My indignation amused Holmes. “I was referring to filius rather than pater .”
    â€œThe son? I was touched by Lord Carfax’s evident love for his daughter, of course—”
    â€œBut you felt he was too informative?”
    â€œThat was exactly my impression, Holmes, although I don’t see how you became aware of it. I did not enter into the conversation.”
    â€œYour face is like a mirror, my dear Watson,” said he.
    â€œEven he admitted that he talked too freely about his family’s personal affairs.”
    â€œBut did he? Let us assume him, first, to be a stupid man. In that case he becomes a loving father with an over-large oral cavity.”
    â€œBut if we assume him, with more difficulty, to be not stupid at all?”
    â€œThen he created precisely the image he wished to, which I incline to believe. He knew me by name and reputation, and you, Watson. I strongly doubt that he accepted us as mere Good Samaritans, come all this way to restore an old surgeon’s-kit to its rightful owner.”
    â€œShould that necessarily loosen his tongue?”
    â€œMy dear fellow, he told us nothing that I did not already know, or could not have discovered with ease in the files of any London daily.”
    â€œThen what was it that he did not reveal?”
    â€œWhether his brother Michael is dead or alive. Whether he is in contact with his brother.”
    â€œI assumed, from what he said, that he does not know.”
    â€œThat, Watson, may have been what he wished you to assume.” Before I could reply, Holmes went on. “As it happens, I did not go to Shires uninformed. Kenneth Osbourne, the lineal Duke, had two sons. Michael, the younger, of course inherited no title. Whether or not this instilled jealousy in him I do not know, but he so conducted himself thenceforward as to earn the sobriquet, from the journalists of London, of The Wild One. You spoke of his father’s brutal sternness, Watson. To the contrary, the record reveals the Duke as having been