Baker Street Beat: An Eclectic Collection of Sherlockian Scribblings Read Online Free PDF Page A

who checked the Hardens out of their rooms at the Langham – was mysterious only if the room clerk, a man Harden had never seen before, had told the truth. Assume that he lied and the mystery evaporated. It all hinged, then, on Evelyn Weber. Now consider the bogus telegram from Lear. It was presented to Harden at the hotel – presumably by a bellboy who could well have received it from the room clerk. Harden sent his follow-up wire from the Wigmore Street telegraph office, where Weber never knew of it. The response came back the following evening, when Weber was off duty. That’s the only reason Harden ever saw it. The murderous attack of the four-wheeler, I need hardly add, occurred just outside the hotel. Everything came back to the Langham and, by inference, to Weber. Clearly, he was also one of the hotel staff who overheard the heated dispute in the lobby between Messers Harden and Herbert – putting him in an excellent position to blame the former’s death on the latter. Weber could have been merely an agent for Winter, of course, but the plain glass spectacles were a transparent disguise.”
    Holmes sat back in his chair.

    â€œAnd so ends another successful case for my annals,” I commented.
    â€œThe case was indeed a great success,” Holmes said bitterly. “Only the client died. No, Watson, I have scarcely covered myself with glory in this one. If you should ever chance to chronicle this adventure, let it be as the folly of an over-celebrated sleuthhound, not as some sort of triumph.”
    He picked up his violin and commenced to scratch out a melancholy series of notes that seemed to match his mood.
    â€œHolmes!” I cried after enduring some minutes of this. “The Hamlet ! What in the world was the significance of the book John Vincent Harden grabbed in his final moment? You asked Hopkins for his theory, but you never gave your own.”
    â€œDidn’t I? Well, we can never know the truth for sure,” said Sherlock Holmes, looking up from his instrument. “But having met the charming Stephen Winter, perhaps the answer lies in Act I, Scene V, if I recall correctly – ‘meet it is I set it down/That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.’ ”
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