Sherlock
Holmes in The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist |
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| Excerpt
from the EBook | From
the years 1894 to 1901 inclusive, Mr. Sherlock Holmes was a very busy man. It
is safe to say that there was no public case of any difficulty in which he was
not consulted during those eight years, and there were hundreds of private cases,
some of them of the most intricate and extraordinary character. in which he played
a prominent part. Many startling successes and a few unavoidable failures were
the outcome of this long period of continuous work. As I have preserved very full
notes of all these cases, and was myself personally engaged in many of them it
may be imagined that it is no easy task to know which I should select to lay before
the public. I shall, however. preserve my former rule, and give the preference
to those cases which derive their interest not so much from the brutality of the
crime as from the ingenuity and dramatic quality of the solution. For this reason
I will now lay before the reader the facts connected with Miss Violet Smith. the
solitary cyclist of Charlington, and the curious sequel of our investigation.
which culminated in unexpected tragedy. It is true that the circumstance did not
admit of any striking illustration of those powers for which my friend was famous,
but there were some points about the case which made it stand out in those long
records of crime from which I gather the material for these little narratives.
On referring to my notebook for the year 1895, I find that it was upon Saturday,
the 23d of April, that we first heard of Miss Violet Smilh. Her visit was, I remember,
extremely unwelcome to Holmes, for he was immersed at the moment in a very abstruse
and complicated problem concerning the peculiar persecution to which John Vincent
Harden, the well known tobacco millionaire, had been subjected. My friend, who
loved above all things precision and concentration of thought, resented anything
which distracted his attention from the matter in hand. And yet without a harshness
which was foreign to his nature, it was impossible to refuse to listen to the
story of the young and beautiful woman, tall, graceful, and queenly, who presented
herself at Baker Street late in the evening, and implored his assistance and advice.
It was vain to urge that his time was already fully occupied, for the young lady
had come with the determination to tell her story, and it was evident that nothing
short of force could get her out of the room until she had done so. With a resigned
air and a somewhat weary smile, Holmes begged the beautiful intruder to take a
seat. and to inform us what it was that was troubling her.
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