vice of the most malignant type, they were certainly those of Enoch J. Drebber,

of Cleveland. Still I recognized that justice must be done, and that the

depravity of the victim was no condonement in the eyes of the law.

 

The more I thought of it the more extraordinary did my companion’s hypothesis,

that the man had been poisoned, appear. I remembered how he had sniffed his

lips, and had no doubt that he had detected something which had given rise to

the idea. Then, again, if not poison, what had caused the man’s death, since

there was neither wound nor marks of strangulation? But, on the other hand,

whose blood was that which lay so thickly upon the floor? There were no signs of

a struggle, nor had the victim any weapon with which he might have wounded an

antagonist.

 

As long as all these questions were unsolved, I felt that sleep would be no easy

matter, either for Holmes or myself. His quiet self-confident manner convinced

me that he had already formed a theory which explained all the facts, though

what it was I could not for an instant conjecture.

 

He was very late in returning—so late, that I knew that the concert could not

have detained him all the time. Dinner was on the table before he appeared.

 

“It was magnificent,” he said, as he took his seat. “Do you remember what Darwin

says about music? He claims that the power of producing and appreciating it

existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at.

Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by it. There are vague memories