mongoose," I cried.

"Well, some call them that, and some call them ichneumon," said the
man. "Snake-catcher is what I call them, and Teddy is amazing quick on
cobras. I have one here without the fangs, and Teddy catches it every
night to please the folk in the canteen.

"Any other point, sir?"

"Well, we may have to apply to you again if Mrs. Barclay should prove to
be in serious trouble."

"In that case, of course, I'd come forward."

"But if not, there is no object in raking up this scandal against a
dead man, foully as he has acted. You have at least the satisfaction
of knowing that for thirty years of his life his conscience bitterly
reproached him for this wicked deed. Ah, there goes Major Murphy on the
other side of the street. Good-by, Wood. I want to learn if anything has
happened since yesterday."

We were in time to overtake the major before he reached the corner.

"Ah, Holmes," he said: "I suppose you have heard that all this fuss has
come to nothing?"

"What then?"

"The inquest is just over. The medical evidence showed conclusively
that death was due to apoplexy. You see it was quite a simple case after
all."

"Oh, remarkably superficial," said Holmes, smiling. "Come, Watson, I
don't think we shall be wanted in Aldershot any more."

"There's one thing," said I, as we walked down to the station. "If the
husband's name was James, and the other was Henry, what was this talk
about David?"

"That one word, my dear Watson, should have told me the whole story had
I been the ideal reasoner which you are so fond of depicting. It was
evidently a term of reproach."

"Of reproach?"

"Yes; David strayed a little occasionally, you know, and on one occasion
in the same direction as Sergeant James Barclay. You remember the small
affair of Uriah and Bathsheba? My biblical knowledge is a trifle rusty,
I fear, but you will find the story in the first or second of Samuel."

Adventure VIII. The Resident Patient

Glancing over the somewhat incoherent series of Memoirs with which I
have endeavored to illustrate a few of the mental peculiarities of my
friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I have been struck by the difficulty which I
have experienced in picking out examples which shall in every way answer
my purpose. For in those cases in which Holmes has performed some tour
de force of analytical reasoning, and has demonstrated the value of his
peculiar methods of investigation, the facts themselves have often