micals and of criminal relics, which
had a way of wandering into unlikely positions, and of turning up in the
butter-dish, or in even less desirable places. But his papers were my
great crux. He had a horror of destroying documents, especially those
which were connected with his past cases, and yet it was only once in
every year or two that he would muster energy to docket and arrange
them, for as I have mentioned somewhere in these incoherent memoirs, the
outbursts of passionate energy when he performed the remarkable feats
with which his name is associated were followed by reactions of
lethargy, during which he would lie about with his violin and his books,
hardly moving, save from the sofa to the table. Thus month after month
his papers accumulated, until every corner of the room was stacked with
bundles of manuscript which were on no account to be burned, and which
could not be put away save by their owner.

One winter's night, as we sat together by the fire, I ventured to
suggest to him that as he had finished pasting extracts into his
commonplace book he might employ the next two hours in making our room a
little more habitable. He could not deny the justice of my request, so
with a rather rueful face he went off to his bedroom, from which he
returned presently pulling a large tin box behind him. This he placed in
the middle of the floor, and squatting down upon a stool in front of it
he threw back the lid. I could see that it was already a third full of
bundles of paper tied up with red tape into separate packages.

"There are cases enough here, Watson," said he, looking at me with
mischievous eyes. "I think that if you knew all that I had in this box
you would ask me to pull some out instead of putting others in."

"These are the records of your early work, then?" I asked. "I have often
wished that I had notes of those cases."

"Yes, my boy; these were all done prematurely, before my biographer had
come to glorify me." He lifted bundle after bundle in a tender,
caressing sort of way. "They are not all successes, Watson," said he,
"but there are some pretty little problems among them. Here's the record
of the Tarleton murders, and the case of Vamberry, the wine merchant,
and the adventure of the old Russian woman, and the singular affair of
the aluminium crutch, as well as a full account of Ricoletti of the club
foot and his abominable wife. And here--ah, now! this really is
something a little recherche."

H