The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-08-13

the sofa in d purple dressing gown, a
pipe rack within his reach uDon the
right and a pile of crumpled morning
papers, evidently newly studied, near
at hand. Beside the couch was a
wooden chair. and on the angle of the
back hung a very seedy and disreput-
table hard felt hat. much the worse for
wear and cracked in several places. A
lens ard a fOrceps lying upon the seat
of the chair suggested that the hat
had been suspended in this manner for
the purpose of examination.
You are engaged, said 1; perhaps
1 interrupt you
Not at all / am glad to have a
friend with whom I can discuss my
results. The matter is a perfectly
trivial one" Che jerked his thumb IN the
direction of the old hat), but there are
points in connection with 1t which are
not entirely devoid OF interest and even
of instruction
I seated myself In his arm chair and
warmed my hands before his cracking
fire. for a sharp frost had set in and the
windows were thick with The ice
crystals Il suppose. remarked,
that, homeIy as it looks. this thing has
somesdeadly story linked on to it-that
it is the clue which Will guide you in
the solution of some mystery and the
punishment of some crime
Holmes. laughing "Only one of those
whimsical little incidents which viii
happen when you have four million
human beings all jostling each other
within the space of d few square miles.
Amid the action and reaction of so
dense a swarm of humanity every pos
sible combination of events may be eX-
pected to take place. and many a little
problem will be presented which may
be striking and bizarre without being
perience of SUCH
so much So" I remarked, that of
the last six cases which I haze added
10 my notes three have been entirely
free of any legal crime"
d Precisely. You allude to my attempt
to recover the Irene Adler papers. to the
singular case of Miss Mary Sutherland
and to the adventure of the man with
the twisted lip. Well. have no doubt
that this small matter will fall into the
same innocent category. You know
Peterson, the commissiOnaire?"
1T is to him that this trophy be-
longs"
TT is his hat?'
NO. no; he found it. Its owner is
unknown. I beg that you viii look
upon it not as a battered billycock, but
as an intellectual problem. Ard first
as to how it came here. It arrived upon
Christmas morning. in company with a
doubt. roasting a [ this moment in front
of PeterSons fire. The facts are these:
About o'clock on Christmas morning
Peterson who, as you know, is a very
honest fellow. was returning from some
small ioIlifcation and was making his
way homeward down Tottenham Court
road. In front Of him he saw. in the
gaslight a tallish man, walking with a
slight stagger and carrying a white
goose slung over his shoulder. As he
reached the corner of Goodbye street a
row broke out between this stranger
and a little knot of roughs. One of the
latter Knocked off the mans hat on
which he raised his stick to defend
himself. and swinging it over his head
smashed the shoD window behind him
Peterson had rushed forward TO pro
tect the stranger from his assaiIants:
but the man, shocked at having broken
the window and seeing an official look
ing person in uniform rushing toward
him. dropped his goose. took to his heels
and vanished amid the labyrinth of
small streets which lie at the back of
'rottenham Court road. The roughs had
also fed at the appearance of Peterson
so that he was left in possession of the
field of battle and also of the spoils Of
victory in the shape of this battered
hat and a most unimpeachable Christ
mas goose"
Which surely he restored to their
owner?"
MY dear fellow; there lies the prob
lem. II is true that For Mrs. Henry
Baker was printed upon small card
which was tied TO the birds left leg
and it is also true that the initials n
b are legible upon the lining of this
hat; but as there are some thousands
of Bakers and some hundreds of Henry
Bakers in this city of ours il is not
easy TO restore lost property to any one
of them"
What then. did Peterson do?"
He brought round both hat and
goose to me on Christmas morning
knowing that even the smallest prob
lens are of interest to me The goose
we retained until this morning, when
there were signs that. in suite of the
slight frost, it would be we'll that IL
should be eaten without unnecessary de-
lay. Its finder has carried II off. there
fore. to fulfil the ultimate destiny of a
goose. while ! continue to retain the
hat OF the unknown gentleman who lost
his Christmas dinner"
Did he not advertiser"
No
Then; what clue could you have as
Only as much as we can deduce."
From his hat?"
Precisely"
But YOU are joking. What can you
gather from this old battered felt?''
Here is my lens. You know nv
methods. What can you gather your
self as to the individuality of the man
who has worn this articIe?"
took the tattered object in my hands
and turned it over rather ruefully 1t
was very ordinary black hat of the
usual round shape, hard. and much the
worse for wear. The lining had been
of red silk. but was a good deal dis
colored- There was no makers name:
but as Holmes had remarked the in
ltials II. b" We're scrawled u1On one
side 1t was pierced in the brim for
hat-securer. but the elastic was mis-
sing For the rest, il was cracked. ex-
ceedingly dusty. and spotted in sew
erai places. although there seemed to
have been some attempt to hide the dis
colored patches by smearing them with
ink.
can see nothing" said I. handing
it back to my friend
-On the contrary. Watson Won can
see everything. You fail. however. 10
reason from SShat you see You are too
timid in drawing your differences.
Then, pray tell me what il Is that
you can INFER from this hat2"
He picked it up and gazed at II in
the peculiar retrospective fashion whicf,
was characteristic Of him ct is per-
haps less suggestive than Il might have
been" he remarked. land yet there are
few differences which are very dis
tinct and q few others which renreSent