Say, though, just imagine the spirit of Marcus Antonius in a rubber apron, making an analysis of oleomargarine! But here we are;good-bye," and he left me without awaiting any reply.He seemed to me to be in decidedly better spirits than formerly, and I was at the time at a loss to account for it.The cause of his levity, however, was soon explained, for that night, as Gwen, my sister, and I were sitting cosily in the study according to our usual custom, Maitland walked in, unannounced.He had come now to be a regular visitor, and I invented not a few subterfuges to get him to call even oftener than he otherwise would, for I perceived that his coming gave pleasure to Gwen.She exhibited less depression when in his presence than at any other time.I had learned that hers was one of those deep natures in which grief crystallises slowly, but with an unconquerable persistence.Instead of her forgetting her bereavement, or the sense thereof waxing weaker by time, she seemed to be drifting toward that ever-present consciousness of loss in which the soul feels itself gradually, but surely, sinking under an insupportable burden - a burden so long borne, so well known, that the mind no longer thinks of it.The heart beats stolidly under its load, and seems to forget the time when it was not so oppressed.No one knows better than we physicians the danger of this autocracy of grief, and I watched Gwen with a solicitude at times almost bordering on despair.But, as I said before, she always seemed to show more interest in affairs when Maitland was present, and, on the night in question, his abrupt and unexpected entrance surprised her into the betrayal of more pleasure than she would have wished us to note, and, indeed, so quickly did she conceal her confusion that I was the only one who noticed it.Maitland was too busy with the news he brought.
"Well, Miss Darrow," he began at once, "at last your detective has got a clue - not much of a one - but still a clue.I can pick the man for whom we are looking from among a million of his fellows - if I am ever fortunate enough to get the chance."Somebody has already called attention to the fact that women are more or less curious, and there are well-authenticated cases on record where this inquisitiveness has even extended to things which did not immediately concern themselves; so I have little doubt Ishall be believed when I say the women folk were in a fever of expectancy, and besought Maitland with an earnestness quite unnecessary - (it would have required a great deal to have prevented his telling it) - to begin at the beginning, and relate the whole thing.He readily acceded to this request, and began by telling them the experiences which I have just narrated.It was, he said, during the last act of Sardou's "Cleopatra" that the idea had suddenly come to him to change the plan of search from the analytical to the synthetical.
"You see," he continued, "I had from the first been trying to find the assassin without knowing the exact way in which the crime was committed.I now determined to ascertain how, under the same circumstances, I could commit such a crime, and leave behind no other evidences of the deed than those which are in our possession.
I began to read detective stories, with all the avidity of a Western Union Telegraph messenger, and, of course, read those by Conan Doyle.
The assertion of 'Sherlock Holmes' that there is no novelty in crime;that crimes, like history, repeat themselves; and that criminals read and copy each other's methods, deeply impressed me, and I at once said to myself: 'If our assassin was not original, whom did he copy?'
"It was while reading 'The Sign of the Four,' which I had procured at the Public Library, that I made the first discovery.The crime therein narrated had been committed in such a singular manner that it at once attracted my attention.The victim had apparently been murdered without anyone having either entered or left the room.In this respect it was like the problem we are trying to solve.Might not this book, I said to myself, have suggested to your father's assassin the course he pursued.I concluded to go to the library and ask for a list of the names of persons who had taken out this book for a few months prior to your father's death.I was fully aware that the chance of my learning anything in this way was very slight, In the first place; I reasoned that it was not especially likely your father's murderer had read 'The Sign of the Four,'
