will—or has—provided a motive for men's crimes, Watson." He lifted his hand and whistled for the Jehu, an eerie sound in the muffled stillness. His face in the glare of the gaslight seemed pale and set. "Whether a man bows down to God or Mammon or to Cthulhu in his dark house at R'lyeh is no affair of mine . . . Until he sheds one drop of blood not his own in his deity's name. Then God have mercy upon him, for I shall not."
All of these events took place on Monday, the 20th of August. The following day Holmes was engaged with turning over the pages of his scrapbooks of clippings regarding unsolved crimes, seeming, it appeared to me, to concentrate on disappearances during the later part of the summer in years back almost to the beginning of the century. On Wednesday Mrs. Hudson sent up the familiar elegantly restrained calling-card of the American folklorist, the man himself following hard upon her heels and almost thrusting her out of the way as he entered our parlor.
"Well, Holmes, it's all settled and done with," he declared, in a loud voice very unlike his own. "Thank you for your patience with old Delapore's damned rodomontade, but I've seen the old man myself—he came down to town yesterday, damn his impudence—and made him see reason."
"Have you?" asked Holmes politely, gesturing to the chair in which he had first sat.
Colby waved him impatiently away. "Simplest thing in nature, really. Feed a cur and he'll shut up barking. And here's for you." And he drew from his pocket a small leather bag which he tossed carelessly onto the table. It struck with the heavy, metallic ring of golden coin. "Thank you again."
"And I thank you." Holmes bowed, but he watched Colby's face as he spoke, and I could see his own face had turned very pale. "Surely you are too generous."
"S'blood, man, what's a few guineas to me? I can tear up little Judi's poor letter, now we're to be wed all right and tight . . . ." He winked lewdly at Holmes, and held out his hand. "And her old Dad's damned impudent note as well, if you would."
Holmes looked around him vaguely, and picked up various of his scrapbooks from the table to look beneath them: "Didn't you tuck it behind the clock?" I asked.
"Did I?" Holmes went immediately to the mantle—cluttered as always with newspapers, books, and unanswered correspondence—and after a brief search shook his head. "I shall find it, never fear," he said, his brow furrowing. "And return it, if you would be so kind as to give me your direction once more."
Colby hesitated, then snatched the nearest piece of paper from the table—a bill from Holmes' tailor, I believe it was—and scribbled an address upon it. "I'm off to Watchgate this afternoon," he said. "This will find me."
"Thank you," said Holmes, and I noticed that he neither touched the paper, nor came within arm's reach of the man who stood before him. "I shall have it in the post before nightfall. I can't think what can have become of it. It has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Colby. My felicitations on the happy outcome of your suit."
When Colby was gone Holmes stood for a time beside the table, looking after him a little blankly, his hands knotted into fists where they rested among the scrapbooks. He whispered, "Damn him," as if he had forgotten my presence in the room. "My God, I had not believed it . . . ."
Then, turning sharply, he went to the mantelpiece and immediately withdrew from behind the clock the note which Carstairs Delapore had sent to Colby. This he tucked into an envelope and sealed. As he copied the direction he asked in a stiff, expressionless tone, "What did you make of our guest, Watson?"
"That success has made him bumptious," I replied, for I had liked Colby less in his elevated and energized mood than I had when he was merely unthinking about his own and other peoples' money. "Holmes, what is it? What's wrong?"
"Did you happen to notice which hand he wrote out his direction with?"
I thought for a moment, picturing the man scribbling, then said, "His left."
"Yet when he wrote the address of the Hotel Excelsior the day before yesterday," said Holmes, "he did so with his right hand."
"So he did." I came to his side and picked up the tailor's bill, and compared the writing