“Well, your own good sense will suggest what measures I took next.  I went in the shape of a loafer to Sir George’s house, managed to pick up an acquaintance with his valet, learned that his master had cut his head the night before, and, finally, at the expense of six shillings, made all sure by buying a pair of his cast-off shoes.  With these I journeyed down to Streatham and saw that they exactly fitted the tracks.”

“I saw an ill-dressed vagabond in the lane yesterday evening,” said Mr. Holder.

“Precisely.  It was I. I found that I had my man, so I came home and changed my clothes.  It was a delicate part which I had to play then, for I saw that a prosecution must be avoided to avert scandal, and I knew that so astute a villain would see that our hands were tied in the matter.  I went and saw him.  At first, of course, he denied everything.  But when I gave him every particular that had occurred, he tried to bluster and took down a life-preserver from the wall.  I knew my man, however, and I clapped a pistol to his head before he could strike.  Then he became a little more reasonable.  I told him that we would give him a price for the stones he held—­1000 pounds apiece.  That brought out the first signs of grief that he had shown.  ’Why, dash it all!’ said he, ’I’ve let them go at six hundred for the three!’ I soon managed to get the address of the receiver who had them, on promising him that there would be no prosecution.  Off I set to him, and after much chaffering I got our stones at 1000 pounds apiece.  Then I looked in upon your son, told him that all was right, and eventually got to my bed about two o’clock, after what I may call a really hard day’s work.”

“A day which has saved England from a great public scandal,” said the banker, rising.  “Sir, I cannot find words to thank you, but you shall not find me ungrateful for what you have done.  Your skill has indeed exceeded all that I have heard of it.  And now I must fly to my dear boy to apologise to him for the wrong which I have done him.  As to what you tell me of poor Mary, it goes to my very heart.  Not even your skill can inform me where she is now.”

“I think that we may safely say,” returned Holmes, “that she is wherever Sir George Burnwell is.  It is equally certain, too, that whatever her sins are, they will soon receive a more than sufficient punishment.”

XII.  THE ADVENTURE OF THE COPPER BEECHES

“To the man who loves art for its own sake,” remarked Sherlock Holmes, tossing aside the advertisement sheet of the Daily Telegraph, “it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived.  It is pleasant to me to observe, Watson, that you have so far grasped this truth that in these little records of our cases which you have been good enough to draw up, and, I am bound to say, occasionally to embellish, you have given prominence not so much to the many causes célèbres and sensational trials in which I have figured but rather to those incidents which may have been trivial in themselves, but which have given room for those faculties of deduction and of logical synthesis which I have made my special province.”