The Adventure of the Cardboard Box

In choosing a few typical cases which illustrate the remarkable mental
qualities of my friend, Sherlock Holmes, I have endeavoured, as far as
possible, to select those which presented the minimum of
sensationalism, while offering a fair field for his talents. It is,
however, unfortunately impossible entirely to separate the sensational
from the criminal, and a chronicler is left in the dilemma that he must
either sacrifice details which are essential to his statement and so
give a false impression of the problem, or he must use matter which
chance, and not choice, has provided him with. With this short preface
I shall turn to my notes of what proved to be a strange, though a
peculiarly terrible, chain of events.

It was a blazing hot day in August. Baker Street was like an oven, and
the glare of the sunlight upon the yellow brickwork of the house across
the road was painful to the eye. It was hard to believe that these
were the same walls which loomed so gloomily through the fogs of
winter. Our blinds were half-drawn, and Holmes lay curled upon the
sofa, reading and re-reading a letter which he had received by the
morning post. For myself, my term of service in India had trained me
to stand heat better than cold, and a thermometer at ninety was no
hardship. But the morning paper was uninteresting. Parliament had
risen. Everybody was out of town, and I yearned for the glades of the
New Forest or the shingle of Southsea. A depleted bank account had
caused me to postpone my holiday, and as to my companion, neither the
country nor the sea presented the slightest attraction to him. He
loved to lie in the very center of five millions of people, with his
filaments stretching out and running through them, responsive to every
little rumour or suspicion of unsolved crime. Appreciation of nature
found no place among his many gifts, and his only change was when he
turned his mind from the evil-doer of the town to track down his
brother of the country.

Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for conversation I had tossed side
the barren paper, and leaning back in my chair I fell into a brown
study. Suddenly my companion's voice broke in upon my thoughts:

"You are right, Watson," said he. "It does seem a most preposterous
way of settling a dispute."

"Most preposterous!" I exclaimed, and then suddenly realizing how he
had echoed the inmost thought of my soul, I sat up in my chair and
stared at him in blank amazement.

"What is this, Holmes?" I cried. "This is beyond anything which I
could have imagined."

He laughed heartily at my perplexity.

"You remember," said he, "that some little time ago when I read you the
passage in one of Poe's sketches in which a close reasoner follows the
unspoken thoughts of his companion, you were inclined to treat the
matter as a mere tour-de-force of the author. On my remarking that I
was constantly in the habit of doing the same thing you expressed
incredulity."

"Oh, no!"

"Perhaps not with your tongue, my dear Watson, but certainly with your
eyebrows. So when I saw you throw down your paper and enter upon a
train of thought, I was very happy to have the opportunity of reading
it off, and eventually of breaking into it, as a proof that I had been
in rapport with you."

But I was still far from satisfied. "In the example which you read to
me," said I, "the reasoner drew his conclusions from the actions of the
man whom he observed. If I remember right, he stumbled over a heap of
stones, looked up at the stars, and so on. But I have been seated
quietly in my chair, and what clues can I have given you?"

"You do yourself an injustice. The features are given to man as the
means by which he shall express his emotions, and yours are faithful
servants."

"Do you mean to say that you read my train of thoughts from my
features?"

"Your features and especially your eyes. Perhaps you cannot yourself
recall how your reverie commenced?"

"No, I cannot."

"Then I will tell you. After throwing down your paper, which was the
action which drew my attention to you, you sat for half a minute with a
vacant expression. Then your eyes fixed themselves upon your newly
framed picture of General Gordon, and I saw by the alteration in your
face that a train of thought had been started. But it did not lead
very far. Your eyes flashed across to the unframed portrait of Henry
Ward Beecher which stands upon the top of your books. Then you glanced
up at the wall, and of course your meaning was obvious. You were
thinking that if the portrait were framed it would just cover that bare
space and correspond with Gordon's picture there."

"You have followed me wonderfully!" I exclaimed.

"So far I could hardly have gone astray. But now your thoughts went
back to Beecher, and you looked hard across as if you were studying the
character in his features. Then your eyes ceased to pucker, but you
continued to look across, and your face was thoughtful. You were
recalling the incidents of Beecher's career. I was well aware that you
could not do this without thinking of the mission which he undertook on
behalf of the North at the time of the Civil War, for I remember your
expressing your passionate indignation at the way in which he was
received by the more turbulent of our people. You felt so strongly
about it that I knew you could not think of Beecher without thinking of
that also. When a moment later I saw your eyes wander away from the
picture, I suspected that your mind had now turned to the Civil War,
and when I observed that your lips set, your eyes sparkled, and your
hands clenched I was positive that you were indeed thinking of the
gallantry which was shown by both sides in that desperate struggle. But
then, again, your face grew sadder, you shook your head. You were
dwelling upon the sadness and horror and useless waste of life. Your
hand stole towards your own old wound and a smile quivered on your
lips, which showed me that the ridiculous side of this method of
settling international questions had forced itself upon your mind. At
this point I agreed with you that it was preposterous and was glad to
find that all my deductions had been correct."

"Absolutely!" said I. "And now that you have explained it, I confess
that I am as amazed as before."

"It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I assure you. I should not
have intruded it upon your attention had you not shown some incredulity
the other day. But I have in my hands here a little problem which may
prove to be more difficult of solution than my small essay I thought
reading. Have you observed in the paper a short paragraph referring to
the remarkable contents of a packet sent through the post to Miss
Cushing, of Cross Street, Croydon?"

"No, I saw nothing."

"Ah! then you must have overlooked it. Just toss it over to me. Here
it is, under the financial column. Perhaps you would be good enough to
read it aloud."

I picked up the paper which he had thrown back to me and read the
paragraph indicated. It was headed, "A Gruesome Packet."

"Miss Susan Cushing, living at Cross Street, Croydon, has been made the
victim of what must be regarded as a peculiarly revolting practical
joke unless some more sinister meaning should prove to be attached to
the incident. At two o'clock yesterday afternoon a small packet,
wrapped in brown paper, was handed in by the postman. A cardboard box
was inside, which was filled with coarse salt. On emptying this, Miss
Cushing was horrified to find two human ears, apparently quite freshly
severed. The box had been sent by parcel post from Belfast upon the
morning before. There is no indication as to the sender, and the
matter is the more mysterious as Miss Cushing, who is a maiden lady of
fifty, has led a most retired life, and has so few acquaintances or
correspondents that it is a rare event for her to receive anything
through the post. Some years ago, however, when she resided at Penge,
she let apartments in her house to three young medical students, whom
she was obliged to get rid of on account of their noisy and irregular
habits. The police are of opinion that this outrage may have been
perpetrated upon Miss Cushing by these youths, who owed her a grudge
and who hoped to frighten her by sending her these relics of the
dissecting-rooms. Some probability is lent to the theory by the fact
that one of these students came from the north of Ireland, and, to the
best of Miss Cushing's belief, from Belfast. In the meantime, the
matter is being actively investigated, Mr. Lestrade, one of the very
smartest of our detective officers, being in charge of the case."

"So much for the Daily Chronicle," said Holmes as I finished reading.
"Now for our friend Lestrade. I had a note from him this morning, in
which he says:

"I think that this case is very much in your line. We have every hope
of clearing the matter up, but we find a little difficulty in getting
anything to work upon. We have, of course, wired to the Belfast
post-office, but a large number of parcels were handed in upon that
day, and they have no means of identifying this particular one, or of
remembering the sender. The box is a half-pound box of honeydew
tobacco and does not help us in any way. The medical student theory
still appears to me to be the most feasible, but if you should have a
few hours to spare I should be very happy to see you out here. I shall
be either at the house or in the police-station all day.

"What say you, Watson? Can you rise superior to the heat and run down
to Croydon with me on the off chance of a case for your annals?"

"I was longing for something to do."

"You shall have it then. Ring for our boots and tell them to order a
cab. I'll be back in a moment when I have changed my dressing-gown and
filled my cigar-case."

A shower of rain fell while we were in the train, and the heat was far
less oppressive in Croydon than in town. Holmes had sent on a wire, so
that Lestrade, as wiry, as dapper, and as ferret-like as ever, was
waiting for us at the station. A walk of five minutes took us to Cross
Street, where Miss Cushing resided.

It was a very long street of two-story brick houses, neat and prim,
with whitened stone steps and little groups of aproned women gossiping
at the doors. Halfway down, Lestrade stopped and tapped at a door,
which was opened by a small servant girl. Miss Cushing was sitting in
the front room, into which we were ushered. She was a placid-faced
woman, with large, gentle eyes, and grizzled hair curving down over her
temples on each side. A worked antimacassar lay upon her lap and a
basket of coloured silks stood upon a stool beside her.

"They are in the outhouse, those dreadful things," said she as Lestrade
entered. "I wish that you would take them away altogether."

"So I shall, Miss Cushing. I only kept them here until my friend, Mr.
Holmes, should have seen them in your presence."

"Why in my presence, sir?"

"In case he wished to ask any questions."

"What is the use of asking me questions when I tell you I know nothing
whatever about it?"