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“ Well , when they closed their League offices that was a sign that they cared no longer about Mr . Jabez Wilson’s presence — in other words , that they had completed their tunnel . But it was essential that they should use it soon , as it might be discovered , or the bullion might be removed . Saturday would suit them better than any other day , as it would give them two days for their escape . For all these reasons I expected them to come to - night . ” “ You reasoned it out beautifully , ” I exclaimed in unfeigned admiration . “ It is so long a chain , and yet every link rings true . ” “ It saved me from ennui , ” he answered , yawning . “ Alas ! I already feel it closing in upon me . My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence . These little problems help me to do so . ” “ And you are a benefactor of the race , ” said I . He shrugged his shoulders . “ Well , perhaps , after all , it is of some little use , ” he remarked . “ ‘ L’homme c’est rien — l’œuvre c’est tout , ’ as Gustave Flaubert wrote to George Sand . ” III . A CASE OF IDENTITY “ My dear fellow , ” said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street , “ life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent . We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence . If we could fly out of that window hand in hand , hover over this great city , gently remove the roofs , and peep in at the queer things which are going on , the strange coincidences , the plannings , the cross - purposes , the wonderful chains of events , working through generations , and leading to the most outré results , it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable . ” “ And yet I am not convinced of it , ” I answered . “ The cases which come to light in the papers are , as a rule , bald enough , and vulgar enough . We have in our police reports realism pushed to its extreme limits , and yet the result is , it must be confessed , neither fascinating nor artistic . ” “ A certain selection and discretion must be used in producing a realistic effect , ” remarked Holmes . “ This is wanting in the police report , where more stress is laid , perhaps , upon the platitudes of the magistrate than upon the details , which to an observer contain the vital essence of the whole matter . Depend upon it , there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace . ” I smiled and shook my head . “ I can quite understand your thinking so , ” I said . “ Of course , in your position of unofficial adviser and helper to everybody who is absolutely puzzled , throughout three continents , you are brought in contact with all that is strange and bizarre . But here ” — I picked up the morning paper from the ground — “ let us put it to a practical test . Here is the first heading upon which I come . ‘ A husband’s cruelty to his wife . ’ There is half a column of print , but I know without reading it that it is all perfectly familiar to me . There is , of course , the other woman , the drink , the push , the blow , the bruise , the sympathetic sister or landlady . The crudest of writers could invent nothing more crude . ”
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