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How our hydraulic engineer had been conveyed from the garden to the spot where he recovered his senses might have remained forever a mystery were it not for the soft mould , which told us a very plain tale . He had evidently been carried down by two persons , one of whom had remarkably small feet and the other unusually large ones . On the whole , it was most probable that the silent Englishman , being less bold or less murderous than his companion , had assisted the woman to bear the unconscious man out of the way of danger . “ Well , ” said our engineer ruefully as we took our seats to return once more to London , “ it has been a pretty business for me ! I have lost my thumb and I have lost a fifty - guinea fee , and what have I gained ? ” “ Experience , ” said Holmes , laughing . “ Indirectly it may be of value , you know ; you have only to put it into words to gain the reputation of being excellent company for the remainder of your existence . ” X . THE ADVENTURE OF THE NOBLE BACHELOR The Lord St . Simon marriage , and its curious termination , have long ceased to be a subject of interest in those exalted circles in which the unfortunate bridegroom moves . Fresh scandals have eclipsed it , and their more piquant details have drawn the gossips away from this four - year - old drama . As I have reason to believe , however , that the full facts have never been revealed to the general public , and as my friend Sherlock Holmes had a considerable share in clearing the matter up , I feel that no memoir of him would be complete without some little sketch of this remarkable episode . It was a few weeks before my own marriage , during the days when I was still sharing rooms with Holmes in Baker Street , that he came home from an afternoon stroll to find a letter on the table waiting for him . I had remained indoors all day , for the weather had taken a sudden turn to rain , with high autumnal winds , and the jezail bullet which I had brought back in one of my limbs as a relic of my Afghan campaign throbbed with dull persistence . With my body in one easy - chair and my legs upon another , I had surrounded myself with a cloud of newspapers until at last , saturated with the news of the day , I tossed them all aside and lay listless , watching the huge crest and monogram upon the envelope upon the table and wondering lazily who my friend’s noble correspondent could be . “ Here is a very fashionable epistle , ” I remarked as he entered . “ Your morning letters , if I remember right , were from a fish - monger and a tide - waiter . ” “ Yes , my correspondence has certainly the charm of variety , ” he answered , smiling , “ and the humbler are usually the more interesting . This looks like one of those unwelcome social summonses which call upon a man either to be bored or to lie . ” He broke the seal and glanced over the contents .
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