It was a wild, tempestuous night towards the close of November.
Holmes and I sat together in silence all the evening, he engaged
with a powerful lens deciphering the remains of the original
inscription upon a palimpsest, I deep in a recent treatise upon
surgery. Outside the wind howled down Baker Street, while the
rain beat fiercely against the windows. It was strange there
in the very depths of the town, with ten miles of man's
handiwork on every side of us, to feel the iron grip of Nature,
and to be conscious that to the huge elemental forces all London
was no more than the molehills that dot the fields.
I walked to the window and looked out on the deserted street.
The occasional lamps gleamed on the expanse of muddy road and
shining pavement. A single cab was splashing its way from the
Oxford Street end.
"Well, Watson, it's as well we have not to turn out to-night,"
said Holmes, laying aside his lens and rolling up the palimpsest.
"I've done enough for one sitting. It is trying work for the eyes.
So far as I can make out it is nothing more exciting than an Abbey's
accounts dating from the second half of the fifteenth century.
Pages:
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380