Right wing three-quarter
missing; indispensable to morrow. -- OVERTON."
"Strand post-mark and dispatched ten-thirty-six," said Holmes,
reading it over and over. "Mr. Overton was evidently considerably
excited when he sent it, and somewhat incoherent in consequence.
Well, well, he will be here, I dare say, by the time I have looked
through the TIMES, and then we shall know all about it. Even the
most insignificant problem would be welcome in these stagnant days."
Things had indeed been very slow with us, and I had learned
to dread such periods of inaction, for I knew by experience
that my companion's brain was so abnormally active that it was
dangerous to leave it without material upon which to work.
For years I had gradually weaned him from that drug mania which
had threatened once to check his remarkable career. Now I knew
that under ordinary conditions he no longer craved for this
artificial stimulus, but I was well aware that the fiend was
not dead, but sleeping; and I have known that the sleep was a
light one and the waking near when in periods of idleness I have
seen the drawn look upon Holmes's ascetic face, and the brooding
of his deep-set and inscrutable eyes.
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