“And she has never visited the streets of London except in Mrs. Fisher's company,” adds her spouse, with a look of what is either dull hatred or impending apoplexy.
Even at that crisis my wits did not desert me.
“My faith!” I cry, “I must be mistaken! It is not, then, Miss Fisher whom I worship! A thousand pardons, sir, and I beg of you to convey them to the lady whom I disturbed under a misapprehension!”
At this there is a pause, nobody volunteering to run with this message to the bedside of Miss Fisher, though I glance pointedly at Holmes, and even make the money in my pocket jingle. At last comes a sound of stifled air trying to force a passage through something dense. It proceeds, I notice, from my friend Fisher. Then it becomes a more articulate though scarcely less disagreeable noise.
“I do not believe a word you say, sir!” he booms.
“My friend, you are an agnostic,” I reply, with a smile.
Fisher only breathes with more apparent difficulty than ever. He is evidently going to deal a heavy blow this time. It falls.
“I charge this person with being concerned in the burglary at Mrs. Thompson's house last night, and with trying to burgle mine,” says he.
He pauses, and then delivers another:
“He has confessed to being an Italian.”