I was sitting one day in my office on Apollyon Square opposite the Alexandrian library, smoking an absinthe cigarette, which I had rolled myself from my special mixture consisting of two parts tobacco, one part hasheesh, one part of opium dampened with a liqueur glass of absinthe, when an excited knock sounded upon my door.
“Come in,” I cried, adopting the usual formula.
The door opened and a beautiful woman stood before me clad in most regal garments, robust of figure, yet extremely pale. It seemed to me that I had seen her somewhere before, yet for a time I could not place her.
“Mr. Sherlock Holmes?” said she, in deliciously musical tones, which, singular to relate, she emitted in a fashion suggestive of a recitative passage in an opera.
“The same,” said I, bowing with my accustomed courtesy.
“The ferret?” she sang, in staccato tones which were ravishing to my musical soul.
I laughed. “That term has been applied to me, madame,” said I, chanting my answer as best I could. “For myself, however, I prefer to assume the more modest title of detective. I can work with or without clues, and have never yet been baffled. I know who wrote the Junius letters, and upon occasions have been known to see through a stone wall with my naked eye. What can I do for you?”
“Tell me who I am!” she cried, tragically, taking the centre of the room and gesticulating wildly.
“Well—really, madame,” I replied. “You didn't send up any card—”
“Ah!” she sneered. “This is what your vaunted prowess amounts to, eh? Ha! Do you suppose if I had a card with my name on it I'd have come to you to inquire who I am? I can read a card as well as you can, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”