“Good! Good! I was merely trying one of my disguises on you, madame, and you were completely taken in. Of course no one would ever know me for Sherlock Holmes if I manifested such dullness.”
“Ah!” she said, her face lighting up. “You were merely deceiving me by appearing to be obtuse?”
“Of course,” said I. “I see the whole thing in a nutshell. You married an adventurer; he told you who he was, but you've never been able to prove it; and suddenly you are deserted by him, and on going over his wardrobe you find he has left nothing but these articles: and now you wish to sue him for a separation on the ground of desertion, and secure alimony if possible.”
It was a magnificent guess.
“That is it precisely,” said the lady. “Except as to the extent of his 'leavings.' In addition to the things you have he gave my small brother a brass bugle and a tin sword.”
“We may need to see them later,” said I. “At present I will do all I can for you on the evidence in hand. I have got my eye on a gentleman who wears silver-tinsel tights now, but I am afraid he is not the man we are after, because his hair is black, and, as far as I have been able to learn from his valet, he is utterly unacquainted with swan's-down.”
We separated again and I went to the club to think. Never in my life before had I had so baffling a case. As I sat in the cafe sipping a cocaine cobbler, who should walk in but Hamlet, strangely enough picking particles of swan's-down from his black doublet, which was literally covered with it.
“Hello, Sherlock!” he said, drawing up a chair and sitting down beside me. “What you up to?”
“Trying to make out where you have been,” I replied. “I judge from the swan's-down on your doublet that you have been escorting Ophelia to the opera in the regulation cloak.”
“You're mistaken for once,” he laughed. “I've been driving with Lohengrin. He's got a pair of swans that can do a mile in 2.10—but it makes them moult like the devil.”