“The next morning when I arose to dress, the mystery was cleared.”
“You had dreamed its solution?” asked Raleigh.
“No,” replied Holmes. “Burgess had disappeared with all my clothing, my false-beard, my suit-case, and my watch. The only thing he had left me was the bathing-suit and a few empty small bottles.”
“And why, may I ask,” put in Hamlet, as they drew near to Charon’s office—“why does that case remind you of business as it is conducted to-day?”
“In this, that it is a good thing to stay out of unless you know it all,” explained Holmes. “I omitted in the case of Burgess to observe one thing about him. Had I observed that his nose was rectilinear, incurved, and with a lifted base, and that his auricular temporal angle was between 96 and 97 degrees, I should have known at once that he was an impostor Vide Ottolenghui on ‘Ears and Noses I Have Met,’ pp. 631–640.”
“Do you mean to say that you can tell a criminal by his ears?” demanded Hamlet.
“If he has any—yes; but I did not know that at the time of the Brighton mystery. Therefore I should have stayed out of the case. But here we are. Good-morning, Charon.”
By this time the trio had entered the private office of the president of the Styx Navigation Company, and in a few moments the vessel was chartered at a fabulous price.
On the return to the wharf, Sir Walter somewhat nervously asked Holmes if he thought the plan they had settled upon would work.
“Charon is a very shrewd old fellow,” said he. “He may outwit us yet.”