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Page 31
"To-day, for example?"
"Yes, to-day, if you like."
"And as far off as Birmingham?"
"Certainly, if you wish it."
"And the practice?"
"I do my neighbor's when he goes. He is always ready
to work off the debt."
"Ha! Nothing could be better," said Holmes, leaning
back in his chair and looking keenly at me from under
his half closed lids. "I perceive that you have been
unwell lately. Summer colds are always a little
trying."
"I was confined to the house by a sever chill for
three days last week. I thought, however, that I had
cast off every trace of it."
"So you have. You look remarkably robust."
"How, then, did you know of it?"
"My dear fellow, you know my methods."
"You deduced it, then?"
"Certainly."
"And from what?"
"From your slippers."
I glanced down at the new patent leathers which I was
wearing. "How on earth--" I began, but Holmes
answered my question before it was asked.
"Your slippers are new," he said. "You could not have
had them more than a few weeks. The soles which you
are at this moment presenting to me are slightly
scorched. For a moment I thought they might have got
wet and been burned in the drying. But near the instep
there is a small circular wafer of paper with the
shopman's hieroglyphics upon it. Damp would of course
have removed this. You had, then, been sitting with
our feet outstretched to the fire, which a man would
hardly do even in so wet a June as this if he were in
his full health."
Like all Holmes's reasoning the thing seemed
simplicity itself when it was once explained. He read
the thought upon my features, and his smile had a
tinge of bitterness.
"I am afraid that I rather give myself away when I
explain," said he. "Results without causes are much
more impressive. You are ready to come to Birmingham,
then?"
"Certainly. What is the case?"
"You shall hear it all in the train. My client is
outside in a four-wheeler. Can you come at once?"
"In an instant." I scribbled a note to my neighbor,
rushed upstairs to explain the matter to my wife, and
joined Holmes upon the door-step.
"Your neighbor is a doctor," said he, nodding at the
brass plate.
"Yes; he bought a practice as I did."
"An old-established one?"
"Just the same as mine. Both have been ever since the
houses were built."
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