Free The Red House Mystery by A. A. Milne Page B

discoveries of your own
two or three days after I have made them myself all that kind of thing?
Because it all helps."
    "My dear Tony," said Bill delightedly, "need you ask?" Antony said
nothing, and Bill went on happily to himself, "I perceive from the
strawberry-mark on your shirt-front that you had strawberries for
dessert. Holmes, you astonish me. Tut, tut, you know my methods. Where
is the tobacco? The tobacco is in the Persian slipper. Can I leave my
practice for a week? I can."
    Antony smiled and went on smoking. After waiting hopefully for a minute
or two, Bill said in a firm voice:
    "Well then, Holmes, I feel bound to ask you if you have deduced
anything. Also whom do you suspect?"
    Antony began to talk.
    "Do you remember," he said, "one of Holmes's little scores over Watson
about the number of steps up to the Baker Street lodging? Poor old
Watson had been up and down them a thousand times, but he had never
thought of counting them, whereas Holmes had counted them as a matter of
course, and knew that there were seventeen. And that was supposed to
be the difference between observation and non-observation. Watson was
crushed again, and Holmes appeared to him more amazing than ever. Now,
it always seemed to me that in that matter Holmes was the ass, and
Watson the sensible person. What on earth is the point of keeping in
your head an unnecessary fact like that? If you really want to know
at any time the number of steps to your lodging, you can ring up your
landlady and ask her. I've been up and down the steps of the club a
thousand times, but if you asked me to tell you at this moment how many
steps there are I couldn't do it. Could you?"
    "I certainly couldn't," said Bill.
    "But if you really wanted to know," said Antony casually, with a sudden
change of voice, "I could find out for you without even bothering to
ring up the hall-porter."
    Bill was puzzled as to why they were talking about the club steps, but
he felt it his duty to say that he did want to know how many they were.
    "Right," said Antony. "I'll find out."
    He closed his eyes.
    "I'm walking up St James' Street," he said slowly. "Now I've come to the
club and I'm going past the smoking-room—windows-one-two three
four. Now I'm at the steps. I turn in and begin going up them.
One-two-three-four-five-six, then a broad step; six-seven-eight-nine,
another broad step; nine-ten-eleven. Eleven I'm inside. Good morning,
Rogers. Fine day again." With a little start he opened his eyes and came
back again to his present surroundings. He turned to Bill with a smile.
"Eleven," he said. "Count them the next time you're there. Eleven and
now I hope I shall forget it again."
    Bill was distinctly interested.
    "That's rather hot," he said. "Expound."
    "Well, I can't explain it, whether it's something in the actual eye, or
something in the brain, or what, but I have got rather an uncanny habit
of recording things unconsciously. You know that game where you look at
a tray full of small objects for three minutes, and then turn away and
try to make a list of them. It means a devil of a lot of concentration
for the ordinary person, if he wants to get his list complete, but in
some odd way I manage to do it without concentration at all. I mean that
my eyes seem to do it without the brain consciously taking any part. I
could look at the tray, for instance, and talk to you about golf at the
same time, and still get my list right."
    "I should think that's rather a useful gift for an amateur detective.
You ought to have gone into the profession before."
    "Well, it is rather useful. It's rather surprising, you know, to a
stranger. Let's surprise Cayley with it, shall we?"
    "How?"
    "Well, let's ask him—" Antony stopped and looked at Bill comically,
"let's ask him what he's going to do with the key of the office."
    For a moment Bill did not understand.
    "Key of the office?" he said vaguely. "You don't mean—Tony! What do you
mean? Good God! do you mean that Cayley—But what about