Free The Adventure of Bruce-Partington Plans by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Page A

the
tidiest and most orderly brain, with the greatest capacity for storing
facts, of any man living. The same great powers which I have turned to
the detection of crime he has used for this particular business. The
conclusions of every department are passed to him, and he is the
central exchange, the clearinghouse, which makes out the balance. All
other men are specialists, but his specialism is omniscience. We will
suppose that a minister needs information as to a point which involves
the Navy, India, Canada and the bimetallic question; he could get his
separate advices from various departments upon each, but only Mycroft
can focus them all, and say offhand how each factor would affect the
other. They began by using him as a short-cut, a convenience; now he
has made himself an essential. In that great brain of his everything
is pigeon-holed and can be handed out in an instant. Again and again
his word has decided the national policy. He lives in it. He thinks
of nothing else save when, as an intellectual exercise, he unbends if I
call upon him and ask him to advise me on one of my little problems.
But Jupiter is descending to-day. What on earth can it mean? Who is
Cadogan West, and what is he to Mycroft?"
    "I have it," I cried, and plunged among the litter of papers upon the
sofa. "Yes, yes, here he is, sure enough! Cadogen West was the young
man who was found dead on the Underground on Tuesday morning."
    Holmes sat up at attention, his pipe halfway to his lips.
    "This must be serious, Watson. A death which has caused my brother to
alter his habits can be no ordinary one. What in the world can he have
to do with it? The case was featureless as I remember it. The young
man had apparently fallen out of the train and killed himself. He had
not been robbed, and there was no particular reason to suspect
violence. Is that not so?"
    "There has been an inquest," said I, "and a good many fresh facts have
come out. Looked at more closely, I should certainly say that it was a
curious case."
    "Judging by its effect upon my brother, I should think it must be a
most extraordinary one." He snuggled down in his armchair. "Now,
Watson, let us have the facts."
    "The man's name was Arthur Cadogan West. He was twenty-seven years of
age, unmarried, and a clerk at Woolwich Arsenal."
    "Government employ. Behold the link with Brother Mycroft!"
    "He left Woolwich suddenly on Monday night. Was last seen by his
fiancee, Miss Violet Westbury, whom he left abruptly in the fog about
7:30 that evening. There was no quarrel between them and she can give
no motive for his action. The next thing heard of him was when his
dead body was discovered by a plate-layer named Mason, just outside
Aldgate Station on the Underground system in London."
    "When?"
    "The body was found at six on Tuesday morning. It was lying wide of
the metals upon the left hand of the track as one goes eastward, at a
point close to the station, where the line emerges from the tunnel in
which it runs. The head was badly crushed—an injury which might well
have been caused by a fall from the train. The body could only have
come on the line in that way. Had it been carried down from any
neighbouring street, it must have passed the station barriers, where a
collector is always standing. This point seems absolutely certain."
    "Very good. The case is definite enough. The man, dead or alive,
either fell or was precipitated from a train. So much is clear to me.
Continue."
    "The trains which traverse the lines of rail beside which the body was
found are those which run from west to east, some being purely
Metropolitan, and some from Willesden and outlying junctions. It can
be stated for certain that this young man, when he met his death, was
travelling in this direction at some late hour of the night, but at
what point he entered the train it is impossible to state."
    "His ticket, of course, would show that."
    "There was no ticket in his pockets."
    "No ticket! Dear me, Watson, this is really very