Doyle Recollections of Captain Wilkie & The New Revelation

1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-3-98744-768-6
Verlag: OTB eBook publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 73 Seiten

Reihe: Classics To Go

The Recollections of Captain Wilkie is a short story written by Arthur Conan Doyle first published in the Chambers's Journal on 19 January 1895.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Doyle, Arthur Conan

Leseproben

Recollections of Captain Wilkie
A Story of an Old Offender
“Who can he be?” thought I, as I watched my companion in the second-class carriage of the London and Dover Railway. I had been so full of the fact that my long-expected holiday had come at last, and that for a few days, at least, the gayeties of Paris were about to supersede the dull routine of the hospital wards, that we were well out of London before I observed that I was not alone in the compartment. In these days we have all pretty well agreed that “three is company and two is none” upon the railway. At the time I write of, however, people were not so morbidly sensitive about their travelling companions. It was rather an agreeable surprise to me to find that there was some chance of whiling away the hours of a tedious journey. I therefore pulled my cap down over my eyes, took a good look from beneath it at my vis-a-vis, and repeated to myself: “Who can he be?” I used rather to pride myself on being able to spot a man’s trade or profession by a good look at his exterior. I had the advantage of studying under a master of the art, who used to electrify both his patients and his clinical classes by long shots, sometimes at the most unlikely of pursuits; and never very far from the mark. “Well, my man,” I have heard him say, “I can see by your fingers that you play some musical instrument for your livelihood, but it is a rather curious one; something quite out of my line.” The man afterwards informed us that he earned a few coppers by blowing “Rule Britannia” on a coffee-pot, the spout of which was pierced to form a rough flute. Though a novice in the art, I was still able to astonish my ward companions on occasion, and I never lost an opportunity of practising. It was not mere curiosity, then, which led me to lean back on the cushions and analyze the quiet middle-aged man in front of me. I used to do the thing systematically, and my train of reflections ran somewhat in this wise: “General appearance, vulgar; fairly opulent and extremely self-possessed; looks like a man who could out-chaff a bargee, and yet be at his ease in middle-class society. Eyes well set together and nose rather prominent; would be a good long-range marksman. Cheeks flabby, but the softness of expression redeemed by a square-cut jaw and a well-set lower lip. On the whole, a powerful type. Now for the hands—rather disappointed there. Thought he was a self-made man by the look of him, but there is no callous in the palm and no thickness at the joints. Has never been engaged in any real physical work, I should think. No tanning on the backs of the hands; on the contrary, they are very white, with blue projecting veins and long, delicate fingers. Couldn’t be an artist with that face, and yet he has the hands of a man engaged in delicate manipulations. No red acid spots upon his clothes, no ink stains, no nitrate of silver marks upon the hands (this helps to negative my half-formed opinion that he was a photographer). Clothes not worn in any particular part. Coat made of tweed, and fairly old; but the left elbow, as far as I can see it, has as much of the fluff left on as the right, which is seldom the case with men who do much writing. Might be a commercial traveller, but the little pocketbook in the waistcoat is wanting, nor has he any of those handy valises suggestive of samples.” I give these brief headings of my ideas merely to demonstrate my method of arriving at a conclusion. As yet I had obtained nothing but negative results; but now, to use a chemical metaphor, I was in a position to pour off this solution of dissolved possibilities and examine the residue. I found myself reduced to a very limited number of occupations. He was neither a lawyer nor a clergyman, in spite of a soft felt hat, and a somewhat clerical cut about the necktie. I was wavering now between pawnbroker and horsedealer; but there was too much character about his face for the former, and he lacked that extraordinary equine atmosphere which hangs about the latter even in his hours of relaxation; so I formed a provisional diagnosis of betting man of methodistical persuasions, the latter clause being inserted in deference to his hat and necktie. Pray, do not think that I reasoned it out like this in my own mind. It is only now, sitting down with pen and paper, that I can see the successive steps. As it was, I had formed my conclusion within sixty seconds of the time when I drew my hat down over my eyes and uttered the mental ejaculation with which my narrative begins. I did not feel quite satisfied even then with my deduction. However, as a leading question would—to pursue my chemical analogy—act as my litmus paper, I determined to try one. There was a “Times” lying by my companion, and I thought the opportunity too good to be neglected. “Do you mind my looking at your paper?” I asked. “Certainly, sir, certainly,” said he most urbanely, handing it across. I glanced down its columns until my eye rested upon the list of the latest betting. “Hullo!” I said, “they are laying odds upon the favorite for the Cambridgeshire. But perhaps,” I added, looking up, “you are not interested in these matters?” “Snares, sir!” said he violently; “wiles of the enemy! Mortals are but given a few years to live; how can they squander them so? They have not even an eye to their poor worldly interests,” he added in a quieter tone, “or they would never back a single horse at such short odds with a field of thirty.” There was something in this speech of his which tickled me immensely. I suppose it was the odd way in which he blended religious intolerance with worldly wisdom. I laid the “Times” aside with the conviction that I should be able to spend the next two hours to better purpose than in its perusal. “You speak as if you understood the matter, at any rate,” I remarked. “Yes, sir,” he answered; “few men in England understood these things better in the old days before I changed my profession. But that is all over now.” “Changed your profession?” said I, interrogatively. “Yes; I changed my name, too.” “Indeed?” said I. “Yes; you see, a man wants a real fresh start when his eyes become opened, so he has a new deal all round, so to speak. Then he gets a fair chance.” There was a short pause here, as I seemed to be on delicate ground in touching on my companion’s antecedents, and he did not volunteer any information. I broke the silence by offering him a cheroot. “No, thanks,” said he; “I have given up tobacco. It was the hardest wrench of all, was that. It does me good to smell the whiff of your weed. Tell me,” he added suddenly, looking hard at me with his shrewd gray eyes, “why did you take stock of me so carefully before you spoke?” “It is a habit of mine,” said I. “I am a medical man, and observation is everything in my profession. I had no idea you were looking.” “I can see without looking,” he answered. “I thought you were a detective, at first; but I couldn’t recall your face at the time I knew the force.” “Were you a detective, then?” said I. “No,” he answered, with a laugh; “I was the other thing—the detected, you know. Old scores are wiped out now, and the law cannot touch me; so I don’t mind confessing to a gentleman like yourself what a scoundrel I have been in my time.” “We are none of us perfect,” said I. “No; but I was a real out-and-outer. A ‘fake,’ you know, to start with, and afterwards a ‘cracksman.’ It is easy to talk of these things now, for I’ve changed my spirit. It’s as if I was talking of some other man, you see.” “Exactly so,” said I. Being a medical man, I had none of that shrinking from crime and criminals which many men possess. I could make all allowances for congenital influence and the force of circumstances. No company, therefore, could have been more acceptable to me than that of the old malefactor; and as I sat puffing at my cigar, I was delighted to observe that my air of interest was gradually loosening his tongue. “Yes; I’m converted now,” he continued, “and of course I am a happier man for that. And yet,” he added wistfully, “there are times when I long for the old trade again, and fancy myself strolling out on a cloudy night with my jimmy in my pocket. I left a name behind me in my profession, sir. I was one of the old school, you know. It was very seldom that we bungled a job. We used to begin at the foot of the ladder, the rope ladder, if I may say so, in my younger days, and then work our way up, step by step, so that we were what you might call good men all through.” “I see,” said I. “I was always reckoned a hard-working, conscientious man, and had talent, too; the very cleverest of them allowed that. I began as a blacksmith, and then did a little engineering and carpentering, and then I took to sleight-of-hand tricks, and then to picking pockets. I remember, when I was home on a visit, how my poor old father used to wonder why I was always hovering around him. He little knew that I used to clear everything out of his pockets a dozen times a day, and then replace them, just to keep my hand in. He believes to this day that I am in an office in the City. There are few of them could touch me in that particular line of business, though.” “I suppose it is a matter of practice?” I remarked. “To a great extent. Still, a man never quite loses it, if he has once been an adept—excuse me; you have dropped some cigar ash on your coat,” and he waved his hand politely in front of my breast, as if to brush it off. “There,” he said, handing me my gold scarf...