To-day is Saturday, and I hope that by Monday we may come to a conclusion." "Well, Watson," said Holmes when our visitor had left us, "what do you make of it all ?" "I make nothing of it," I answered frankly.

"It is a most mysterious business." "As a rule," said Holmes, "the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be.

It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.

But I must be prompt over this matter." "What are you going to do, then ?" I asked.
"To smoke," he answered.

"It is quite a three pipe problem, and I beg that you won't speak to me for fifty minutes." He curled himself up in his chair, with his thin knees drawn up to his hawk-like nose, and there he sat with his eyes closed and his black clay pipe thrusting out like the bill of some strange bird.
I had come to the conclusion that he had dropped asleep, and indeed was nodding myself, when he suddenly sprang out of his chair with the gesture of a man who has made up his mind and put his pipe down upon the mantelpiece.
"Sarasate plays at the St.James's Hall this afternoon," he remarked.