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twenty miles.*[In 1912 Shaw wrote Pygmalion, a play very obviously inspired by Holmes, about an eccentric bachelor with the same gift for placing people by their speech. Dr. Watson finds his counterpart in Colonel Pickering, who like Watson, has met his roommate on his return from Indian climes.] I’d know your Dublin origins despite your attempts to conceal them,” Holmes answered. “Ah, here we are, page forty-two. It concludes Act three, Scene one–”
    “The duel between Tybalt and Mercutio,” Shaw informed Lestrade, who was still pondering, I could see, the detective’s linguistic feat. Holmes looked at him sharply over the volume, whereat the Irishman coloured slightly.
    “Well, of course I’ve read it,” he snarled. “Romantic twaddle,” he added, to no-one in particular.
    “Yes, the death of Mercutio–and also Tybalt. Hmm, a curious reference.”
    “If he made it,” Lestrade persisted. “The book wasn’t in his hand, as I’ve said, and the pages might have fallen over in the interim.
    “They might,” Holmes agreed. “But since there is no message in the book, we must infer that he meant to tell us something with the volume. It could hardly have been the man’s whim to pass the time with a little Shakespeare while he bled to death.”
    “Hardly,” Shaw agreed. “Even McCarthy would not have been capable of such a gesture.”
    “You don’t seem very disturbed by what’s happened to the deceased,” Lestrade observed suspiciously.
    “I’m not disturbed in the slightest. Except by his browsing Shakespeare at the last. The man was a charlatan and a viper and probably merited his end.
    “Shakespeare?” Lestrade was now totally perplexed.
    “McCarthy.” Shaw pointed at the photographs and sketches. “You see those signatures on the walls? Lies, every one of ‘em, I’ll swear to it. Proffered in fear.”
    “Fear of what?”
    “Bad notices, malicious gossip, scandal in print or out of it. McCarthy kept his ear to the ground. He was notorious for it. Do you remember the suicide some three years ago of Alice Mackenzie? She played the lead in that thing by Herbert Parker at the Allegro?*[This is fiction on Watson’s part or Shaw’s. I can find no mention of a scandal involving such a theater, author, or actress. There may have been such a tragedy, of course, but if there was, the names have been changed.] Well, that was almost certainly provoked by an item with this blackguard’s name on it.”
    Sherlock Holmes was not listening. As we watched, he proceeded to give the room a thorough inspection of the kind only he could manage. He crawled about on all fours, peering through his glass; he examined the walls, the shelves, the desk, the table, the day bed, and finally made the most minute inspection of the corpse itself. Throughout this tour, which lasted some ten minutes or more, he kept up a running commentary of whistles, exclamations, and mutterings. Part of this time was spent in examination of the other rooms in the flat, though it was clear from his expression when he returned that Lestrade had been accurate in saying that the drama had not overflowed the confines of the library.
    At length he straightened up with a sigh. “You really must learn not to disturb the evidence,” he informed Lestrade. He turned to the young sergeant. “What is your name?”
    “Stanley Hopkins, sir.”
    “Well, Hopkins, in my opinion, you’ll go far, *[Holmes’s prediction proved correct. Hopkins became chief inspector in 1904 and had a forensic laboratory named for him upon his retirement in 1925. ] but you oughtn’t to have touched the book. It might have made all the difference in the world had I been able to see the relation between the man’s fingertips and the volume. Do you understand?”
    “Yes, sir. I shall see that such a thing never happens again. We neither of us touched the body,” he added in a gallant attempt to redeem himself in the detective’s eyes.
    “Good lad. Well,