While we were engaged in searching the drawing-room, Lestrade uttered a
cry of triumph and produced the ring from the lining of the arm-chair. I
told him he might enjoy the triumph, but that the matter was not quite
so simple as he seemed to think. A glance at the ring had shown me not
only that the stones were false, but that the false ring had been made
in a hurry. To deduce the name of its maker was of course child's play.
Lestrade or any pupil of Scotland Yard would have taken for granted it
was the same jeweller who had made the real ring. I asked for the
bridegroom's present, and in a short time I was interviewing the
jeweller who had provided it. As I thought, he had made a ring, with
imitation stones (made of the dust of real stones), a week ago, for a
young lady. She had given no name and had fetched and paid for it
herself. I deduced the obvious fact that Lady Dorothy had lost the real
ring, her uncle's gift, and, not daring to say so, had had an imitation
ring made. I returned to the house, where I found Lestrade, who had
called to make arrangements for watching the presents during their
exhibition.
I asked for Lady Dorothy, who at once said to me:
"The ring was found yesterday by Mr Lestrade."
"I know," I answered, "but which ring?"
She could not repress a slight twitch of the eyelids as she said:
"There was only one ring."
I told her of my discovery and of my investigations.
"This is a very odd coincidence, Mr Holmes," she said. "Some one else
must have ordered an imitation. But you shall examine my ring for
yourself." Where-upon she fetched the ring, and I saw it was no
imitation. She had of course in the meantime found the real ring.
But to my intense annoyance she took it to Lestrade and said to him:
"Isn't this the ring you found yesterday, Mr Lestrade?"
Lestrade examined it and said, "Of course it is absolutely identical in
every respect."
"And do you think it is an imitation?" asked this most provoking young
lady.
"Certainly not," said Lestrade, and turning to me he added: "Ah!
Holmes, that is where theory leads one. At the Yard we go in for facts."
I could say nothing; but as I said good-bye to Lady Dorothy, I
congratulated her on having found the real ring. The incident, although
it proved the correctness of my reasoning, was vexing as it gave that
ignorant blunderer an opportunity of crowing over me.
_January_ 10.--A man called just as Watson and I were having breakfast.
He didn't give his name. He asked me if I knew who he was. I said,
"Beyond seeing that you are unmarried, that you have travelled up this
morning from Sussex, that you have served in the French Army, that you
write for reviews, and are especially interested in the battles of the
Middle Ages, that you give lectures, that you are a Roman Catholic, and
that you have once been to Japan, I don't know who you are."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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