"We have a visitor" said my companion, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, as our cab pulled up to our lodgings at 221B Baker Street. We were arriving from a wonderful evening of dinner and theatre. The air was crisp, refreshing, and clear. I loathed to have one of my friend's cases dampen my spirits by placing a dark cloud of death or mystery over it. I had anticipated retiring to my room for a pleasant night's sleep.
As we opened the door, we saw Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard impatiently pacing our hallway in his overcoat holding a paper in his right hand.
"So there you are at last, Mr. Holmes!"
"You can settle down now, Lestrade. You haven't been waiting long. Only about fifteen minutes, I'd estimate. Please, show me your paper. It is late, and it would be a shame to ruin the evening with an extended visit."
Lestrade stood still and started to speak. He thought better of it, and just handed Holmes the paper. Holmes opened it and I could see an incomplete, typed office memorandum at the top of the paper. Several lines down, the cryptic characters "dr;;fd" were typed. Holmes saw this, and put his finger to his lips to indicate to Lestrade not to disturb his thoughts. Within fifteen seconds, he returned the paper to Lestrade.
"From a dying Swedish typewritist, new to this country?"
Lestrade took an involuntary step back in amazement. "Why, yes!"
"Do you have a suspect?"
"Yes, no hard evidence, just a person seen leaving the building around the suspected time of the murder."
"Name?"
"Mr. Henry Shields"
"You have the right person. If you are not able to make this elementary deduction yourself, please return in the morning at a more respectable hour. Goodnight."
At that, Holmes turned and climbed the stairs. Lestrade was left to show his own way out, undoubtedly to a long night where he would arrange for the arrest of Henry Shields and then stay up all night trying to duplicate what the amazing powers of my companion did in a few seconds.
When Holmes and I reached our sitting room, Holmes
spoke. "That was a bit harsh perhaps, but I could not resist
putting him in his place. There he was, pompous as ever, pacing
our hallway as if we should be there at his beck and call. Knowing
that you were looking to retire soon, I quickly told him what
he needed to know and sent him on his way. He'll be back tomorrow,
you know. However, I see from the sorrowful expression on your
face, that I should not make you wait as well. The paper had a
bloodstain on it, possibly from a stab wound to the typewritist.
From Lestrade's demeanour, I could tell it was a murder case and
this paper could hold the clue to solving it. As you saw, the
only mysterious item on the paper were the characters 'dr;;fd'.
What could they mean? If you were to put your hands on a typewriter
as a typewritist would, and then shift your hands one key to the
right, and type a name without looking at the keys, then you would
type what appears to be meaningless characters. But if you were
to interpret these letters as they were intended to by typed,
you would have read s-e-l-l-d-s. Obviously, the dying man was
a very capable professional typewritist, for despite being seriously
wounded, the man could type without thinking, with smooth, even,
quick strokes. But in his condition, he did not notice that his
fingers were misaligned. Now, there is neither 'sh' nor 'ie' in
Swedish. A dying man does not have the luxury of translating his
thoughts out of his native language, especially if he is new to
the country. Hence, he spelled the name Shields as it would have
been spelled phonetically in Swedish, Sellds. Why would a dying
man type 'shields'? The most likely reason was that it was the
name of his murderer, and that theory proved correct. It was all
quite elementary. Goodnight, Watson, I'm sure you'll have a pleasant
sleep."
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