“Well, I am.”
“Of what?”
“Of air-guns.”
“My dear Holmes, what do you mean?”
“I think that you know me well enough, Watson, to understand that I am by no means a nervous man. At the same time, it is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognise danger when it is close upon you. Might I trouble you for a match?” He drew in the smoke of his cigarette as if the soothing influence was grateful to him.
“I must apologise for calling so late,” said he, “and I must further beg you to be so unconventional as to allow me to leave your house presently by scrambling over your back garden wall.”
“But what does it all mean?” I asked.
He held out his hand, and I saw in the light of the lamp that two of his knuckles were burst and bleeding.
“It is not an airy nothing, you see,” said he, smiling. “On the contrary, it is solid enough for a man to break his hand over. Is Mrs. Watson in?”
“She is away upon a visit.”
“Indeed! You are alone?”
“Quite.”
“Then it makes it the easier for me to propose that you should come away with me for a week to the Continent.”
“Where?”
“Oh, anywhere. It’s all the same to me.”
There was something very strange in all this. It was not Holmes’s nature to take an aimless holiday, and something about his pale, worn face told me that his nerves were at their highest tension. He saw the question in my eyes, and, putting his finger-tips together and his elbows upon his knees, he explained the situation.