The Misadventure of Shelrock Holmes by Anthology

of a great mystery — so great, my colleagues, that I fear none of you will be able to solve it, or even to help me in the marvelous work I shall do when ferreting it out."
    "Humph!" grunted the Thinking Machine, riveting his steel-blue eyes upon the speaker.
    "He voices all our sentiments," said RafHes, with his winning smile. "Fire away, Holmes. What's the prob?"
    "To explain a most mysterious proceeding down on the East Side."
    Though a tall man, Holmes spoke shortly, for he was peeved at the
    inattentive attitude of his collection of colleagues. But of course he still had his Watson, so he put up with the indifference of the rest of the cold world.
    "Aren't all proceedings down on the East Side mysterious?" asked Arsene Lupin, with an aristocratic look.
    Holmes passed his brow wearily under his hand.
    "Inspector Spyer," he said, "was riding on the Elevated Road-one of the small numbered Avenues — when, as he passed a tenement-house district, he saw a clothes-line strung from one high window to another across a courtyard."
    "Was it Monday?" asked the Thinking Machine, who for the moment was thinking he was a washing machine.
    "That doesn't matter. About the middle of the line was suspended -
    "By clothes-pins?" asked two or three of the Infallibles at once.
    "Was suspended a beautiful woman."
    "Hanged?"
    "No. Do listen! She hung by her hands, and was evidently trying to cross from one house to the other. By her exhausted and agonized face, the inspector feared she could not hold on much longer. He sprang from his seat to rush to her assistance, but the train had already started, and he was too late to get off."
    "What was she doing there?" "Did she fall?" "What did she look like?" and various similar nonsensical queries fell from the lips of the great detectives.
    "Be silent, and I will tell you all the known facts. She was a society woman, it is clear, for she was robed in a chiffon evening gown, one of those roll-top things. She wore rich jewelry and dainty slippers with jeweled buckles. Her hair, unloosed from its moorings, hung in heavy masses far down her back."
    "How extraordinary! What does it all mean?" asked M. Dupin, ever straightforward of speech.
    "I don't know yet," answered Holmes, honestly. "I've studied the matter only a few months. But I will find out, if I have to raze the whole tenement block. There must be a clue somewhere."
    "Marvelous! Holmes, marvelous!" said a phonograph in the corner, which Watson had fixed up, as he had to go out.
    "The police have asked us to take up the case and have offered a reward for its solution. Find out who was the lady, what she was doing, and why she did it."
    "Are there any clues?" asked M. Vidocq, while M. Lecoq said simultaneously, "Any footprints?"
    "There is one footprint; no other clue."
    "Where is the footprint?"
    "On the ground, right under where the lady was hanging."
    "But you said the rope was high from the ground."
    "More than a hundred feet."
    "And she stepped down and made a single footprint. Strange! Quite strange!" and the Thinking Machine shook his yellow old
    head.
    "She did nothing of the sort," said Holmes, petulantly. "If you fellows would listen, you might hear something. The occupants of the tenement houses have been questioned. But, as it turns out, none of them chanced to be at home at the time of the occurrence. There was a parade in the next street, and they had all gone to see it."
    "Had a light snow fallen the night before?" asked Lecoq, eagerly.
    "Yes, of course," answered Holmes. "How could we know anything, else? Well, the lady had dropped her slipper, and although the slipper was not found, it having been annexed by the tenement people who came home first, I had a chance to study the footprint. The slipper was a two and a half D. It was too small for her."
    "How do you know?"
    "Women always wear slippers too small for them."
    "Then how did she come to drop it off?" This from Raffles, triumphantly.
    Holmes looked at him pityingly.
    "She