1 The Battered Hat

The Blue Carbuncle

Chapter 1 The Battered Hat It was the morning of December 27, 1887, and I decided to call on my old friend, the famous detective Sherlock Holmes, to wish him a Merry Christmas. I knocked on the door of his lodgings at 221B Baker Street and was greeted with a cheerful smile by his landlady, Mrs. Hudson. I found Holmes lounging on a sofa in a purple dressing gown, studying a hat. The hat, which he had hung on the back of a chair, was badly worn and cracked in several places. "If you're busy, I'll come back later," I said. "Not at all," said Holmes. "I'm very glad you're here, Watson. It will help to have a friend to talk this matter over with."

So I seated myself in an armchair and warmed my hands before the fire. "Let me guess," I said. "This plain and rather battered hat is a clue that will help you solve some ghastly crime." "Oh no," laughed Holmes. "No crime has been committed. It's quite a trivial matter, actually—just a little problem that needs solving. I do enjoy an intellectual challenge, as you well know." "Indeed!" I said. "Perhaps you could explain the nature of the problem?" So Holmes told me the story of the battered hat. "It all began," he said, "on the night of Christmas Eve. A man called Peterson, a hotel doorman, was making his way back home along Tottenham Court Road when he came upon an unpleasant scene. A tall fellow, who was carrying a white

Christmas goose over his shoulder, was being jostled by a group of rough boys. One of the boys knocked the tall man's hat off. He then raised his stick to defend himself, but as he swung the stick over his head, it smashed the shop window behind him. "At this point, Peterson rushed forward, hoping to protect the tall man from the boys. But the man, seeing Peterson approach, panicked. For you see, Peterson was dressed in his hotel doorman's uniform, and in the dim light the man mistook him for a policeman. He thought he was coming to arrest him for smashing the window. Dropping his goose, the man fled, vanishing into the maze of narrow streets that lie behind Tottenham Court Road.

"The rough boys also took off when they saw Peterson, leaving the doorman alone on the scene. There on the pavement he found this battered hat and the Christmas goose. "Naturally, Peterson wished to restore these items to their owner, so he searched for clues to the tall man's identity. On a small card he found tied to the bird's left leg were the words For Henry Baker. He also found the initials H. B. written on the lining of the hat. From this, he gathered that the man's name was Henry Baker. "The trouble is," sighed Holmes, "there must be hundreds of Henry Bakers in this city, and Peterson had no

idea how to go about finding the right one." "So what did he do?" I asked. "He brought the hat and goose to me, hoping I might be able to help. I assumed the man would put a notice in the lost property section of the newspaper with details of how to reach him. After two days, when no such notice appeared, I told Peterson he might as well take the goose home and eat it himself, for it would not stay fresh much longer. So off he went, leaving me with the hat." "And how do you propose to find this Henry Baker?" "Well, the hat has already told me a great deal," smiled Holmes. "This hat?" I exclaimed. "But how?" "Take a look at it yourself and tell me what you see." Holmes suggested. I picked up the hat and examined it closely. It was an ordinary black felt hat, and a poorly treated one. The outside was extremely dusty, as well as cracked and spotted in places. The initials H. B. had been scrawled on the red silk lining, but there was no maker's name. "I can see nothing," I said, handing it back to my friend. "Not true, Watson, you can see everything. But you are too timid to draw conclusions from what you see." "Then tell me what conclusions you can draw from it," I challenged.