and far too cunning to work from hand to mouth.  He will hold a card back for years in order to play it at the moment when the stake is best worth winning.  I have said that he is the worst man in London, and I would ask you how could one compare the ruffian, who in hot blood bludgeons his mate, with this man, who methodically and at his leisure tortures the soul and wrings the nerves in order to add to his already swollen money-bags?”

I had seldom heard my friend speak with such intensity of feeling.

“But surely,” said I, “the fellow must be within the grasp of the law?”

“Technically, no doubt, but practically not.  What would it profit a woman, for example, to get him a few months’ imprisonment if her own ruin must immediately follow?  His victims dare not hit back.  If ever he blackmailed an innocent person, then indeed we should have him, but he is as cunning as the Evil One.  No, no, we must find other ways to fight him.”

“And why is he here?”

“Because an illustrious client has placed her piteous case in my hands.  It is the Lady Eva Blackwell, the most beautiful debutante of last season.  She is to be married in a fortnight to the Earl of Dovercourt.  This fiend has several imprudent letters—­imprudent, Watson, nothing worse—­which were written to an impecunious young squire in the country.  They would suffice to break off the match.  Milverton will send the letters to the Earl unless a large sum of money is paid him.  I have been commissioned to meet him, and—­to make the best terms I can.”

At that instant there was a clatter and a rattle in the street below.  Looking down I saw a stately carriage and pair, the brilliant lamps gleaming on the glossy haunches of the noble chestnuts.  A footman opened the door, and a small, stout man in a shaggy astrakhan overcoat descended.  A minute later he was in the room.

Charles Augustus Milverton was a man of fifty, with a large, intellectual head, a round, plump, hairless face, a perpetual frozen smile, and two keen gray eyes, which gleamed brightly from behind broad, gold-rimmed glasses.  There was something of Mr. Pickwick’s benevolence in his appearance, marred only by the insincerity of the fixed smile and by the hard glitter of those restless and penetrating eyes.  His voice was as smooth and suave as his countenance, as he advanced with a plump little hand extended, murmuring his regret for having missed us at his first visit.  Holmes disregarded the outstretched hand and looked at him with a face of granite.  Milverton’s smile broadened, he shrugged his shoulders removed his overcoat, folded it with great deliberation over the back of a chair, and then took a seat.

“This gentleman?” said he, with a wave in my direction.  “Is it discreet?  Is it right?”

“Dr. Watson is my friend and partner.”

“Very good, Mr. Holmes.  It is only in your client’s interests that I protested.  The matter is so very delicate——­”