The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes by John Dickson Carr, Adrian Conan Doyle

wandered towards his arm-chair. Our gas was lit, and
    there was a cheery fire against the dark, bleak drizzle which we could hear dripping outside the
    window.
    But he did not sit down. Deep in concentration, his brows knitted, he slowly stretched out
    his hand towards the right side angle of the chimney-piece. A genuine thrill of emotion shot
    through my being as he picked up his violin, the old and beloved Stradivarius which, in his
    moodiness and black humor, he told me he had not touched for weeks.
    The light ran along satiny wood as he tucked the violin under his chin andwhisked up the
    bow. None the less, my friend hesitated. He lowered both violin and bow with something like a
    snarl.
    "No, I have not yet enough data," said he, "and it is a cardinal error to theorize without data."
    "Then at least," said I, "it is a pleasure to think that I have deduced from the telegram as
    much as you have deduced yourself."
    "Oh, the telegram?" said Holmes, as though he had never heard of it.
    "Yes. Is there any point which I have overlooked?"
    "Well, Watson, I fear you were wrong in almost every particular. The woman who
    dispatched that telegram has been married for some years, and is no longer in her first youth.
    She is of either Scottish or American origin, well educated and well-to-do, but unhappily
    married and of a domineering disposition. On the other hand, it is probable that she is quite
    handsome. Though these are only trifling and obvious deductions, perhaps they may do."
    A few moments ago I had hoped to see Sherlock Holmes in such a mood, vigorous and
    alert, with the old mocking light in his eyes. Yet the bright-patterned china rattled upon the
    snowy napery as I smote the table a blow with my fist.
    "Holmes, this time you have carried a jest too far!"
    "My dear Watson, I do really beg your pardon. I had no idea you would take the matter so
    seri—"
    "For shame! In popular esteem, at least, only the vulgar live at Hampstead and Highgate,
    which are usually pronounced without the aspirate. You may be making sport of some
    wretched, ill-educated female who is on the point of starving!"
    "Hardly, Watson. Though an ill-educated woman might attempt such words as 'irrational' and
    'chicanery,' she would be unlikely to spell them correctly. Similarly, since Mrs. Cabpleasure
    tells us that she suspects false dealing in a matter of diamonds, we may assume she does not
    scavenge her bread from dustbins."
    "She has been married for some years? And unhappily?"
    "We live in an age of propriety, Watson; and I confess I prefer it so."
    "What on earth has that to do with the matter?"
    "Only a woman who has been married for years, and hence past her first youth, will so
    candidly write in a telegram—under the eye of a post-office clerk—her belief that all husbands
    are irrational. You must perceive some sign of unhappiness, together with a domineering
    nature? Secondary inference: since the charge of chicanery appears to relate to her husband,
    this marriage must be even more unhappy than are most."
    "But her origin?"
    "Pray re-peruse the last sentence of the telegram. Only a Scot or an American says, 'Will
    call upon you,' when he, or in this case she, means the 'shall' of simple futurity, which would
    be used as a matter of course by any Englishwoman educated or uneducated. Are you
    answered?"
    "I—I—stay a moment! You stated, not as fancy but as fact, that she must be handsome!"
    "Ah, I can say only that it is probable. And the hypothesis comes not from the
    telegram."
    "Then from where?"
    "Come, did I not tell you I believe her to have been a beauty-specialist? Such ladies are
    seldom actually hideous-looking, else they are no strong advertisement for their own wares.
    But this, if I mistake not, is our client now."
    While he had been speaking, we heard a loud and decisive ring of the bell from below.
    There was some delay, during which the caller presumably expected our landlady to escort her
    formally to our