The Greek Interpreter - Page 2

"Oh, he is very well known in his own circle."

"Where, then?"

"Well, in the Diogenes Club, for example."

I had never heard of the institution, and my face must
have proclaimed as much, for Sherlock Holmes pulled
out his watch.

"The Diogenes Club is the queerest club in London, and
Mycroft one of the queerest men. He's always there
from quarter to five to twenty to eight. It's six
now, so if you care for a stroll this beautiful
evening I shall be very happy to introduce you to two
curiosities."

"Five minutes later we were in the street, walking
towards Regent's Circus.

"You wonder," said my companion, "why it is that
Mycroft does not use his powers for detective work.
He is incapable of it."

"But I thought you said--"

"I said that he was my superior in observation and
deduction. If the art of the detective began and
ended in reasoning from an arm-chair, my brother would
be the greatest criminal agent that ever lived. But
he has no ambition and no energy. He will not even go
out of his way to verify his own solution, and would
rather be considered wrong than take the trouble to
prove himself right. Again and again I have taken a
problem to him, and have received an explanation which
has afterwards proved to be the correct one. And yet
he was absolutely incapable of working out the
practical points which must be gone into before a case
could be laid before a judge or jury."

"It is not his profession, then?"

"By no means. What is to me a means of livelihood is
to him the merest hobby of a dilettante. He has an
extraordinary faculty for figures, and audits the
books in some of the government departments. Mycroft
lodges in Pall Mall, and he walks round the corner
into Whitehall every morning and back every evening.
From year's end to year's end he takes no other
exercise, and is seen nowhere else, except only in the
Diogenes Club, which is just opposite his rooms."

"I cannot recall the name."

"Very likely not. There are many men in London, you
know, who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy,
have no wish for the company of their fellows. Yet
they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the
latest periodicals. It is for the convenience of
these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now
contains the most unsociable and unclubable men in
town. No member is permitted to take the least notice
of any other one. Save in the Stranger's Room, no
talking is, under any circumstances, allowed, and
three offences, if brought to the notice of the
committee, render the talker liable to expulsion. My
brother was one of the founders, and I have myself
found it a very