51080 'Then, good night, Your Majesty, and I trust that we shall soon have some good news for you.
51081 And good night, Watson,' he added, as the wheels of the Royal brougham rolled down the street.
51082 'If you will be good enough to call to-morrow afternoon, at three o'clock, I should like to chat this little matter over with you.'
51083 At three o'clock precisely I was at Baker Street, but Holmes had not yet returned.
51084 The landlady informed me that he had left the house shortly after eight o'clock in the morning.
51085 I sat down beside the fire, however, with the intention of awaiting him, however long he might be.
51086 I was already deeply interested in his inquiry, for, though it was surrounded by none of the grim and strange features which were associated with the two crimes which I have elsewhere recorded, still, the nature of the case and the exalted station of his client gave it a character of its own.
51087 Indeed, apart from the nature of the investigation which my friend had on hand, there was something in his masterly grasp of a situation, and his keen, incisive reasoning, which made it a pleasure to me to study his system of work, and to follow the quick, subtle methods by which he disentangled the most inextricable mysteries.
51088 So accustomed was I to his invariable success that the very possibility of his failing had ceased to enter into my head.
51089 It was close upon four before the door opened, and a drunken-looking groom, ill-kempt and side-whiskered, with an inflamed face and disreputable clothes, walked into the room.
51090 Accustomed as I was to my friend's amazing powers in the use of disguises, I had to look three times before I was certain that it was indeed he.
51091 With a nod he vanished into the bedroom, whence he emerged in five minutes tweed-suited and respectable, as of old.