whether the man were a philanthropist or a villain, it was quite beyond my

powers to determine. As to Holmes, I observed that he sat frequently for half

an hour on end, with knitted brows and an abstracted air, but he swept the

matter away with a wave of his hand when I mentioned it. “Data! data!

data!” he cried impatiently. “I can’t make bricks without

clay.” And yet he would always wind up by muttering that no sister of his

should ever have accepted such a situation.


The telegram which we eventually received came late one night just as I was

thinking of turning in and Holmes was settling down to one of those all-night

chemical researches which he frequently indulged in, when I would leave him

stooping over a retort and a test-tube at night and find him in the same

position when I came down to breakfast in the morning. He opened the yellow

envelope, and then, glancing at the message, threw it across to me.


“Just look up the trains in Bradshaw,” said he, and turned back to

his chemical studies.


The summons was a brief and urgent one.


“Please be at the Black Swan Hotel at Winchester at midday

to-morrow,” it said. “Do come! I am at my wit’s end.


“HUNTER.”


“Will you come with me?” asked Holmes, glancing up.


“I should wish to.”


“Just look it up, then.”


“There is a train at half-past nine,” said I, glancing over my

Bradshaw. “It is due at Winchester at 11:30.”


“That will do very nicely. Then perhaps I had better postpone my analysis

of the acetones, as we may need to be at our best in the morning.”


By eleven o’clock the next day we were well upon our way to the old

English capital. Holmes had been buried in the morning papers all the way down,

but after we had passed the Hampshire border he threw them down and began to

admire the scenery. It was an ideal spring day, a light blue sky, flecked with

little fleecy white clouds drifting across from west to east. The sun was