too, have baffled his analytical skill, and would be, as narratives, beginnings

without an ending, while others have been but partially cleared up, and have

their explanations founded rather upon conjecture and surmise than on that

absolute logical proof which was so dear to him. There is, however, one of

these last which was so remarkable in its details and so startling in its

results that I am tempted to give some account of it in spite of the fact that

there are points in connection with it which never have been, and probably

never will be, entirely cleared up.


The year ’87 furnished us with a long series of cases of greater or less

interest, of which I retain the records. Among my headings under this one

twelve months I find an account of the adventure of the Paradol Chamber, of the

Amateur Mendicant Society, who held a luxurious club in the lower vault of a

furniture warehouse, of the facts connected with the loss of the British barque

Sophy Anderson, of the singular adventures of the Grice Patersons in the

island of Uffa, and finally of the Camberwell poisoning case. In the latter, as

may be remembered, Sherlock Holmes was able, by winding up the dead man’s

watch, to prove that it had been wound up two hours before, and that therefore

the deceased had gone to bed within that time—a deduction which was of

the greatest importance in clearing up the case. All these I may sketch out at

some future date, but none of them present such singular features as the

strange train of circumstances which I have now taken up my pen to describe.


It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales had set in

with exceptional violence. All day the wind had screamed and the rain had

beaten against the windows, so that even here in the heart of great, hand-made

London we were forced to raise our minds for the instant from the routine of

life and to recognise the presence of those great elemental forces which shriek