finer field for an acute and original observer, but the other was so strange in

its inception and so dramatic in its details that it may be the more worthy of

being placed upon record, even if it gave my friend fewer openings for those

deductive methods of reasoning by which he achieved such remarkable results.

The story has, I believe, been told more than once in the newspapers, but, like

all such narratives, its effect is much less striking when set forth en

bloc in a single half-column of print than when the facts slowly evolve

before your own eyes, and the mystery clears gradually away as each new

discovery furnishes a step which leads on to the complete truth. At the time

the circumstances made a deep impression upon me, and the lapse of two years

has hardly served to weaken the effect.


It was in the summer of ’89, not long after my marriage, that the events

occurred which I am now about to summarise. I had returned to civil practice

and had finally abandoned Holmes in his Baker Street rooms, although I

continually visited him and occasionally even persuaded him to forgo his

Bohemian habits so far as to come and visit us. My practice had steadily

increased, and as I happened to live at no very great distance from Paddington

Station, I got a few patients from among the officials. One of these, whom I

had cured of a painful and lingering disease, was never weary of advertising my

virtues and of endeavouring to send me on every sufferer over whom he might

have any influence.


One morning, at a little before seven o’clock, I was awakened by the maid

tapping at the door to announce that two men had come from Paddington and were

waiting in the consulting-room. I dressed hurriedly, for I knew by experience

that railway cases were seldom trivial, and hastened downstairs. As I

descended, my old ally, the guard, came out of the room and closed the door

tightly behind him.