“Wait a moment!” cried Reid abruptly. “Hidden in the bottom of Northcote’s wardrobe, where I found my satchel, were many bundles of documents and sheets of paper covered with figures. I was so excited then at finding my satchel that I did not give the other things any consideration, but now that I think about it, I am certain they were private papers of my father’s, including a copy of his will. Oh Lord!” he cried all at once in a tone of desperation. “Whatever can I do?”

“You must institute a thorough examination of your father’s affairs at once,” said Holmes in a firm voice, “and seek the advice of the best lawyer in West Sussex. I have little doubt that such an examination will reveal that fraudulent transactions have taken place. You must remember that Northcote has already successfully counterfeited both your father’s hand and that of the dead girl. He may well have signed your father’s name to many things of which no one has any knowledge.”

“This is almost too much for my brain to absorb!” cried Reid, shaking his head. He looked in turn at each of us, an expression of stupefaction upon his features, as if appealing for our help.

“The actions of my family have been shameful,” said Anthony Blythe-Headley abruptly, “and I am sure we would wish to do anything that might help to expunge that shame. I for one should be very pleased to do anything you wish, Reid, to help you to sort out what must be done.”

“Do not falter now, Reid,” said Captain Ranworth, putting his hand upon his friend’s shoulder. “Everything will soon be put to rights, you will see! I’ll go at once and bring all the papers from Northcote’s room, pile them on the desk here, and make a start at sorting them.”

Then Mary Blythe-Headley stepped forward from where she stood beside her father and offered Reid her hand.

“You must be exhausted by all that has happened,” said she. “Let us sit together in the garden for a little while, before the daylight vanishes altogether. I have a great deal of news and other things I wish to tell you, and you, I imagine, have much to tell me.”

“I think it is time for us to make our way back to the village, Watson,” said Holmes to me. “There is no more for us to do here now!”

Outside, in the garden of Oakbrook Hall, Holmes expressed a desire to follow a footpath he had observed earlier, which he thought might offer a route to Topley Cross more direct than the road. It was a pleasant pathway, which passed by field and hedgerow down the hill. The sun was just setting as we left, and behind us the sky was a deep blue and the moon was up. Ahead, the horizon was a glow of reddish-orange, above which, in a turquoise sky, a few fugitive scraps of cloud were tinged pink by the dying sun, and a few late crows were hurrying home to roost. For some time we tramped over the rolling countryside in silence, and it was one of the most memorable walks of my life.

“Such a case as this one,” said Holmes as we passed along the edge of a ploughed field, “never fails to remind me of the old saying, that truth is like water: confine it how you may, it will find a way out.”

“It might have taken somewhat longer to emerge without your efforts in the matter,” I remarked with a chuckle.

“It is kind of you to say so, Watson,” returned Holmes, “but I am conscious sometimes of being, in some mysterious way, but a vessel, a mere conduit down which the truth can pass.”

“I think you do yourself less than justice, Holmes.”

“Well, well, I shall not argue the point. Life is a series of such mysteries, and in solving one, we merely arrive at the next.” Abruptly, my friend stopped and turned to me. “But how is your wound, old man?” he queried. “I really must beg your forgiveness! I have been quite lost in my own reflections, I am afraid. It was unpardonably thoughtless of me to drag you over these fields.”

“Not at all,” I returned. “It is nothing; nothing, at least, that a hot cup of tea at The White Hart will not put right!”

“Good man!” cried my friend with a chuckle. “There is much tragedy in the world, Watson,” he continued after a moment, as we resumed our progress, “and much sorry loss of life, from Maiwand to the Willow Pool. Yet as the night that now creeps over the land quickens our desire for the rising of the sun in the morning, so, perhaps, each dark passage in our lives may teach us to strive always for the light. So, at least, with the help of a merciful Providence, we must hope.”

The Adventure of

QUEEN HIPPOLYTA

IT WAS AN AXIOM of Mr Sherlock Holmes, the world’s first consulting detective, that one should not attempt to fill one’s head with every item of miscellaneous knowledge one chanced across, but should take in only that which was likely to be of service. “You may depend upon it,” said he in his precise, logical fashion, “for every item of irrelevant information you cram in, something important will be forgotten. It is not simply a question of cerebral capacity. On the contrary, history shows us countless examples of the quite amazing capacities of the human brain. It is rather that one’s reflective powers become distracted and diffused when a forest of irrelevance stands between them and their goal. Like the prince in the fairytale, one must chop a way through this forest in order to reach the castle beyond, where the one relevant fact lies sleeping.” In accordance with this rule, he generally paid little heed to the news of the day, except in so far as it had a bearing upon his work. Yet, despite this, he had perhaps the broadest spectrum of knowledge of any man I have ever known. He had, too, an uncanny knack of recalling the most obscure of facts at the most useful moment, and of perceiving connections between facts which appeared to others to be perfectly unrelated.

To what extent these abilities were an inherited gift, and to what extent the result of rigorous self-training, it was difficult to say, but his capacity to surprise those around him was certainly undisputed. Sometimes, as in the case I now propose to recount, which concerned the singular experiences of Mr Godfrey Townsend, Holmes’s recollection of an apparently trivial fact would make the difference between the success or failure of an investigation.

I had called at my friend’s lodgings in Baker Street on a bright, sunny morning in the autumn, and had found him seated by the window, examining a small object with the aid of a powerful lens. He waved me to a chair, but did not speak, and for some moments I watched as he inspected every side of his specimen, which I saw was a small cigar case. Evidently satisfied, he then opened the case, removed the contents, and subjected the interior to the same careful examination as he had given to the outside.

“It is, as you know, a little hobby of mine,” said he at last, looking up as he replaced the cigars and closed the case with a snap, “to determine a man’s character and habits from an examination of one of his possessions. For a man cannot own any object for long without impressing the stamp of his character upon it. It is a skill at which I believe I can say I have reached a certain level of proficiency.”

“Indeed,” said I. “No one could deny it. I have seen you perform the trick many times, and the conclusions you have reached have frequently amazed me.”

“The results are certainly often curious, sometimes striking and occasionally extremely surprising. Here, for instance, we have an apparent anomaly.” He passed the cigar case and lens across to me. “You know my methods, Watson. See what you make of it.”

I took the case and examined it. It was of silver plate, plain and unadorned, save that in one corner the initials G. T. had been engraved in a florid style. Both sides were disfigured with deep scratches, and in places the silver had been rubbed away, revealing a duller metal beneath. One side appeared at some time to have been bent and subsequently hammered flat again, and the hinges were a little awry, but it opened easily enough, and inside, behind a piece of tape, were four or five small cigars.