CONTENTS
The Adventure of the Empty House 1
The Adventure of the Norwood Builder 28
The Adventure of the Dancing Men 58
The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist 89
The Adventure of the Priory School 114
The Adventure of Black Peter 153
The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton 179
The Adventure of the Six Napoleons 200
The Adventure of the Three Students 226
The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez 248
The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter 276
The Adventure of the Abbey Grange 303
The Adventure of the Second Stain 331
內容試閱：
The Adventure of the Empty House
It was in the spring of the year 1894 that all London was
interested, and the fashionable world dismayed, by the murder of the Honourable
Ronald Adair under most unusual and inexplicable circumstances. The public has
already learned those particulars of the crime which came out in the police
investigation, but a good deal was suppressed upon that occasion, since the
case for the prosecution was so overwhelmingly strong that it was not necessary
to bring forward all the facts. Only now, at the end of nearly ten years, am I
allowed to supply those missing links which make up the whole of that
remarkable chain. The crime was of interest in itself, but that interest was as
nothing to me compared to the inconceivable sequel, which afforded me the
greatest shock and surprise of any event in my adventurous life. Even now,
after this long interval, I find myself thrilling as I think of it, and feeling
once more that sudden flood of joy, amazement, and incredulity which utterly
submerged my mind. Let me say to that public, which has shown some interest in
those glimpses which I have occasionally given them of the thoughts and actions
of a very remarkable man, that they are not to blame me if I have not shared my
knowledge with them, for I should have considered it my first duty to do so,
had I not been barred by a positive prohibition from his own lips, which was
only withdrawn upon the third of last month.
It can be imagined that my close intimacy with Sherlock Holmes had
interested me deeply in crime, and that after his disappearance I never failed
to read with care the various problems which came before the public. And I even
attempted, more than once, for my own private satisfaction, to employ his
methods in their solution, though with indifferent success. There was none,
however, which appealed to me like this tragedy of Ronald Adair. As I read the
evidence at the inquest, which led up to a verdict of wilful murder against
some person or persons unknown, I realized more clearly than I had ever done the
loss which the community had sustained by the death of Sherlock Holmes. There
were points about this strange business which would, I was sure, have specially
appealed to him, and the efforts of the police would have been supplemented, or
more probably anticipated, by the trained observation and the alert mind of the
first criminal agent in Europe. All day, as I drove upon my round, I turned
over the case in my mind and found no explanation which appeared to me to be
adequate. At the risk of telling a twice-told tale, I will recapitulate the
facts as they were known to the public at the conclusion of the inquest.
The Honourable Ronald Adair was the second son of the Earl of
Maynooth, at that time governor of one of the Australian colonies. Adair’s
mother had returned from Australia to undergo the operation for cataract, and
she, her son Ronald, and her daughter Hilda were living together at 427 Park
Lane. The youth moved in the best society—had, so far as was known, no enemies
and no particular vices. He had been engaged to Miss Edith Woodley, of
Carstairs, but the engagement had been broken off by mutual consent some months
before, and there was no sign that it had left any very profound feeling behind
it. For the rest of the man’s life moved in a narrow and conventional circle,
for his habits were quiet and his nature unemotional. Yet it was upon this
easy-going young aristocrat that death came, in most strange and unexpected
form, between the hours of ten and eleven-twenty on the night of March 30,
1894.
Ronald Adair was fond of cards—playing continually, but never for
such stakes as would hurt him. He was a member of the Baldwin, the Cavendish,
and the Bagatelle card clubs. It was shown that, after dinner on the day of his
death, he had played a rubber of whist at the latter club. He had also played
there in the afternoon. The evidence of those who had played with him—Mr.
Murray, Sir John Hardy, and Colonel Moran—showed that the game was whist, and
that there was a fairly equal fall of the cards. Adair might have lost five
pounds, but not more. His fortune was a considerable one, and such a loss could
not in any way affect him. He had played nearly every day at one club or other,
but he was a cautious player, and usually rose a winner. It came out in evidence
that, in partnership with Colonel Moran, he had actually won as much as four
hundred and twenty pounds in a sitting, some weeks before, from Godfrey Milner
and Lord Balmoral. So much for his recent history as it came out at the
inquest.
On the evening of the crime, he returned from the club exactly at
ten. His mother and sister were out spending the evening with a relation. The
servant deposed that she heard him enter the front room on the second floor,
generally used as his sitting-room. She had lit a fire there, and as it smoked
she had opened the window. No sound was heard from the room until
eleven-twenty, the hour of the return of Lady Maynooth and her daughter.
Desiring to say good-night, she attempted to enter her son’s room. The door was
locked on the inside, and no answer could be got to their cries and knocking.
Help was obtained, and the door forced. The unfortunate young man was found
lying near the table. His head had been horribly mutilated by an expanding
revolver bullet, but no weapon of any sort was to be found in the room. On the
table lay two banknotes for ten pounds each and seventeen pounds ten in silver
and gold, the money arranged in little piles of varying amount. There were some
figures also upon a sheet of paper, with the names of some club friends
opposite to them, from which it was conjectured that before his death he was
endeavouring to make out his losses or winnings at cards.
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