Doyle - The Return of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle
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The Return of Sherlock Holmes
Doyle, Arthur Conan
Published:
1905
Type(s):
Short Fiction, Crime/Mystery, Collections
Source:
Wikisource
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About Doyle:
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a
Scottish author most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock
Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field
of crime fiction, and the adventures of Professor Challenger. He was a
prolific writer whose other works include science fiction stories, historic-
al novels, plays and romances, poetry, and non-fiction.
Conan was originally a given name, but Doyle used it as part of his
surname in his later years.
Source: Wikipedia
Also available on Feedbooks for Doyle:
•
(1892)
•
(1893)
•
(1923)
•
(1912)
•
(1902)
•
(1887)
•
(1890)
•
(1917)
•
(1915)
•
(1928)
Copyright:
This work is available for countries where copyright is
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Chapter
1
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 oc-
casion, 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 in-
terest in itself, but that interest was as nothing to me compared to the in-
conceivable 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 ac-
tions 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 have done 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 satis-
faction 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 un-
known, I realised more clearly than I had ever done the loss which the
community had sustained by the death of Sherlock Holmes. There were
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points about this strange business which would, I was sure, have spe-
cially 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 to-
gether 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 en-
gaged 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 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 30th, 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 for-
tune 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 God-
frey 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
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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 had 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
bank-notes 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.
A minute examination of the circumstances served only to make the
case more complex. In the first place, no reason could be given why the
young man should have fastened the door upon the inside. There was
the possibility that the murderer had done this and had afterwards es-
caped by the window. The drop was at least twenty feet, however, and a
bed of crocuses in full bloom lay beneath. Neither the flowers nor the
earth showed any sign of having been disturbed, nor were there any
marks upon the narrow strip of grass which separated the house from
the road. Apparently, therefore, it was the young man himself who had
fastened the door. But how did he come by his death? No one could have
climbed up to the window without leaving traces. Suppose a man had
fired through the window, it would indeed be a remarkable shot who
could with a revolver inflict so deadly a wound. Again, Park Lane is a
frequented thoroughfare, and there is a cab-stand within a hundred
yards of the house. No one had heard a shot. And yet there was the dead
man, and there the revolver bullet, which had mushroomed out, as soft-
nosed bullets will, and so inflicted a wound which must have caused in-
stantaneous death. Such were the circumstances of the Park Lane Mys-
tery, which were further complicated by entire absence of motive, since,
as I have said, young Adair was not known to have any enemy, and no
attempt had been made to remove the money or valuables in the room.
All day I turned these facts over in my mind, endeavouring to hit
upon some theory which could reconcile them all, and to find that line of
least resistance which my poor friend had declared to be the starting-
point of every investigation. I confess that I made little progress. In the
evening I strolled across the Park, and found myself about six o'clock at
the Oxford Street end of Park Lane. A group of loafers upon the
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