It was some time before the health of my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes recovered from the strain caused by his immense exertions² in the spring of ’87. The whole question of the Netherland-Sumatra Company and of the colossal³ schemes of Baron⁴ Maupertuis are too recent in the minds of the public, and are too intimately concerned with politics and finance to be fitting subjects for this series of sketches⁵. They led, however, in an indirect fashion to a singular and complex problem which gave my friend an opportunity of demonstrating the value of a fresh weapon among the many with which he waged his lifelong battle against crime.

On referring to my notes I see that it was upon the fourteenth of April that I received a telegram from Lyons which informed me that Holmes was lying ill in the Hotel Dulong. Within twenty-four hours I was in his sick-room and was relieved to find that there was nothing formidable in his symptoms. Even his iron constitution, however, had broken down under the strain of an investigation⁷ which had extended over two months, during which period he had never worked less than fifteen hours a day and had more than once, as he assured me, kept to his task for five days at a stretch. Even the triumphant⁹ issue of his labours could not save him from reaction after so terrible an exertion¹, and at a time when Europe was ringing with his name and when his room was literally¹⁰ ankle-deep with congratulatory telegrams I found him a prey¹¹ to the blackest depression. Even the knowledge that he had succeeded where the police of three countries had failed, and that he had outmanoeuvred at every point the most

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