“My dear Watson!” said he, clapping me upon the shoulder. “It is good to see you looking so well. Your recent translation from solitary bachelorhood to the joys of married life has clearly been a success! You have the air of one happy with his lot!”

“And you, Holmes,” I returned with a smile, “you, too, appear in good spirits.”

“Well, well! I, too, have my little triumphs and pleasures! Just three weeks ago I was pleased to drink a toast in your honour, Watson, and to congratulate you upon your happiness. Now it is for you to congratulate me!”

“My dear fellow! I had no idea!”

“We have been regrettably out of touch lately,” said he with a shake of the head. “But it is true. Congratulations are in order! I have solved the Yelverton murder case!”

“What!” I cried.

“I can see that I have surprised you!”

I laughed. “You amaze me, Holmes! But I had no idea you were involved.”

“I was consulted at a late stage, at the express request of Lady Yelverton’s nephew, when it was apparent that the police were making no progress whatever. I take it you have followed the case?”

“I could hardly have failed to do so. It has been impossible to pick up a newspaper in the last week without reading something of the matter. It is undoubtedly the most sensational crime of the year!”

“Certainly, in terms of the publicity it has received, although in itself it is really a very trifling affair.”

“And you have found the murderer, you say?”

My companion nodded. “Indeed. I am hoping to pay a call on him later this afternoon, at his lodgings.”

“He is not yet in custody, then?” I asked in surprise.

“No.”

“But you know his whereabouts?”

“Precisely.”

“You have informed the police, no doubt?”

Holmes shook his head.

“Why ever not?” I cried in surprise. “Surely you must act quickly, before he has a chance to make his escape once more.”

“It is not quite so straightforward as you seem to imagine, Watson. I do not yet have all the evidence in my hands.”

“Evidence? But the case is as plain as a pikestaff! The man was practically seen to commit the crime!”

“Come, come,” said my companion, chuckling. “It is too cold a day to stand debating the matter on the pavement like this. You are having a busy day, I perceive.”

“That is true, but how—?”

“No matter. You know my methods, Watson! You have had one appointment already, this morning, and you have another one this afternoon. Can you break it?”

I shook my head. “I have to see a solicitor in Cheapside in ten minutes,” I replied, glancing at my watch.

“But no doubt you could make the appointment a brief one?”

“If necessary.”

“Good. I am meeting Inspector Lanner in Brown’s Coffee Shop on Ludgate Hill, at three o’clock. If you could be there by that time, Watson, you might find it an interesting experience!”

I drove to Cheapside with a thrill of excitement rising in my breast. The Yelverton case had been the single topic of conversation on everyone’s lips for the past week. That I might be able to play a part in the matter, if only as a spectator, sent the blood coursing through my veins. The meeting with Mr Scrimgeour, the solicitor, which had been dominating my thoughts for days, now struck me as a mundane matter indeed, and little more than an irksome distraction. I was determined to get it over with as quickly as possible, in order to get to the meeting place by three o’clock.

In the cab, as it made its slow way through the dense traffic along Holborn, and in the solicitor’s anteroom, I turned over and over in my mind all that I had read of the Yelverton case. The chief difficulty in the matter, as I understood it, was not so much in discovering who had committed the terrible crime, as in tracking down the culprit, for he had so far defeated all attempts to find him.

The facts of the matter were simple enough. Lady Yelverton had been a delicate old lady of seventy-odd, living alone quietly in the house in South Audley Street in which she had lived for more than fifty years, with a large staff of servants, some of whom were almost as old as their mistress. She had been widowed for nearly twenty years and had suffered ill-health for almost as long. Two years previously she had been very ill, and for several months her life had been despaired of, but much to everyone’s surprise, she had at length recovered. It was said that the gratitude she felt to her physician, one Dr Illingworth, was so great that she had subsequently included a substantial bequest to him in her will. But though her health had recovered, her illness had left her somewhat debilitated, with both her hearing and her eyesight, which had in any case been failing for years, severely weakened. As a consequence of this decline in her faculties, she rarely went out, but was always pleased to receive visitors, and offered a warm and hospitable welcome to everyone. Her visitors were not numerous, however, for many of her old friends had died, or were, like Lady Yelverton herself, somewhat frail, and she had but one surviving near relation, Mr Basil Thorne, a gentleman of about forty, the only son of her late husband’s younger brother. A man well known in London society, he would occasionally call by at his aunt’s house to bring her the latest news and gossip of London life, which she was always pleased to hear.

In recent years, she had taken a particular interest in charitable causes, and acted as honorary patron for several of them. Though debarred by her frailty from taking an active part in charitable work, her financial donations were said to be munificent. This, then, was the quiet household into which brutal violence had erupted in such a startling manner.

About three months previously, an elderly gentleman by the name of Quinlivan, with an untidy mane of white hair and a beard to match, had paid his first call upon Lady Yelverton. Her servants, noting the sheaf of pamphlets in his grasp, and his odd, jerky way of talking, had marked him down as some kind of eccentric, and had been disinclined to admit him to the house. Upon receiving his card, however, which indicated that his interests were charitable and religious in character, she had asked for him to be shown into her drawing room. There he had stayed for an hour, in deep discussion with Lady Yelverton, and it was evident that he had made a favourable impression upon her, for she had informed the servants afterwards that he would be returning at the same time the following week, and was to be admitted without demur.

After four weeks, the frequency of his visits increased occasionally to twice a week. None of the servants was ever present during these interviews, but it was clear from the sound of Quinlivan’s raised voice that he was a voluble and impassioned speaker. After each visit he would leave behind him a fresh religious tract, but although the language and sentiments contained in these were sometimes excessively vehement, they appeared unexceptionable. Nevertheless, Lady Yelverton’s old housekeeper, Mrs Edwards, became worried that her mistress was falling too much under Quinlivan’s influence, for Lady Yelverton had begun to lose interest in her other visitors. She therefore raised the matter in confidence with Basil Thorne, when next he called. He had previously been unaware of Quinlivan’s visits, for his aunt had mentioned the man but once, and then only in a passing remark which Thorne had not followed up. He was both surprised and concerned, therefore, to learn from Mrs Edwards that his aunt had lately become more withdrawn and silent, and generally less interested in the world about her. As delicately as he could, he raised the matter with his aunt at the first opportunity, but she brushed his remarks aside. The second time he mentioned the subject, a week later, she became, he said, quite angry, and forbade him from ever raising the matter again.