the problem which are never imparted to the reader.

  Now, at present I am in the position of these same

  readers, for I hold in this hand several threads of

  one of the strangest cases which ever perplexed a

  man's brain, and yet I lack the one or two which are

  needful to complete my theory. But I'll have them,

  Watson, I'll have them!" His eyes kindled and a

  slight flush sprang into his thin cheeks. For an

  instant only. When I glanced again his face had

  resumed that red-Indian composure which had made so

  many regard him as a machine rather than a man.

  "The problem presents features of interest," said he.

  "I may even say exceptional features of interest. I

  have already looked into the matter, and have come, as

  I think, within sight of my solution. If you could

  accompany me in that last step you might be of

  considerable service to me."

  "I should be delighted."

  "Could you go as far as Aldershot to-morrow?"

  "I have no doubt Jackson would take my practice."

  "Very good. I want to start by the 11.10 from

  Waterloo."

  "That would give me time."

  "Then, if you are not too sleepy, I will give you a

  sketch of what has happened, and of what remains to be

  done."

  "I was sleepy before you came. I am quite wakeful

  now."

  "I will compress the story as far as may be done

  without omitting anything vital to the case. It is

  conceivable that you may even have read some account

  of the matter. It is the supposed murder of Colonel

  Barclay, of the Royal Munsters, at Aldershot, which I

  am investigating."

  "I have heard nothing of it."

  "It has not excited much attention yet, except

  locally. The facts are only two days old. Briefly

  they are these:

  "The Royal Munsters is, as you know, one of the most

  famous Irish regiments in the British army. It did

  wonders both in the Crimea and the Mutiny, and has

  since that time distinguished itself upon every

  possible occasion. It was commanded up to Monday

  night by James Barclay, a gallant veteran, who started

  as a full private, was raised to commissioned rank for

  his bravery at the time of the Mutiny, and so lived to

  command the regiment in which he had once carried a

  musket.

  "Colonel Barclay had married at the time when he was a

  sergeant, and his wife, whose maiden name was Miss

  Nancy Devoy, was the daughter of a former

  color-sergeant in the same corps. There was,

  therefore, as can be imagined, some little social

  friction when the young couple (for they were still

  young) found themselves in their new surroundings.

  They appear, however, to have quickly adapted

  themselves, and Mrs. Barclay has always, I understand,

  been as popular with the ladies of the regiment as her

  husband was with his brother officers. I may add that

  she was a woman of great beauty, and that even now,

  when she has been married for upwards of thirty years,

  she is still of a striking and queenly appearance.

  "Colonel Barclay's family life appears to have been a

  uniformly happy one. Major Murphy, to whom I owe most

  of my facts, assures me that he has never heard of any

  misunderstanding between the pair. On the whole, he

  thinks that Barclay's devotion to his wife was greater

  than his wife's to Barclay. He was acutely uneasy if

  he were absent from her for a day. She, on the other

  hand, though devoted and faithful, was less

  obtrusively affectionate. But they were regarded in

  the regiment as the very model of a middle-aged

  couple. There was absolutely nothing in their mutual

  relations to prepare people for the tragedy which was

  to follow.

  "Colonel Barclay himself seems to have had some

  singular traits in his character. He was a dashing,

  jovial old solder in his usual mood, but there were

  occasions on which he seemed to show himself capable

  of considerable violence and vindictiveness. This

  side of his nature, however, appears never to have

  been turned towards his wife. Another fact, which had

  struck Major Murphy and three out of five of the other

  officers with whom I conversed, was the singular sort

  of depression which came upon him at times. As the

  major expressed it, the smile had often been struck

  from his mouth, as if by some invisible hand, when he

  has been joining the gayeties and chaff of the

  mess-table. For days on end, when the mood was on

  him, he has been sunk in the deepest gloom. This and

  a certain tinge of superstition were the only unusual

  traits in his character which his brother officers had

  observed. The latter peculiarity took the form of a

  dislike to being left alone, especially after dark.

  This puerile feature in a nature which was

  conspicuously manly had often given rise to comment

  and conjecture.

  "The first battalion of the Royal Munsters (which is

  the old 117th) has been stationed at Aldershot for

  some years. The married officers live out of

  barracks, and the Colonel has during all this time

  occupied a villa called Lachine, about half a mile

  from the north camp. The house stands in its own

  grounds, but the west side of it is not more than

  thirty yards from the high-road. A coachman and two

  maids form the staff of servants. These with their

  master and mistress were the sole occupants of

  Lachine, for the Barclays had no children, nor was it

  usual for them to have resident visitors.

  "Now for the events at Lachine between nine and ten on

  the evening of last Monday."

  "Mrs. Barclay was, it appears, a member of the Roman

  Catholic Church, and had interested herself very much

  in the establishment of the Guild of St. George, which

  was formed in connection with the Watt Street Chapel

  for the purpose of supplying the poor with cast-off

  clothing. A meeting of the Guild had been held that

  evening at eight, and Mrs. Barclay had hurried over

  her dinner in order to be present at it. When leaving

  the house she was heard by the coachman to make some

  commonplace remark to her husband, and to assure him

  that she would be back before very long. She then

  called for Miss Morrison, a young lady who lives in

  the next villa, and the two went off together to their

  meeting. It lasted forty minutes, and at a

  quarter-past nine Mrs. Barclay returned home, having

  left Miss Morrison at her door as she passed.

  "There is a room which is used as a morning-room at

  Lachine. This faces the road and opens by a large

  glass folding-door on to the lawn. The lawn is thirty

  yards across, and is only divided from the highway by

  a low wall with an iron rail above it. It was into

  this room that Mrs. Barclay went upon her return. The

  blinds were not down, for the room wa
s seldom used in

  the evening, but Mrs. Barclay herself lit the lamp and

  then rang the bell, asking Jane Stewart, the

  house-maid, to bring her a cup of tea, which was quite

  contrary to her usual habits. The Colonel had been

  sitting in the dining-room, but hearing that his wife

  had returned he joined her in the morning-room. The

  coachman saw him cross the hall and enter it. He was

  never seen again alive.

  "The tea which had been ordered was brought up at the

  end of ten minutes; but the maid, as she approached

  the door, was surprised to hear the voices of her

  master and mistress in furious altercation. She

  knocked without receiving any answer, and even turned

  the handle, but only to find that the door was locked

  upon the inside. Naturally enough she ran down to

  tell the cook, and the two women with the coachman

  came up into the hall and listened to the dispute

  which was still raging. They all agreed that only two

  voices were to be heard, those of Barclay and of his

  wife. Barclay's remarks were subdued and abrupt, so

  that none of them were audible to the listeners. The

  lady's, on the other hand, were most bitter, and when

  she raised her voice could be plainly heard. 'You

  coward!' she repeated over and over again. 'What can

  be done now? What can be done now? Give me back my

  life. I will never so much as breathe the same air

  with you again! You coward! You Coward!' Those were

  scraps of her conversation, ending in a sudden

  dreadful cry in the man's voice, with a crash, and a

  piercing scream from the woman. Convinced that some

  tragedy had occurred, the coachman rushed to the door

  and strove to force it, while scream after scream

  issued from within. He was unable, however, to make

  his way in, and the maids were too distracted with

  fear to be of any assistance to him. A sudden thought

  struck him, however, and he ran through the hall door

  and round to the lawn upon which the long French

  windows open. One side of the window was open, which

  I understand was quite usual in the summer-time, and

  he passed without difficulty into the room. His

  mistress had ceased to scream and was stretched

  insensible upon a couch, while with his feet tilted

  over the side of an arm-chair, and his head upon the

  ground near the corner of the fender, was lying the

  unfortunate soldier stone dead in a pool of his own

  blood.

  "Naturally, the coachman's first thought, on finding

  that he could do nothing for his master, was to open

  the door. But here an unexpected and singular

  difficulty presented itself. The key was not in the

  inner side of the door, nor could he find it anywhere

  in the room. He went out again, therefore, through

  the window, and having obtained the help of a

  policeman and of a medical man, he returned. The

  lady, against whom naturally the strongest suspicion

  rested, was removed to her room, still in a state of

  insensibility. The Colonel's body was then placed

  upon the sofa, and a careful examination made of the

  scene of the tragedy.

  "The injury from which the unfortunate veteran was

  suffering was found to be a jagged cut some two inches

  long at the back part of his head, which had evidently

  been caused by a violent blow from a blunt weapon.

  Nor was it difficult to guess what that weapon may

  have been. Upon the floor, close to the body, was

  lying a singular club of hard carved wood with a bone

  handle. The Colonel possessed a varied collection of

  weapons brought from the different countries in which

  he had fought, and it is conjectured by the police

  that his club was among his trophies. The servants

  deny having seen it before, but among the numerous

  curiosities in the house it is possible that it may

  have been overlooked. Nothing else of importance was

  discovered in the room by the police, save the

  inexplicable fact that neither upon Mrs. Barclay's

  person nor upon that of the victim nor in any part of

  the room was the missing key to be found. The door

  had eventually to be opened by a locksmith from

  Aldershot.

  "That was the state of things, Watson, when upon the

  Tuesday morning I, at the request of Major Murphy,

  went down to Aldershot to supplement the efforts of

  the police. I think that you will acknowledge that

  the problem was already one of interest, but my

  observations soon made me realize that it was in truth

  much more extraordinary than would at first sight

  appear.

  "Before examining the room I cross-questioned the

  servants, but only succeeded in eliciting the facts

  which I have already stated. One other detail of

  interest was remembered by Jane Stewart, the

  housemaid. You will remember that on hearing the

  sound of the quarrel she descended and returned with

  the other servants. On that first occasion, when she

  was alone, she says that the voices of her master and

  mistress were sunk so low that she could hear hardly

  anything, and judged by their tones rather tan their

  words that they had fallen out. On my pressing her,

  however, she remembered that she heard the word David

  uttered twice by the lady. The point is of the utmost

  importance as guiding us towards the reason of the

  sudden quarrel. The Colonel's name, you remember, was

  James.

  "There was one thing in the case which had made the

  deepest impression both upon the servants and the

  police. This was the contortion of the Colonel's

  face. It had set, according to their account, into

  the most dreadful expression of fear and horror which

  a human countenance is capable of assuming. More than

  one person fainted at the mere sight of him, so

  terrible was the effect. It was quite certain that he

  had foreseen his fate, and that it had caused him the

  utmost horror. This, of course, fitted in well enough

  with the police theory, if the Colonel could have seen

  his wife making a murderous attack upon him. Nor was

  the fact of the wound being on the back of his head a

  fatal objection to this, as he might have turned to

  avoid the blow. No information could be got from the

  lady herself, who was temporarily insane from an acute

  attack of brain-fever.

  "From the police I learned that Miss Morrison, who you

  remember went out that evening with Mrs. Barclay,

  denied having any knowledge of what it was which had

  caused the ill-humor in which her companion had

  returned.

  "Having gathered these facts, Watson, I smoke several

  pipes over them, trying to separate those which were

  crucial from others which were merely incidental.

  There could be no question that the most distinctive

  and suggestive point in the case was the singular

  disappearance of
the door-key. A most careful search

  had failed to discover it in the room. Therefore it

  must have been taken from it. But neither the Colonel

  nor the Colonel's wife could have taken it. That was

  perfectly clear. Therefore a third person must have

  entered the room. And that third person could only

  have come in through the window. It seemed to me that

  a careful examination of the room and the lawn might

  possibly reveal some traces of this mysterious

  individual. You know my methods, Watson. There was

  not one of them which I did not apply to the inquiry.

  And ones from those which I had expected. There had

  been a man in the room, and he had crossed the lawn

  coming from the road. I was able to obtain five very

  clear impressions of his foot-marks: one in the

  roadway itself, at the point where he had climbed the

  low wall, two on the lawn, and two very faint ones

  upon the stained boards near the window where he had

  entered. He had apparently rushed across the lawn,

  for his toe-marks were much deeper than his heels.

  But it was not the man who surprised me. It was his

  companion."

  "His companion!"

  Holmes pulled a large sheet of tissue-paper out of his

  pocket and carefully unfolded it upon his knee.

  "What do you make of that?" he asked.

  The paper was covered with he tracings of the

  foot-marks of some small animal. It had five

  well-marked foot-pads, an indication of long nails,

  and the whole print might be nearly as large as a

  dessert-spoon.

  "It's a dog," said I.

  "Did you ever hear of a dog running up a curtain? I

  found distinct traces that this creature had done so."

  "A monkey, then?"

  "But it is not the print of a monkey."

  "What can it be, then?"

  "Neither dog nor cat nor monkey nor any creature that

  we are familiar with. I have tried to reconstruct it

  from the measurements. Here are four prints where the

  beast has been standing motionless. You see that it

  is no less than fifteen inches from fore-foot to hind.

  Add to that the length of neck and head, and you get a

  creature not much less than two feet long--probably

  more if there is any tail. But now observe this other

  measurement. The animal has been moving, and we have

  the length of its stride. In each case it is only

  about three inches. You have an indication, you see,

  of a long body with very short legs attached to it.

  It has not been considerate enough to leave any of its

  hair behind it. But its general shape must be what I

  have indicated, and it can run up a curtain, and it is

  carnivorous."

  "How do you deduce that?"

  "Because it ran up the curtain. A canary's cage was

  hanging in the window, and its aim seems to have been

  to get at the bird."

  "Then what was the beast?"

  "Ah, if I could give it a name it might go a long way

  towards solving the case. On the whole, it was

  probably some creature of the weasel and stoat

  tribe--and yet it is larger than any of these that I

  have seen."

  "But what had it to do with the crime?"

  "That, also, is still obscure. But we have learned a

  good deal, you perceive. We know that a man stood in

  the road looking at the quarrel between the

  Barclays--the blinds were up and the room lighted. We

  know, also, that he ran across the lawn, entered the

  room, accompanied by a strange animal, and that he

  either struck the Colonel or, as is equally possible,

  that the Colonel fell down from sheer fright at the

  sight of him, and cut his head on the corner of the

  fender. Finally, we have the curious fact that the

  intruder carried away the key with him when he left."

  "You discoveries seem to have left the business more

  obscure that it was before," said I.

  "Quite so. They undoubtedly showed that the affair

  was much deeper than was at first conjectured. I

  thought the matter over, and I came to the conclusion

  that I must approach the case from another aspect.

  But really, Watson, I am keeping you up, and I might

  just as well tell you all this on our way to Aldershot

  to-morrow."

  "Thank you, you have gone rather too far to stop."

  "It is quite certain that when Mrs. Barclay left the

  house at half-past seven she was on good terms with

  her husband. She was never, as I think I have said,