in the case of the Duke of Holdernesse, I have seldom known him claim
any large reward for his inestimable services. So unworldly was
he--or so capricious--that he frequently refused his help to the
powerful and wealthy where the problem made no appeal to his
sympathies, while he would devote weeks of most intense application
to the affairs of some humble client whose case presented those
strange and dramatic qualities which appealed to his imagination and
challenged his ingenuity.
In this memorable year ''95 a curious and incongruous succession of
cases had engaged his attention, ranging from his famous
investigation of the sudden death of Cardinal Tosca--an inquiry which
was carried out by him at the express desire of His Holiness the
Pope--down to his arrest of Wilson, the notorious canary-trainer,
which removed a plague-spot from the East-End of London. Close on the
heels of these two famous cases came the tragedy of Woodman''s Lee,
and the very obscure circumstances which surrounded the death of
Captain Peter Carey. No record of the doings of Mr. Sherlock Holmes
would be complete which did not include some account of this very
unusual affair.
During the first week of July my friend had been absent so often and