"To murder.Mr.Harker, will you tell these gentlemen exactly what has occurred?"The man in the dressing-gown turned upon us with a most melancholy face.
"It's an extraordinary thing," said he, "that all my life I have been collecting other people's news, and now that a real piece of news has come my own way I am so confused and bothered that I can't put two words together.If I had come in here as a journalist I should have interviewed myself and had two columns in every evening paper.As it is I am giving away valuable copy by telling my story over and over to a string of different people, and I can make no use of it myself.However, I've heard your name, Mr.Sherlock Holmes, and if you'll only explain this queer business I shall be paid for my trouble in telling you the story."Holmes sat down and listened.
"It all seems to centre round that bust of Napoleon which Ibought for this very room about four months ago.I picked it up cheap from Harding Brothers, two doors from the High Street Station.A great deal of my journalistic work is done at night, and I often write until the early morning.So it was to-day.
I was sitting in my den, which is at the back of the top of the house, about three o'clock, when I was convinced that I heard some sounds downstairs.I listened, but they were not repeated, and I concluded that they came from outside.Then suddenly, about five minutes later, there came a most horrible yell -- the most dreadful sound, Mr.Holmes, that ever I heard.It will ring in my ears as long as I live.I sat frozen with horror for a minute or two.Then I seized the poker and went downstairs.
When I entered this room I found the window wide open, and I at once observed that the bust was gone from the mantelpiece.
Why any burglar should take such a thing passes my understanding, for it was only a plaster cast and of no real value whatever.