hey are shaped below with a cloven
foot of iron, so as to throw pursuers off the track. They are supposed
to have belonged to some of the marauding Barons of Holdernesse in the
Middle Ages."

Holmes opened the case, and moistening his finger he passed it along the
shoe. A thin film of recent mud was left upon his skin.

"Thank you," said he, as he replaced the glass. "It is the second most
interesting object that I have seen in the North."

"And the first?"

Holmes folded up his check and placed it carefully in his notebook. "I
am a poor man," said he, as he patted it affectionately, and thrust it
into the depths of his inner pocket.

THE ADVENTURE OF BLACK PETER

I have never known my friend to be in better form, both mental and
physical, than in the year '95. His increasing fame had brought with it
an immense practice, and I should be guilty of an indiscretion if I
were even to hint at the identity of some of the illustrious clients who
crossed our humble threshold in Baker Street. Holmes, however, like all
great artists, lived for his art's sake, and, save 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
so long from our lodgings that I knew he had something on hand. The fact
that several rough-looking men called during that time and i