our 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 I bought 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.

"You can see for yourself that anyone going out through that open window
could reach the front doorstep by taking a long stride. This was clearly
what the burglar had done, so I went round and opened the door. Stepping
out into the dark, I nearly fell over a dead man, who was lying there. I
ran back for a light and there was the poor fellow, a great gash in his
throat and the whole place swimming in blood. He lay on his back, his
knees drawn up, and his mouth horribly open. I shall see him in my
dreams. I had just time to blow on my police-whistle, and then I must
have fainted, for I knew nothing more until I found the policeman
standing over me in the hall."

"Well, who was the murdered man?" asked Holmes.

"There's nothing to show who he was," said Lestrade. "You shall see the
body at the mortuary, but we have made nothing of it up to now. He is a
tall man, sunburned, very powerful, not more than thirty. He is poorly
dressed, and yet does not appear to be a labourer. A horn-handled clasp
knife was lying in a pool of blood beside him. Whether it was the weapon
which did the deed, or whether it belonged to the dead man, I do not
know. There was no name on his clothing, and nothing in his pockets save
an apple