Dust and Shadow

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“My dear Doctor, I fear that I shall require your services this evening.”

I looked up quizzically from an article on the local elections in the Colwall Gazette. “With pleasure, Holmes.”

“Dress warmly—the barometer is safe enough, but the wind is chill. And if you don’t mind dropping your revolver in your pocket, I should be obliged. One can never be too careful, after all, and your revolver is a particularly businesslike argument.”

“Did I not hear you say at dinner that we would return to London by the morning train?”

Sherlock Holmes smiled enigmatically through the gauzy veil of pipe smoke which had gradually enveloped his armchair. “You refer to my remarking that you and I would be far more productive in the city than here in Herefordshire. So we shall be. There are three cases of variable interest awaiting us in London.”

“But the missing diamond?”

“I have solved it.”

“My dear Holmes!” I exclaimed. “I congratulate you. But where is it, then? Have you advised Lord Ramsden of its whereabouts? And have you sent word to Inspector Gregson at the inn?”

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