Holmes is exhausted after the resolution of a
complex case. Three countries were involved, and it took two months of intense
work for the genius to sort it out. As always, Holmes is also deeply depressed,
because such an opportunity is not likely to come upon him soon.
Watson persuades him to pay a visit to an old
friend, met in Afghanistan, Colonel Hayter, who lives near Reigate, in
Surrey. The Colonel and Holmes have much in common, and Watson is soon
relieved, confident that his friend will take some rest without being too bored.
But the fate seems to persist against him: a burglary, and then a murder, is
committed in peculiar fashion in two houses of the neighbourhood.
