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was some time before the health of my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes recovered from
the strain caused by his immense exertions in the spring of '87. The whole question
of the Netherland Sumatra Company and of the colossal schemes of Baron Maupertuis
are too recent in the minds of the public, and are too intimately concerned with
politics and finance to be fitting subjects for this series of sketches. They
led, however, in an indirect fashion to a singular and complex problem which gave
my friend an opportunity of demonstrating the value of a fresh weapon among the
many with which he waged his lifelong battle against crime. On
referring to my notes I see that it was upon the fourteenth of April that l received
a telegram from Lyons which informed me that Holmes was lying ill in the Hotel
Dulong. Within twenty-four hours I was in his sick-room and was relieved to find
that there was nothing formidable in his symptoms. Even his iron constitution,
however, had broken down under the strain of an investigation which had extended
over two months, during which period he had never worked less than fifteen hours
a day and had more than once, as he assured me. kept to his task for five days
at a stretch. Even the triumphant issue of his labours could not save him from
reaction after so terrible an exertion, and at a time when Europe was ringing
with his name and when his room was literally ankle-deep with congratulatory telegrams
I found him a prey to the blackest depression. Even the knowledge that he had
succeeded where the police of three countries had failed, and that he had outmanoeuvred
at every point the most accomplished swindler in Europe, was insufficient to rouse
him from his nervous prostration. Three
days later we were back in Baker Street together; but it was evident that my friend
would be much the better for a change, and the thought of a week of springtime
in the country was full of attractions to me also. My old friend, Colonel Hayter,
who had come under my professional care in Afghanistan, had now taken a house
near Reigate in Surrey and had frequently asked me to come down to him upon a
visit. On the last occasion he had remarked that if my friend would only come
with me he would be glad to extend his hospitality to him also. A
little diplomacy was needed, but when Holmes understood that the establishment
was a bachelor one, and that he would be allowed the fullest freedom, he fell
in with my plans and a week after our return from Lyons we were under the colonel's
roof. Hayter was a fine old soldier who had seen much of the world, and he soon
found, as I had expected, that Holmes and he had much in common.
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