'It is an extraordinary case, Watson,' Holmes cried. 'I
have been studying it. I knew the police would need
my help. Shall I tell you the facts?'
'Please do!' I said. Was this going to be one of
Sherlock Holmes's great cases? I hoped that at last
he had found something to interest him.
'The women who died were poor, and neither young
nor beautiful,' he told me. 'So they were not killed for
money or for love. Why were they killed? That is one
mystery. There is another. Each woman was killed
with a knife. The word "killed", Watson, cannot
describe the violent and terrible ways in which they
were murdered. They were cut up like meat. The
stomach of one was opened, the head of another
almost cut from her body. But this is not the worst.
There are things that even the newspapers will not
describe.'