Introduction
How well my friend Arthur Conan Doyle would tell this
story! How exciting and interesting he would make it.
I cannot do that. I am no writer. I have been a
doctor and a soldier. All I can do is make my report.
But who will read my words? What will the world be
like in 1976? Perhaps by then nobody will know the
names of Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper.
Perhaps all Conan Doyle's wonderful stories will be
forgotten. There is so much to explain. I must ask my
reader to be patient!
I had known and worked with Sherlock Holmes for
almost four years when I first met Arthur Conan Doyle
- ACD I always called him. Like me, he was a doctor,
and we quickly became old friends. He told me
amusing stories of hospital life, and I raid him about
my life as an army doctor in Afghanistan.