Foreword
Many people enjoy Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories
about the famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, and
his friend, Dr Watson. But who now remembers that
Holmes and Watson were real people? Everyone has
forgotten that they lived before Conan Doyle gave
them life in his books.
Dr Watson died in 1926. He was seventy-three. He left
behind him a locked box, and orders that it must not
be opened for fifty years.
For fifty years the box lay hidden in a dark room
below a bank. Years came and went, and the world
changed in a thousand ways.
In 1976 the box was opened. It contained a packet
of papers. They tell a terrible story. Some people say
it cannot be true. They say Watson was lying, or that
he was sick when he wrote it. After so many years we
cannot be sure. We have checked all the facts that
we can. All we know is that the story could be true. It
is possible. We think it is probable. Now you must
read it and decide for yourself