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Some degree of relief to the mystery of the stone came in another form the following morning. I had breakfasted alone — Holmes had left a note that he was on one of his mysterious excursions — but as I finished my toast I heard the door downstairs open and close and then the familiar tread of Inspector Gregson on the stairs. Moments after a sharp double-rap at the door and a yelled “Halloa”, the man himself entered the room.

The long-faced Scotland Yard man looked older than just the year or so since I had last seen him, and I discerned something unhealthy about his physique; he seemed wasted and drawn, his eyes slightly yellowed, although his greeting was hearty enough.

“Doctor, Good Lord, man, I wasn’t aware you had returned here, I am so sorry about your wife, sir.”

I muttered a reply, and waved him to a chair, and brought forth some cigars and cigarettes. He smiled and pointed at the silver coffee pot.

“Thank you, Doctor; I wouldn’t say no, if I might also partake of a cup of Mrs. Hudson’s coffee, she always brews it just right.”

“She does indeed, Inspector, so help yourself. Mrs. Hudson has doubtless told you that Holmes is out, but I take it since you opted to come upstairs anyway that I may act as the sounding board of old? Now, what criminal enigma brings you here today?” I said.

Gregson sipped his coffee and exhaled a plume of Egyptian tobacco smoke. He gave me a grin.

“Murder of the most unusual stripe, sir, very much in Mr. Holmes’ line. There’s an antiques appraiser, name of Spencer Pethebridge, lives in Bloomsbury, but maintains an office in the Commercial Road. He’s considered extremely knowledgeable, especially about Oriental artifacts, and has exposed more than a few forgeries, I’m told. And only an hour ago he was found dead, in his office, probably murdered.”

I leaned forward, my attention fully engaged.

“Inspector, you should not tease me after I’ve only just returned to this house of riddle-solving. Probably murdered, you say? How can a murder be only probable to a Scotland Yard man?”

Gregson saluted me with his cigarette. “Bravo, Doctor, I was seeing if you were in the frame of mind for the business again. I do say ‘probably’, because although there was all the appearance of a suicide, the method of death was so out of the ordinary that murder has to be countenanced.”

“Unusual?” I said, feeling a strange sense of dread rise in my chest, rather than the excitement of curiosity that I had felt in the days of old. I was surprised at this reaction, and concealed it from Gregson. I wondered if I was not myself because of the circumstances that had brought me back to Baker Street, the sense of failure, or regression.

I wondered if I was merely growing too old too soon.

“Oh, yes, unusual it was. Mr. Pethebridge shot himself, straight through the heart. With an old arrow, fired by a crossbow.”

I was about to ask a question — exactly what I cannot now recall at all — when the door to the room was flung open, and a weird individual stood on the threshold, staring at us both.

He was a tall man in his late fifties or early sixties, with sun-baked, heavily creased, skin. He had a military bearing, but wore a strange hodge-podge of clothing, partly European, in terms of his boots and his trousers, but his long shirt and robe-like cloak was cotton and loose-fitting, and his head was adorned with the many windings of a turban. A few loops of beads were draped about his neck, some holding shining stones and metallic links of a sort not seen in Europe, and in his hand he clasped a very tall stick; more a staff than a cane. Although obviously of the Asian continent in origin, he reminded one more than anything else of that wonderful citizen of the Crown who lived life as much in the world of the Orientals as he did England, the late Sir Richard Burton. He flung a yellow-nailed hand out at Gregson, and spoke in a high, clear, but accented voice, assuredly Middle Eastern.

“The man Holmes, are you he?” he said; then