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recently arrived in this country, who is very highly educated, even by the general standards of modern diplomats, who is particularly well trusted by the Sultan of Turkey and who is of exceptionally robust health for a man of his age, there is little else that I can deduce. When I add that he has a smudge of ink on the little finger of his right hand, that he spent some considerable time composing his short letter, that he has a beard, that his hair is of an almost pure white, that he is a man of austere, almost Spartan, habits and that he is an old soldier who has seen action in many military campaigns, I will admit that my limited stock of knowledge about our correspondent is exhausted.”

“I must say that your stock of knowledge is better described as exhaustive,” I said with some asperity, for I was nettled by-this display of omniscience, “since I do not admit that such a wealth of information can be considered limited by any accurate observer.”

“Excellent, Watson!” he replied with a chuckle, “Touché! A most opposite response!” He came over to where I sat, took up the letter and envelope and seated himself again in the basket chair. Somewhat mollified, I asked him how he arrived at his remarkable conclusions about the letter-writer through a mere examination of the letter and envelope.

“That the man is a Turk and a nobleman is evident from the fact that the envelope bears the sign of the Tugra, which is the personal emblem of the Sultan of Turkey,” said Holmes, “No commoner or foreigner could possibly have been entrusted with such stationery. That he is a very old man can be deduced from the nature of his handwriting. He does not smoke because, being a Turk, if he had been a smoker he would have smoked Turkish tobacco, which has a distinctive aroma that would have clung, however faintly, to his writing materials. I have an especially sensitive nose and yet I can detect no hint of a tobacco aroma on either the letter or the envelope. He is very highly educated because he wrote the letter in English in his own hand; if the letter had been written by a scribe the writing would undoubtedly have been that of a much younger man. In general, modern diplomats speak and write French for diplomatic purposes. This man wrote his letter in English – and quite acceptable English at that, Watson – which shows that he speaks at least two languages other than his own, since, being a diplomat, it is certain that he speaks French – he would not have gone far in his career if he didn’t. He has only recently arrived in this country because, as we have seen, he has written his letter on the Sultan’s own stationery and not on the usual stationery of the Turkish Embassy, which would have identified itself as such. It seems clear that our man is on a special mission from Turkey and is acting in an almost independent capacity from the officials at the embassy. Had he been in this country for some time he would hardly have written on special letter-paper from the embassy in Belgravia, which is where the courier came from. Also, the fact that he effectively states that he is on a mission for the Sultan means that he has just arrived, since he is unlikely to lie idle for any length of time before conducting the Sultan’s business.

“As to his being a particularly trustworthy courtier, this is manifest from his age. The urgent tone of the letter tells us that the matter is of some importance and yet the Sultan did not choose a younger and more energetic man for the task. The fact that he sent an aged man across Europe must mean that he is particularly reliable and trustworthy. He is of exceptionally robust health because, not only was he capable of making such a journey at his age with apparent ease, but also because he is venturing out on a night like this soon after his arrival in this country. The ink-stained finger I infer from the very slight smudge on the letter ‘y’ in ‘liberty’, which can only have been made by the little finger of the right hand when the writer crossed the ‘t’. A number of hairs were caught in the fold of the paper, which