ain, when, by upsetting the cigarette-box,
I obtained a very excellent view of the floor, and was able to see quite
clearly, from the traces upon the cigarette ash, that the prisoner had,
in our absence, come out from her retreat. Well, Hopkins, here we are at
Charing Cross, and I congratulate you on having brought your case to
a successful conclusion. You are going to head-quarters, no doubt. I
think, Watson, you and I will drive together to the Russian Embassy."

*****

THE STRAND MAGAZINE
Vol. 28 AUGUST, 1904
THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.
By ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.

XI.--The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter.

WE were fairly accustomed to receive weird telegrams at Baker Street,
but I have a particular recollection of one which reached us on a gloomy
February morning some seven or eight years ago and gave Mr. Sherlock
Holmes a puzzled quarter of an hour. It was addressed to him, and ran
thus:--

"Please await me. Terrible misfortune. Right wing three-quarter missing;
indispensable to morrow.--OVERTON."

"Strand post-mark and dispatched ten-thirty-six," said Holmes, reading
it over and over. "Mr. Overton was evidently considerably excited when
he sent it, and somewhat incoherent in consequence. Well, well, he will
be here, I dare say, by the time I have looked through the TIMES, and
then we shall know all about it. Even the most insignificant problem
would be welcome in these stagnant days."

Things had indeed been very slow with us, and I had learned to dread
such periods of inaction, for I knew by experience that my companion's
brain was so abnormally active that it was dangerous to leave it without
material upon which to work. For years I had gradually weaned him
from that drug mania which had threatened once to check his remarkable
career. Now I knew that under ordinary conditions he no longer craved
for this artificial stimulus, but I was well aware that the fiend was
not dead, but sleeping; and I have known that the sleep was a light one
and the waking near when in periods of idleness I have seen the drawn
look upon Holmes's ascetic face, and the brooding of his deep-set and
inscrutable eyes. Therefore I blessed this Mr. Overton, whoever he might
be, since he had come with his enigmatic message to break that dangerous
calm which brought more peril to my friend than all the storms of his
tempestuous life.

As w