e dived his arm down to the bottom of the chest, and brought up a small
wooden box, with a sliding lid, such as children's toys are kept in.
From within he produced a crumpled piece of paper, an old-fashioned
brass key, a peg of wood with a ball of string attached to it, and
three rusty old discs of metal.

"Well, my boy, what do you make of this lot?" he asked, smiling at my
expression.

"It is a curious collection."

[Illustration: "A CURIOUS COLLECTION."]

"Very curious, and the story that hangs round it will strike you as
being more curious still."

"These relics have a history, then?"

"So much so that they _are_ history."

"What do you mean by that?"

Sherlock Holmes picked them up one by one, and laid them along the edge
of the table. Then he reseated himself in his chair, and looked them
over with a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes.

"These," said he, "are all that I have left to remind me of 'The
Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual.'"

I had heard him mention the case more than once, though I had never been
able to gather the details.

"I should be so glad," said I, "if you would give me an account of it."

"And leave the litter as it is," he cried, mischievously. "Your tidiness
won't bear much strain, after all, Watson. But I should be glad that you
should add this case to your annals, for there are points in it which
make it quite unique in the criminal records of this or, I believe, of
any other country. A collection of my trifling achievements would
certainly be incomplete which contained no account of this very singular
business.

"You may remember how the affair of the _Gloria Scott_, and my
conversation with the unhappy man whose fate I told you of, first turned
my attention in the direction of the profession which has become my
life's work. You see me now when my name has become known far and wide,
and when I am generally recognised both by the public and by the
official force as being a final court of appeal in doubtful cases. Even
when you knew me first, at the time of the affair which you have
commemorated in 'A Study in Scarlet,' I had already established a
considerable, though not a very lucrative, connection. You can hardly
realize, then, how difficult I found it at first, and how long I had to
wait before I succeeded in making any headway.

"When I first came up to London I had rooms in Montague Street, just
round the corner from the British Museum, and there I waited, filling in