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It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales

had set in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had

screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that

even here in the heart of great, hand-made London we were forced

to raise our minds for the instant from the routine of life and

to recognise the presence of those great elemental forces which

shriek at mankind through the bars of his civilisation, like

untamed beasts in a cage. As evening drew in, the storm grew

higher and louder, and the wind cried and sobbed like a child in

the chimney. Sherlock Holmes sat moodily at one side of the

fireplace cross-indexing his records of crime, while I at the

other was deep in one of Clark Russell's fine sea-stories until

the howl of the gale from without seemed to blend with the text,

and the splash of the rain to lengthen out into the long swash of

the sea waves.