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I had had so many reasons to believe in my friend's subtle powers

of reasoning and extraordinary energy in action that I felt that

he must have some solid grounds for the assured and easy

demeanour with which he treated the singular mystery which he had

been called upon to fathom. Once only had I known him to fail, in

the case of the King of Bohemia and of the Irene Adler

photograph; but when I looked back to the weird business of the

Sign of Four, and the extraordinary circumstances connected with

the Study in Scarlet, I felt that it would be a strange tangle

indeed which he could not unravel.

I left him then, still puffing at his black clay pipe, with the

conviction that when I came again on the next evening I would

find that he held in his hands all the clues which would lead up

to the identity of the disappearing bridegroom of Miss Mary

Sutherland.