Артур Конан Дойль (Arthur Conan Doyle)CHAPTER ONE
A Visit from Mycroft
It was a dark autumn morning in 1895. My friend Sherlock Holmes, the famous detective, and I, Dr Watson, were in the sitting room of our house in Baker Street in London when a telegram arrived. Holmes opened it at once, and laughed. I looked quickly across the room at him.
'Why are you laughing, Holmes?' I asked.
Holmes looked back at me with his cold, blue eyes.
'Because this telegram is from my brother Mycroft,' he said. 'He wants to speak to me at once about Mr Arthur Cadogan. Do you know this man, Watson?'
'I saw something about him in today's newspaper. But now I can't remember the story,' I answered.
'And my brother Mycroft - what do you remember about him?' asked Holmes with a smile.
'Not much,' I answered. 'I met him once - long ago. Tell me more about him.'
'He's a very clever and important man. He works for the government. He knows everything about everything. So why does he want to speak to me? Why does he want to visit our home in Baker Street? And who is Mr Cadogan?'
I opened The Times and looked for the story.
'Here it is!' I cried suddenly. A worker found Cadogan's dead body near Aldgate Station on the London Underground on Tuesday morning.'
'Tell me more, Watson,' said Holmes.
I began to read the story in The Times to him. 'The dead man was Mr Arthur Cadogan. He was twenty-seven years old. He lived with his wife, Violet, in Woolwich and he worked at Woolwich Arsenal.'
'Now I understand!' cried Holmes. 'Mycroft is interested because Cadogan worked for the government!'
'On Monday night,' I said, 'Cadogan was in Woolwich with his wife. They had tickets for the theatre. Suddenly he left her in the street. But why? She doesn't know. At six o'clock the next morning, a worker found his dead body.'
'Near Aldgate Station,' said Holmes. 'I see. And was Cadogan badly injured?'
'Yes, he was.'
'Then he fell from the train - or somebody pushed him.
Perhaps he was dead before they pushed him out. Tell me more, Watson.'
'Cadogan's train came from West London, but where did he get on? The police don't know,' I said. 'There was no train ticket in his pockets, only some money, two theatre tickets - and some papers.'