It Is Quite A Three-pipe Problem.

It Is A Mistake To Confound Strangeness With Mystery. The Most Commonplace Crime Is Often The Most Mysterious Because It Presents No New Or Special Features From Which Deductions May Be Drawn. This Murder Would Have Been Infinitely More Difficult To Unravel Had The Body Of The Victim Been Simply Found Lying In The Roadway Without Any Of Those Outré And Sensational Accompaniments Which Have Rendered It Remarkable. These Strange Details, Far From Making The Case More Difficult, Have Really Had The Effect Of Making It Less So.

In The Year 1878 I Took My Degree Of Doctor Of Medicine Of The University Of London, And Proceeded To Netley To Go Through The Course Prescribed For Surgeons In The Army. Having Completed My Studies There, I Was Duly Attached To The Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers As Assistant Surgeon.

It May Have Been A Comedy, Or It May Have Been A Tragedy. It Cost One Man His Reason, It Cost Me A Blood-letting, And It Cost Yet Another Man The Penalties Of The Law. Yet There Was Certainly An Element Of Comedy. Well, You Shall Judge For Yourselves.

It Is A Capital Mistake To Theorize Before You Have All The Evidence. It Biases The Judgment.

His Ignorance Was As Remarkable As His Knowledge. Of Contemporary Literature, Philosophy And Politics He Appeared To Know Next To Nothing... My Surprise Reached A Climax, However, When I Found Incidentally That He Was Ignorant Of The Copernican Theory And Of The Composition Of The Solar System.