Page 10

The Return of Sherlock Holmes

The Six Napoleons

"There's nothing to show who he was," said Lestrade. "You shall see the body at the mortuary, but we have made nothing of it up to now. He is a tall man, sunburned, very powerful, not more than thirty. He is poorly dressed, and yet does not appear to be a labourer. A horn-handled clasp knife was lying in a pool of blood beside him. Whether it was the weapon which did the deed, or whether it belonged to the dead man, I do not know. There was no name on his clothing, and nothing in his pockets save an apple, some string, a shilling map of London, and a photograph. Here it is."

It was evidently taken by a snapshot from a small camera. It represented an alert, sharp-featured simian man, with thick eyebrows and a very peculiar projection of the lower part of the face, like the muzzle of a baboon.

"And what became of the bust?" asked Holmes, after a careful study of this picture.

"We had news of it just before you came. It has been found in the front garden of an empty house in Campden House Road. It was broken into fragments. I am going round now to see it. Will you come?"

Vocabulary:

Mortuary: Where dead bodies are stored until burial
Made nothing of ...: Could not understand
Horn: Made from the horn of an animal
Clasp knife: A knife where the blade folds into the handle
Deed: Something which is done
Save: Here it means 'except'
Simian: Ape-like
Projection: Something sticking out
Muzzle: The nose and mouth of an animal

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