Sherlock Holmes Investigates

"Madness, anyway. And a strange kind of madness, as well. You wouldn't think there was anyone these days who hated Napoleon the First so much that he would break any image of Napoleon that he could see."

Holmes sat back in his chair. "That's nothing to do with me," he said.

"Exactly. That's what I said. But the man also commits burglary so that he can break images which don't belong to him. That means it's not a job for a doctor but a job for a policeman."

Holmes sat up again. "Burglary! This is more interesting. Tell me more about it."

Lestrade took out his official notebook and looked at the pages to remind himself of what had happened. "The first case was four days ago," he said. "It was at the shop of Morse Hudson, who sells pictures and statues in the Kennington Road. The assistant had left the front part of the shop for a moment. He heard a crash, and ran back. There were several works of art on the shop's counter and the assistant saw that a bust of Napoleon had been smashed into little pieces.

He ran out into the road. Although several people said that they had noticed a man run out of the shop, the assistant could not see anyone. There was no way to tell who had done it. It seemed to be someone causing damage just for fun - the sort of thing which happens sometimes. The local policeman was told about what had happened, but the bust was not worth more than a few shillings, and the whole thing seemed to be too childish to waste a lot of time on.