Sherlock Holmes Investigates

"We have not discovered who he was," said Lestrade. "You shall see the body at the mortuary, but we have not found out anything about it yet. He is a tall man, sunburned, very strong, not more than thirty years old. He is has cheap clothes, and yet he does not appear to be a labourer. A clasp knife was lying beside him in a pool of blood. I do not know whether it was the weapon which killed the man, or whether it belonged to him. There was no name on the man's clothing, and nothing in his pockets except an apple, some string, a shilling map of London, and a photograph. Here it is."

The picture was a snapshot from a small camera. It showed an alert, rather ape-like man, who had thick eyebrows. The bottom part of his face stuck out, like the muzzle of an animal.

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

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

Vocabulary:

Mortuary: Where dead bodies are stored until burial
Labourer: Someone who works with his hands
Clasp knife: A knife where the blade folds into the handle
Shilling: On old Beritish coin
Snapshot: A photograph taken quickly
Alert: Awake and ready
Muzzle: The nose and mouth of an animal