The man in the dressing-gown turned to us. He had a most melancholy face. He said, "It's an extraordinary thing that all my life I have been collecting other people's news. Now that a real piece of news has happened to me I am so confused and bothered that I can't put two words together. If I had come here as a journalist, I would have interviewed myself and had a long report in every evening paper.

As it is, I am giving away an important story by telling it over and over to many different people, and I can't use it myself. However, I've heard of you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. If you can explain what is going on, I will think that pays me for my trouble in telling you the story."

Holmes sat down and listened.

"It all seems to be about that bust of Napoleon. I bought it about four months ago to go in this room. I picked it up cheap from Harding Brothers, who have a shop two doors from the High Street Station.I do a lot of my work at night, and I often write until the early morning. It was the same today. I was sitting in my den, which is a room at the back of the top of the house. It was about three o'clock in the morning. I was convinced that I heard some sounds downstairs. I listened, but they were not repeated, and I decided that they came from outside. Then suddenly, about five minutes later, there came a most horrible yell - the most terrible sound, Mr. Holmes, that ever I heard. It will be in my ears for as long as I live."