On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth, he refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic.

She leaned back, closing her eyes and blowing out a thin wisp of smoke. “He was always a good-looking man. Your eyes are from him, the same blue, but you are slimmer of build and have your grandmother’s exotic face rather than his rounder, friendly one. He was a bit of a bounder, as men of his looks are apt to be.”I grinned at this, adding to my mental picture.“He married as often as…” she blinked, laughed, “well, as often as I did, I suppose, though my reasons were infinitely better.