This is an annotated version of the book1.contains an updated biography of the author at the end of the book for a better understanding of the text.2.This book has been checked and corrected for spelling errorsIt was in the spring of the year 1894 that all London was interested, and the fashionable world dismayed, by the murder of the HonourableRonald Adair under most unusual and inexplicable circumstances. Thepublic has already learned those particulars of the crime which came outin the police investigation, but a good deal was suppressed upon thatoccasion, since the case for the prosecution was so overwhelminglystrong that it was not necessary to bring forward all the facts. Onlynow, at the end of nearly ten years, am I allowed to supply thosemissing links which make up the whole of that remarkable chain. Thecrime was of interest in itself, but that interest was as nothing tome compared to the inconceivable sequel, which afforded me the greatestshock and surprise of any event in my adventurous life. Even now, after this long interval, I find myself thrilling as I think of it, andfeeling once more that sudden flood of joy, amazement, and incredulitywhich utterly submerged my mind. Let me say to that public, which hasshown some interest in those glimpses which I have occasionally giventhem of the thoughts and actions of a very remarkable man, that theyare not to blame me if I have not shared my knowledge with them, for Ishould have considered it my first duty to do so, had I not been barredby a positive prohibition from his own lips, which was only withdrawnupon the third of last month.It can be imagined that my close intimacy with Sherlock Holmes hadinterested me deeply in crime, and that after his disappearance I neverfailed to read with care the various problems which came before thepublic. And I even attempted, more than once, for my own privatesatisfaction, to employ his methods in their solution, though withindifferent success. There was none, however, which appealed to me likethis tragedy of Ronald Adair. As I read the evidence at the inquest, which led up to a verdict of willful murder against some person orpersons unknown, I realized more clearly than I had ever done the losswhich the community had sustained by the death of Sherlock Holmes. Therewere points about this strange business which would, I was sure, havespecially appealed to him, and the efforts of the police would have beensupplemented, or more probably anticipated, by the trained observationand the alert mind of the first criminal agent in Europe. All day, asI drove upon my round, I turned over the case in my mind and found noexplanation which appeared to me to be adequate. At the risk of tellinga twice-told tale, I will recapitulate the facts as they were known tothe public at the conclusion of the inquest.The Honourable Ronald Adair was the second son of the Earl of Maynooth, at that time governor of one of the Australian colonies. Adair's motherhad returned from Australia to undergo the operation for cataract, andshe, her son Ronald, and her daughter Hilda were living together at427 Park Lane. The youth moved in the best society--had, so far as wasknown, no enemies and no particular vices. He had been engaged to MissEdith Woodley, of Carstairs, but the engagement had been broken off bymutual consent some months before, and there was no sign that it hadleft any very profound feeling behind it. For the rest {sic} the man'slife moved in a narrow and conventional circle, for his habits werequiet and his nature unemotional. Yet it was upon this easy-going youngaristocrat that death came, in most strange and unexpected form, betweenthe hours of ten and eleven-twenty on the night of March 30, 1