Mr. John Douglas of Birlstone Manor House, Sussex, has been murdered. Sherlock Holmes and Watson help the local policemen to solve the murder that seems to have been committed by a man that ran away through the moat and left a yellow bicycle abandoned. The wife and the close friend seem to be hiding something. Indeed the clue to this murder is not straightforward and brings us back in time to the Vermissa Valley, USA, where Douglas was a detective. The fourth and last Sherlock Holmes novel is one with a murder quickly solved and very little Sherlock, Watson and Moriarty… but nicely entertaining.
“Should I ever marry, Watson, I should hope to inspire my wife with some feeling which would prevent her from being walked off by a housekeeper when my corpse was lying within a few yards of her.”