As I have written previously, my first years sharing lodgings with Mr. Sherlock Holmes were among the most interesting of my life. Of all his cases--both public and private--which took place during this period, there remains one in particular of which I have hesitated to write until this time. Despite an ingenious resolution--and to my mind a wholeheartedly satisfactory one--contrived by my friend, the bizarre nature of this affair has made me reluctant to place it before a general readership. However, I feel the time has come to lay forth the facts concerning Mr. Oliver Pendleton-Smythe and the most unusual organisation to which he belonged.
My notebook places our first meeting with Mr. Pendleton-Smythe, if meeting it can be called, at Tuesday the 24th of April, 1887. We had just concluded a rather sensitive investigation (of which I am still not at liberty to write), and Holmes's great mind had begun to turn inexorably inward. I feared he might once more take up experimentation with opiates to satiate his need for constant mental stimulation.
So it was that I felt great relief when Mrs. Hudson announced that a man--a very insistent man who refused to give his name--was at the door to see Mr. Holmes.
"Dark overcoat, hat pulled low across his forehead, and carrying a black walking stick?" Holmes asked without looking up from his chair.
"Why, yes!" exclaimed Mrs. Hudson. "How ever did you know?"
Holmes made a deprecating gesture. "He has been standing across the street staring up at our windows for more than an hour. Of course I noticed when I went to light my pipe, and I marked him again when I stood to get a book just a moment ago."
"What else do you know about him?" I asked, lowering my copy of the Morning Post.
"Merely that he is an army colonel recently retired from service in Africa. He is a man of no small means, although without formal title or estates."
"His stance," I mused, "would surely tell you that he a military man, and the wood of his walking stick might well indicate that he has seen service in Africa, as well might his clothes. But how could you deduce his rank when he's not in uniform?"
"The same way I know his name is Colonel Oliver Pendleton-Smythe," Holmes said.
I threw down the Morning Post with a snort of disgust. "Dash it all, you know the fellow!"
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