Or “The Adventure of the Reigate Squire.” Or (in the U.S.) “The Reigate Puzzle.” Apparently American audiences might not have been familiar with the concept of a squire, or resented its anti-democratic bias. But “puzzle” isn’t bad because this is a classic puzzle mystery.

Holmes is the sort of detective who is a bloodhound for material facts. He is observant not so much of behaviour as of clothes and the marks on them, or things seen while crawling around on the ground with a magnifying glass. As readers we aren’t always privy to these clues, but we’re likely to be ahead of Holmes when it comes to identifying the villain here because he (the villain) is such an obvious heel. One wonders if Holmes even notices things like “a rather malicious smile” though, absorbed as he is by footprints, powder burns, and the handwriting on a torn piece of paper. Motive rarely enters into the discussion in the Holmes oeuvre, as it’s usually just pecuniary gain. And so character doesn’t go any deeper than that. The Holmes mysteries are primarily grounded in the presentation and examination of things. Notes. Locks of hair. Balls of string. Traces of tobacco.

The main clue here, and one that is freely shared, takes the form of a torn piece of paper with a bit of handwriting on it. A facsimile of this is presented, and I suppose some readers may have been struck by the spacing of the words and so come to draw the same inferences as Holmes does. It also may be true that a family resemblance can be traced through handwriting. But the reproduction of the letter wouldn’t allow me to draw those kind of conclusions. I couldn’t even make out the Greek e’s. And the idea that “one can place a man in his true decade” of age based on his writing is a stretch. My own writing has changed, for the worse, as I’ve gotten older, but it hasn’t broken down by decades. And my handwriting can vary quite a bit even now, usually based on how big a rush I’m in.

Watson is particularly obtuse to Holmes’s game, but that doesn’t matter. A couple of pratfalls is all Holmes needs to gather the required evidence, and these have been prepared for in the intro, where we learn that he’s recovering from a nervous breakdown after his previous case. Our Holmes is a highly-strung character, or bipolar to give a modern diagnosis. Unfortunately for the squires, a visit to the country is just what the doctor ordered.

Holmes index