My survey of the room was interrupted by a sharp cry from beside me.

“That picture!” cried Claydon, pointing at the picture of the church above the mantelpiece. “What is it doing there?”

“Is it not usually there?” asked Holmes, looking up from something he was examining closely on the floor.

Claydon shook his head. “It is not usually anywhere,” he returned with emphasis. “I have never seen it before in my life!”

Holmes stood up, lifted the picture carefully from the wall and turned it over. On the back was a small label on which was printed “St Paul’s”.

“It doesn’t look much like St Paul’s to me,” remarked Inspector Spencer with a snort.

“I think we may take it that it is a different St Paul’s from the one you are familiar with, Spencer,” said Holmes. “Do you recognize the church, Mr Claydon?”

“No. I have never seen it before,” returned the other. “And who on earth is this?” he cried, picking up the framed photograph of a child from the top of the piano.

“It is not anyone you know?” queried Holmes.

“Certainly not.”

“It could not perhaps be an old photograph of someone you know only as an adult – your wife, for instance?”

“No. This child looks quite different from anyone I have ever seen.” He held the photograph out for us to see. In it, a little girl, perhaps six or seven years of age, was standing against a painted backdrop of trees, holding a doll. Between the photograph and the frame was a cream-coloured mount, and across the bottom of this, in pencil, had been inscribed “Victoria, O Victoria”.

“How very curious,” remarked Holmes, but he was interrupted by another sharp cry from Claydon.

“My flowers!” cried he all at once, picking up the glass vase from the table. “Someone has removed all the roses and left only the other flowers!”

“Perhaps they were past their best and were thrown out,” suggested Inspector Spencer without much interest.

“No, no!” insisted Claydon. “I bought them only yesterday, at a stall near London Bridge station, on my way home from work. They were very fresh and bright. Someone has taken them!”

“Why should anyone take a bunch of flowers?” asked the policeman.

“Let us look in the other rooms before we begin to formulate any theories,” said Holmes, leading the way back into the hall. To the left of the sitting-room door was another, similar door, which Claydon informed us was that of the dining room. He pushed this door open, but stopped abruptly in the doorway with a strangled cry.

“What is it?” asked Holmes, and on receiving no reply, squeezed past the young man into the room. “Here’s something more serious for you to consider, Inspector,” said he as we followed him in.

In the centre of the floor, to the side of the dining table, a man in a dark suit lay on his back on the carpet. His arms were folded across his breast, and upon them lay a bunch of red roses.

“Stand back, everyone,” cried the policeman. “It’s clear there’s been some mischief here.”

“I am a doctor,” I said. “May I examine him?”

“Why certainly,” returned Spencer. “I was not aware we had a medical man with us.”

I crouched down and examined the still figure for any sign of life, but there was none.

“He has been dead a little while,” I said, as I concluded my examination, “perhaps for two or three hours, but not longer than four or five, I should say.”

“Do you see any indication of the cause of death?” asked Holmes.

I shook my head. “There are no obvious signs, and certainly no signs of violence.”

“Could he have been poisoned?” asked Spencer.

“I can’t be certain,” I replied, “but I don’t think so. A more thorough examination may, of course, turn something up. At a guess, though, I’d say he had had some kind of heart seizure.”

“Are these your missing flowers?” Holmes asked Claydon. “Then that is one little mystery solved, anyhow,” he continued, as the young man nodded his head. “Do you recognize this unfortunate fellow?”

Claydon shook his head vigorously. “I have never seen him before in my life,” said he.

“Hum! I see that the cover of his watch is open and the glass is broken,” remarked Holmes as he examined the lifeless figure. “That suggests the possibility that he fell to the floor and crushed the watch as he did so, which would tend to support your view of a sudden seizure, Watson. There are no shards of glass in the waistcoat pocket, however, so the watch was clearly out of the pocket when he fell. Either he was consulting it at the time, or it slipped out as he fell. But the watch-pocket is a tight one,” he continued, feeling in the pocket with his fingers, and trying the watch in it. “Therefore it could not have slipped out, and therefore he was consulting it at the time.”

“What does that prove?” asked Spencer in a dismissive tone.

“It helps us to build up an accurate picture of what occurred in the house earlier,” returned Holmes, who was examining the watch very closely, through his magnifying lens.

“My theory,” said the policeman in a sarcastic tone, “is that he was consulting his watch because he wanted to know what the time was. I do not see the point as being of any importance whatever,” he continued, bending down and feeling in the dead man’s pockets. “Ah! This is what I am after!” he remarked, as he withdrew a leather pocket book. “This should tell us something a little more interesting about this unfortunate gentleman than whether he looked at his watch or not before he died, such as what his name is.”

For several minutes, the policeman leafed through the contents of the pocket book, turning out tickets, receipts and the like, but evidently, as I judged from his silence, no indication of their owner’s name.

“His cufflinks bear the initials P. S.,” remarked Holmes at length, as he continued to examine the body closely.

What on earth was this man doing here, in the house of a total stranger, I wondered, as I went over and over the matter in my head, trying to make sense of it. My thoughts were interrupted, however, as another cry came from Claydon, who had been standing in stupefied silence for some time. I looked up and saw that he was staring out of the window, which overlooked a narrow back garden.

“There’s another one!” cried he. “Out in the garden!”

I stepped quickly to the window. In the middle of the garden was a scrubby patch of lawn, and in the very centre of this was the still figure of a man in a brown suit, lying upon his back, his face staring up at the sky.

“Saints preserve us!” cried Inspector Spencer. “This place is like a charnel house! It is clear that there’s more to this business than meets the eye! Are you sure you know nothing about it?” he abruptly demanded of Claydon in an aggressive tone.

“I assure you I know no more than you do, Inspector,” the young man replied, an expression of bewilderment upon his features.

“Come along!” said Holmes. “Let’s take a look at the fellow outside!”

We passed through the hall and into a small back room, where a door gave onto a short flight of steps to the garden. We had just reached the lawn, Claydon and Spencer close behind us, when, to my very great surprise, the figure on the lawn abruptly sat up and looked at us. Claydon let out a cry of alarm, and the policeman muttered some oath under his breath. The man before us, who appeared about thirty years of age, yawned, stretched and rubbed his eyes in a casual and unconcerned sort of way. A moment later, he stood up and brushed himself down.

“Hello there,” he began in a friendly tone. “Who might you gentlemen be?” Then, as if he had all at once recalled something, he glanced about him, an expression of puzzlement upon his features. “Where am I?” he asked of no one in particular. “And what am I doing here?”

“That is what we should very much like to know,” returned the policeman in a stern tone. “Who are you?”