“He took the lady’s part rather than yours?”

“I should say!”

“What of your neighbours? Could you not have asked them to vouch for you?”

Claydon shook his head, a mournful expression upon his features. “I do not know any of them yet,” he returned. “Since we moved to Kendal Terrace I have been very busy and preoccupied, so that I have been unable to pay any social calls. My wife has met one or two of the neighbours, but I have not. She says they are charming, which is as one would expect, for it is a very pleasant, somewhat select neighbourhood.”

Our visitor broke off abruptly and sprang to his feet again, a wild expression on his face. “Why am I spouting this rubbish?” he cried. “Select neighbourhood, charming neighbours – what do these things matter when my house has been stolen and my wife has disappeared? Where is my Lucy? What has become of her?”

Again he broke off, a strange smile spread across his features, and he began to laugh in a harsh unpleasant way, which made my hair stand on end. All my medical instincts rebelled at that terrible sound.

“Stop it!” I cried, rising to my feet. “Get a grip on yourself, man!”

“Here’s an odd thing,” he continued, ignoring my words as if he were quite unaware of my presence and grinning from ear to ear as he spoke: “I spend some part of every working day considering the likelihood of events which people wish to insure themselves against, and here I am, a victim of an occurrence that lies quite beyond all calculation! What premium could I possibly recommend?”

His eyes wild and rolling, our visitor threw back his head and let forth a fresh gale of uncontrolled and cacophonous laughter. I stepped forward and struck him hard across the face with the flat of my hand, and in an instant the laughter ceased. He put his hand up to his cheek and eyed me with an expression of curiosity.

“Here,” said Holmes, dashing brandy and water into a tumbler and handing it to me. “Give him this! If he doesn’t recover himself quickly, we may lose him altogether!”

I pressed the tumbler into our visitor’s hand, but it was only after considerable effort that I at length persuaded him to take a sip. Presently, however, when he had emptied the glass, he appeared to recover control over himself. He passed his hand across his face, as if in an effort to clear his head, and resumed his seat once more.

“I beg your pardon, gentlemen,” said he after a moment, looking from one to the other of us. “You must forgive me if I have spoken a little wildly; but this business has quite unhinged my brain. It may be,” he continued, running his hand through his hair, “that you will consider me a deranged fool and will decline to assist me, but if so I beg that you will reconsider. What I have told you is the literal truth.”

“My dear Mr Claydon,” interrupted Holmes in a firm but soothing voice. “It is evident that you have had a most disturbing experience, one that is quite beyond the experience of most men. How impudent it would be, therefore, for anyone more fortunate in his experiences to presume to judge you. I, for one, should certainly not dream of doing so. As to begging, sir, it is quite unnecessary. I sit here, waiting only for your statement of the case in order to take it up. And once having taken it up, I promise you that I shall not put it down again until it is resolved. If, furthermore, we are unable to resolve the matter this evening, you need not fear that you will lack shelter and somewhere to rest your head tonight: you may consider the couch over there to be entirely at your disposal!”

“Oh, thank you, sir!” cried Claydon, clasping his hands together in joy. “You perceive the fears within my soul before I have even voiced them.”

“Very well,” said Holmes with a chuckle. “Let us waste no more time, then. The sooner you begin your account, the sooner we can begin to help you. Have you ever before been the victim of strange or unexplained events?”

“Never.”

“Pray, explain to us briefly, then, how and when you came to reside in Kendal Terrace, and then describe to us the events of this evening.”

“Certainly. My wife and I, who are both from Northampton, have lived in the house only six weeks. Five years ago, I secured a position in the Northampton branch office of the Commercial Fire and Accident Assurance Company, for whom I have worked ever since. Twelve weeks ago I was offered the opportunity of advancing myself in the company by moving to London and taking up a more senior post. Accordingly, I arrived here ten weeks ago to begin my duties. For two weeks I lodged with a family at Mildmay Park, then my wife joined me and we moved to a small hotel just north of St Paul’s. There we stayed for a further two weeks while we looked for a house to rent. Having inspected several properties, we at length settled on Fourteen, Kendal Terrace as the most satisfactory, and moved in there six weeks ago tomorrow. It is very conveniently situated, only a short distance from Clapham Junction, from where trains run directly to London Bridge.

“Since that time, my new responsibilities at work have kept me very busy, and I have frequently been late getting home in the evening. This has meant, as I remarked, that I have not yet had the opportunity of making the acquaintance of our new neighbours.

“On Monday, Mr Stutchbury, who is my superior, informed me that it would be necessary for someone from the London office to travel to our northern office in Manchester at the end of the week, in order to apprise the manager there of certain decisions which have recently been made. He asked me if I would like to perform this duty and, of course, I was thrilled and honoured to be entrusted with such a task, and at once agreed. It was arranged that I should leave work a little earlier today, and take the afternoon train from Euston to Manchester, where I would be met by Mr Glossop, who is the manager of our northern office. All week I have been looking forward to it. Imagine my dismay, then, when at three o’clock this afternoon a telegram was received, informing us that Mr Glossop and half his staff had gone down with measles, and that he would not, after all, be able to meet me. There was nothing for it but to cancel my journey to the north. I therefore left work at the usual time and, feeling somewhat disappointed, caught the usual train home.”

“One moment,” interrupted Holmes. “Had you notified your wife that you would, after all, be returning home this evening?”

Claydon shook his head. “There did not seem much point in sending a message to say that I was coming when I should shortly be arriving home in person. I realized, of course, that my wife would be surprised to see me, but the surprise would at least, I hoped, be a pleasant one. On the train home I fell into conversation with a man called Biggins, whose acquaintance I have made over the last six weeks as he also travels between Clapham and London Bridge every day. He was telling me what had befallen a friend of his who kept pullets in his back garden, and as he had not finished the story when we alighted, he invited me to join him at the local hostelry to hear the end of his account. It is not the sort of thing I should normally have done, but I had been feeling somewhat down in the dumps since the cancellation of my trip to Manchester, and, besides, his story was an interesting one – somewhat far-fetched, but fascinating, nonetheless – so I agreed. You will see the relevance of this in a moment.

“My acquaintance took me to a public house not far from Clapham Junction. We were standing near the bar and he had just handed me a glass of beer, when a large man to the side of me had some kind of spasm and fell heavily into me. In his efforts to maintain his balance, he flung out his arm, which knocked the glass from my hand, and spilled the contents all over my clothes. Not only that, but the back of his hand struck me hard on the nose, making my eyes water, and his fingernail scratched my cheek. Still, he was in a worse state than myself, I thought, for he had fallen to the floor in a heap, so I bent down to help him to his feet. Unfortunately, as I did so he abruptly raised his arm, and his elbow caught me a very painful blow in the eye. I stepped back sharply, pressing my hand to my eye, which felt as if it had been dislodged from its socket, and my hat fell off my head. The man on the floor was still trying to rise to his feet, so I stepped back again to get out of his way, and as I did so, I trod on my hat and squashed it flat. At that moment, my nose began to bleed copiously.