--- The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez.
WHEN I look at the three massive manuscript volumes which
contain our work for the year 1894 I confess that it is very
difficult for me, out of such a wealth of material, to select
the cases which are most interesting in themselves and at the
same time most conducive to a display of those peculiar powers
for which my friend was famous. As I turn over the pages I see
my notes upon the repulsive story of the red leech and the
terrible death of Crosby the banker. Here also I find an
account of the Addleton tragedy and the singular contents
of the ancient British barrow. The famous Smith-Mortimer
succession case comes also within this period, and so does
the tracking and arrest of Huret, the Boulevard assassin --
an exploit which won for Holmes an autograph letter of thanks
from the French President and the Order of the Legion of Honour.
Each of these would furnish a narrative, but on the whole I am
of opinion that none of them unite so many singular points of
interest as the episode of Yoxley Old Place, which includes not
only the lamentable death of young Willoughby Smith, but also
those subsequent developments which threw so curious a light
upon the causes of the crime.
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