"The Six Napoleons" by Arthur Conan Doyle (adapted)

Part Two

Next morning I was dressing when Holmes came into my room. 'Lestrade wants to see us immediately,' he said. 'He's at a house in Kensington.'

I quickly finished dressing. We had a cup of coffee, then we went to Kensington.

The house was in a quiet street, but it was not far from the busy centre of London. That morning there was a large crowd of people standing outside.

Lestrade was waiting for us. He was looking very serious. I noticed that there was a lot of blood outside the front door of the house.

Lestrade told us to come inside. There we met Horace Harker, the man who lived there. He worked for a newspaper, and today he had a good story. But he could not write about it; he was too frightened.

'Please tell us what you know, Mr Harker,' said Lestrade.

'I was woken by a loud cry at about three o'clock this morning,' he said. 'I was very frightened, but I went downstairs. There was nobody in the room, but the window was open and my bust of Napoleon was not there. So I opened the front door to call a policeman. I found a dead man lying there. He was covered in blood – I felt very sick.'

'Who is the dead man?' asked Holmes.

'We don't know,' Lestrade answered. 'He had a cheap street map of London and a photograph of a very ugly man in his pockets. There was a small knife near him. But I don't know if he was killed with that knife.'

'What about the bust of Napoleon?' asked Holmes.

'We found it quite near here, in the garden of an empty house,' said Lestrade. 'It was broken, like the others.'

Lestrade took us to look at the broken bust. Mr Harker stayed at home. He was beginning to feel better and he wanted to write the story for his newspaper.

*     *     *

We soon arrived at the empty house. The pieces of the bust were lying in the grass by the garden wall. Holmes picked up some pieces and looked at them carefully.

'What do you think?' said Lestrade.

Holmes looked at him. 'There's a lot more work for us to do,' he said. 'But there are some interesting questions here that we must think about. For example, why did a man kill someone for a cheap bust like this? And if he only wanted to break the bust, why didn't he break it at Mr Harker's house? Why did he take it away with him?'

'Maybe he carried it away because he didn't want Mr Harker to hear him,' said Lestrade.

'Perhaps that's the reason,' said Holmes. 'But why did he bring it to this house and not another one?'

'Because this house was empty,' replied Lestrade.

'But there's another empty house in this road, nearer to Mr Harker's house. Why didn't he break it there?'

'I really don't know,' replied Lestrade.

Holmes pointed to the street light above our heads. 'He could see what he was doing here. The garden of the other house was too dark.'

'That's true!' said the detective. Then he asked, 'But how does this help us, Mr Holmes?'

'I don't know yet,' my friend answered, 'but I'm going to think about it. What are you going to do next, Mr Lestrade?'

'I want to find out who the dead man was. I need to know why he was in Kensington last night. Then I'll know who killed him outside Mr Harker's house. Isn't that a good idea?'

'Perhaps,' replied Sherlock Holmes. ' But it isn't my way.'

'So what are you going to do?' asked Lestrade.

'I'll do things in my way and you can do things in your way,' said Sherlock Holmes. 'Then we can talk about the case together later.'

Then he added something surprising. 'If you see Mr Harker, please tell him this. I'm sure that a dangerous, Napoleon-hating madman was in his house last night.'

Lestrade was surprised. 'Do you really think that's true?'

Holmes laughed. 'Not really,' he said, 'but I think the readers of Mr Harker's newspaper will be interested. We must go now, but please visit us in our rooms in Baker Street at six o'clock this evening. Until then, can I keep the photograph that the dead man had with him? After you come to Baker Street, you must come out somewhere with me. Goodbye and good luck!'