“It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write down these last words, in which I will pay tribute for the last time to the special gifts that distinguished my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes. In a haphazard and, as I deeply feel, completely inadequate way, I have tried to give some idea of the extraordinary events that I happened to encounter in his company, from the absolute chance that brought us together during the period of the “Study in Scarlet”, right up to his intervention in “The Case of the Naval Treaty”—an intervention that indisputably prevented serious international complications...”