The Adventure of the Second Stain
| "The Adventure of the Second Stain" | |
|---|---|
| Author | Arthur Conan Doyle |
| Series | The Return of Sherlock Holmes |
| Publication date | 1904 |
"The Adventure of the Second Stain", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 13 stories in the cycle collected as The Return of Sherlock Holmes and the only unrecorded case mentioned passively by Watson to be written. Doyle ranked "The Adventure of the Second Stain" eighth in his list of his twelve favorite Holmes stories.
Lord Bellinger, the Prime Minister, and the Right Honourable Trelawney Hope, the Secretary of State for European Affairs, come to Holmes in the matter of a document stolen from Hope's dispatch box, which he kept at home in Whitehall Terrace when not at work. If divulged, this document could bring about very dire consequences for all Europe, even war. They are loath to tell Holmes at first the exact nature of the document's contents, but when Holmes declines to take on their case, they tell him that it was a rather injudicious letter from a foreign potentate. It disappeared from the dispatch box one evening when Hope's wife was out at the theatre for four hours. No-one in the house knew about the document, not even the Secretary's wife. None of the servants could have guessed what was in the box.
Holmes decides to begin with some spies known to him, and is then astonished to hear from Dr. Watson that one of those that he names, called Eduardo Lucas, has been murdered. Before Holmes has a chance to act, Lady Hilda Trelawney Hope, the European Secretary's wife, arrives unexpectedly at 221B Baker Street. She asks Holmes insistently about the stolen document's contents, but Holmes only reveals to her that there would be very unfortunate consequences if the document were not found. Lady Hilda also begs Holmes to tell her husband nothing of her visit.
Holmes's spy hunt does not go well. Four days after the murder, French police arrest the probable culprit of it, a woman whom Lucas has married in Paris, under the alias of "Henri Fournaye". She was seen in London near Eduardo Lucas' house the night of the crime, but she is now useless as a witness because she has gone insane.
Inspector Lestrade calls Holmes to the murder scene to examine something odd. Lucas bled over a drugget, and the blood soaked through it, but curiously, there is no bloodstain on the floor under the drugget. However, there is one under the opposite edge of the carpet. It can only mean that the constable guarding the crime scene has been foolish enough to let someone in, and leave them alone while they moved things in the room, including the carpet. Holmes tells Lestrade to take the constable to a back room and obtain a confession, which he does, vigorously.
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