Detective Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson are summoned to a south London house where they find a dead man whose contorted face is a twisted mask of horror. The body is unmarked by violence but on the wall a mysterious word has been written in blood.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) started to write as a doctor, whilst waiting for patients to arrive. Sherlock Holmes first appeared in A Study in Scarlet (1887). The Holmes stories soon attracted such a following that Conan Doyle felt the character overshadowed his other work. In The Final Problem (1893) Conan Doyle killed him off, but was obliged by public demand to restore the detective to life.
