The Naval Treaty

The July which immediately succeeded my marriage was
made memorable by three cases of interest, in which I
had the privilege of being associated with Sherlock
Holmes and of studying his methods. I find them
recorded in my notes under the headings of "The
Adventure of the Second Stain," "The Adventure of the
Naval Treaty," and "The Adventure of the Tired
Captain." The first of these, however, deals with
interest of such importance and implicates so many of
the first families in the kingdom that for many years
it will be impossible to make it public. No case,
however, in which Holmes was engaged has ever
illustrated the value of his analytical methods so
clearly or has impressed those who were associated
with him so deeply. I still retain an almost verbatim
report of the interview in which he demonstrated the
true facts of the case to Monsieur Dubugue of the
Paris police, and Fritz von Waldbaum, the well-known
specialist of Dantzig, both of whom had wasted their
energies upon what proved to be side-issues. The new
century will have come, however, before the story can
be safely told. Meanwhile I pass on to the second on
my list, which promised also at one time to be of
national importance, and was marked by several
incidents which give it a quite unique character.

During my school-days I had been intimately associated
with a lad named Percy Phelps, who was of much the
same age as myself, though he was two classes ahead of
me. He was a very brilliant boy, and carried away
every prize which the school had to offer, finished
his exploits by winning a scholarship which sent him
on to continue his triumphant career at Cambridge. He
was, I remember, extremely well connected, and even
when we were all little boys together we knew that his
mother's brother was Lord Holdhurst, the great
conservative politician. This gaudy relationship did
him little good at school. On the contrary, it seemed
rather a piquant thing to us to chevy him about the
playground and hit him over the shins with a wicket.
But it was another thing when he came out into the
world. I heard vaguely that his abilities and the
influences which he commanded had won him a good
position at the Foreign Office, and then he passed
completely out of my mind until the following letter
recalled his existence:

Briarbrae, Woking.
My dear Watson,--I have no doubt that you can remember
"Tadpole" Phelps, who was in the fifth form when you
were in the third. It is possible even that you may
have heard that through my uncle's influence I
obtained a good appointment at the Foreign Office, and
that I was in a situation of trust and honor until a
horrible misfortune came suddenly to blast my