1 Reginald Musgrave

THE MUSGRAVE RITUAL.

Chapter 1 Reginald Musgrave I've noticed an odd quirk in the character of my friend, the famous detective Sherlock Holmes. For a man with such a neat and tidy mind, he tends to create an awful lot of mess. As his fellow lodger, this can be fairly exasperating. The man keeps his notes and coins in a Persian slipper. His unanswered letters are impaled by a jackknife to our wooden mantelpiece. I frequently find the results of his chemical experiments in the butter dish.

Worst of all are the documents and relics from his past cases. He never throws anything out, and they build up in stacks in every corner of the room. One winter's night in February 1888, as we sat before the fire, I finally decided to confront him about this. "You have to throw out some of this old stuff, Holmes," I said. "Very soon there won't be enough space around here for us." "You're quite right, Watson," he said. "We'll start with my earliest cases, shall we?" He

dragged a wooden box out of a corner, opened its sliding lid, and took out its contents: a crumpled piece of paper, a wooden peg with a ball of string attached, and three rusty metal discs. Looking at these objects, his face fell. "Actually, I don't think I can throw these out, old friend," he said. "They're all I have left to remind me of the adventure of the Musgrave Ritual." "I don't remember that one," I said, immediately interested. "It was one of my very earliest cases—from before your time." "Would you care to tell me about it?" "What about the big clear out?" he smiled mischievously. "That can wait," I said, settling myself more comfortably in my seat. So, Holmes told me the story... This adventure happened shortly after my arrival in London (he began). I was living in

Montague Street at the time. One morning, in October 1879, I received a visit from an old college acquaintance by the name of Reginald Musgrave. I hadn't seen him in four years, but he hadn't changed at all. He still dressed very fashionably and had the manners and bearing of an aristocrat, which wasn't surprising, for that's what he was. The Musgraves are one of the oldest families in England and they've lived on their estate at Hurlstone in western Sussex for centuries. "How are you, Musgrave?" I asked him after we'd shaken hands.

"Busy," he replied. "My father died two years ago, and since then I've had my hands full managing Hurlstone. Holmes, I remember back at university being amazed at the way you could deduce things from tiny clues. I've heard you've started using these methods to help out some of your old chums." This was true. My crime-fighting career had yet to take off at this stage, but I'd solved a couple of small cases brought to me by my fellow students. "Listen, old boy," said Musgrave, "I wonder if you can help me out. We've had some very strange goings-on at Hurlstone recently and it's got everyone baffled, including the police." "Please go on," I said eagerly, for I was keen to see if my methods could succeed in a case where others had failed.