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DarqueDante
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test2

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"A client, then?"
"If so, it is a serious case. Nothing less would bring a man out on
such a day and at such an hour. But I take it that it is more likely
to be some crony of the landlady's."
Sherlock Holmes was wrong in his conjecture, however, for there came
a step in the passage and a tapping at the door. He stretched out his
long arm to turn the lamp away from himself and towards the vacant
chair upon which a newcomer must sit.
"Come in!" said he.
The man who entered was young, some two-and-twenty at the outside,
well-groomed and trimly clad, with something of refinement and
delicacy in his bearing. The streaming umbrella which he held in his
hand, and his long shining waterproof told of the fierce weather
through which he had come. He looked about him anxiously in the glare
of the lamp, and I could see that his face was pale and his eyes
heavy, like those of a man who is weighed down with some great
anxiety.
"I owe you an apology," he said, raising his golden pince-nez to his
eyes. "I trust that I am not intruding. I fear that I have brought
some traces of the storm and rain into your snug chamber."
"Give me your coat and umbrella," said Holmes. "They may rest here on
the hook and will be dry presently. You have come up from the
south-west, I see."
"Yes, from Horsham."
"That clay and chalk mixture which I see upon your toe caps is quite
distinctive."
"I have come for advice."
"That is easily got."
"And help."
"That is not always so easy."
"I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes. I heard from Major Prendergast how
you saved him in the Tankerville Club scandal."
"Ah, of course. He was wrongfully accused of cheating at cards."
"He said that you could solve anything."
"He said too much."
"That you are never beaten."
"I have been beaten four times--three times by men, and once by a
woman."
"But what is that compared with the number of your successes?"
"It is true that I have been generally successful."
"Then you may be so with me."
"I beg that you will draw your chair up to the fire and favour me
with some details as to your case."
"It is no ordinary one."
"None of those which come to me are. I am the last court of appeal."
"And yet I question, sir, whether, in all your experience, you have
ever listened to a more mysterious and inexplicable chain of events
than those which have happened in my own family."
"You fill me with interest," said Holmes. "Pray give us the essential
facts from the commencement, and I can afterwards question you as to
those details which seem to me to be most important."
The young man pulled his chair up and pushed his wet feet out towards
the blaze.
"My name," said he, "is John Openshaw, but my own affairs have, as
far as I can understand, little to do with this awful business. It is
a hereditary matter; so in order to give you an idea of the facts, I
must go back to the commencement of the affair.
"You must know that my grandfather had two sons--my uncle Elias and
my father Joseph. My father had a small factory at Coventry, which he
enlarged at the time of the invention of bicycling. He was a patentee
of the Openshaw unbreakable tire, and his business met with such
success that he was able to sell it and to retire upon a handsome
competence.
"My uncle Elias emigrated to America when he was a young man and
became a planter in Florida, where he was reported to have done very
well. At the time of the war he fought in Jackson's army, and
afterwards under Hood, where he rose to be a colonel. When Lee laid
down his arms my uncle returned to his plantation, where he remained
for three or four years. About 1869 or 1870 he came back to Europe