I
THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE
I.—THE SINGULAR EXPERIENCE OF MR. JOHN SCOTT ECCLES
I FIND it recorded in my notebook that it was a bleak and windy day towards the end of March in the year 1892. Holmes had received a telegram whilst we sat at our lunch, and he had scribbled a reply. He made no remark, but the matter remained in his thoughts, for he stood in front of the fire afterwards with a thoughtful face, smoking his pipe, and casting an occasional glance at the message. Suddenly he turned upon me with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
“I suppose, Watson, we must look upon you as a man of letters,” said he. “How do you define the word ‘grotesque’?”
“Strange—remarkable,” I suggested.
He shook his head at my definition.
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