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resounded with the clanging. 

A few moments later he was in our room, still puffing, still gesticulating, but 
with so fixed a look of grief and despair in his eyes that our smiles were turned in 
an instant to horror and pity. For a while he could not get his words out, but swayed 
his body and plucked at his hair like one who has been driven to the extreme limits 
of his reason. Then, suddenly springing to his feet, he beat his head against the 
wall with such force that we both rushed upon him and tore him away to the centre 
of the room. Sherlock Holmes pushed him down into the easy-chair and, sitting 
beside him, patted his hand and chatted with him in the easy, soothing tones which 
he knew so well how to employ. 

"You have come to me to tell your story, have you not?" said he. "You are 
fatigued with your haste. Pray wait until you have recovered yourself, and then 
I shall be most happy to look into any little problem which you may submit to me." 

The man sat for a minute or more with a heaving chest, fighting against his 
emotion. Then he passed his handkerchief over his brow, set his lips tight, and 
turned his face towards us. 

"No doubt you think me mad?" said he. 

"I see that you have had some great trouble," responded Holmes. 

"God knows I have! — a trouble which is enough to unseat my reason, so sudden 
and so terrible is it. Public disgrace I might have faced, although I am a man whose 
character has never yet borne a stain. Private affliction also is the lot of every man; 
but the two coming together, and in so frightful a form, have been enough to shake 
my very soul. Besides, it is not I alone. The very noblest in the land may suffer 
unless some way be found out of this horrible affair." 

"Pray compose yourself, sir," said Holmes, "and let me have a clear account of 
who you are and what it is that has befallen you." 

"My name," answered our visitor, "is probably familiar to your ears. I am 
Alexander Holder, of the banking firm of Holder & Stevenson, of Threadneedle 
Street." 

The name was indeed well known to us as belonging to the senior partner in 
the second largest private banking concern in the City of London. What could 
have happened, then, to bring one of the foremost citizens of London to this most 
pitiable pass? We waited, all curiosity, until with another effort he braced himself 
to tell his story. 

"I feel that time is of value," said he; "that is why I hastened here when the 
police inspector suggested that I should secure your co-operation. I came to Baker 
Street by the Underground and hurried from there on foot, for the cabs go slowly 
through this snow. That is why I was so out of breath, for I am a man who takes 
very little exercise. I feel better now, and I will put the facts before you as shortly 
and yet as clearly as I can. 

"It is, of course, well known to you that in a successful banking business as 
much depends upon our being able to find remunerative investments for our funds 
as upon our increasing our connection and the number of our depositors. One of 
our most lucrative means of laying out money is in the shape of loans, where the 



ADVENTURE XI. THE ADVENTURE OF THE BERYL CORONET