Mr Sherlock Holmes was seated at the breakfast table when a visitor's walking stick, left behind the night before, drew his attention. It was a fine, thick piece of wood with a silver band, and it bore the words: To James Mortimer, from his friends at Charing Cross Hospital. From the marks on the stick Holmes told me that its owner was a young country doctor who owned a curly-haired spaniel. At that moment the doctor himself came up the stairs with his dog at his heels. He was a tall, thin man with a long nose and gold glasses, and he had come to ask for help. I have in my pocket a manuscript, he said, and it concerns a family curse. Holmes lit his pipe and leaned back in his chair.