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 security is unimpeachable.  We have done a good deal in this direction during the last few years, and there are many noble families to whom we have advanced large sums upon the security of their pictures, libraries, or plate.