It was close upon four before the door opened, and a drunken-looking groom, ill-kempt and side-whiskered, with an inflamed face and disreputable clothes, walked into the room.  Accustomed as I was to my friend’s amazing powers in the use of disguises, I had to look three times before I was certain that it was indeed he.  With a nod he vanished into the bedroom, whence he emerged in five minutes tweed-suited and respectable, as of old.  Putting his hands into his pockets, he stretched out his legs in front of the fire and laughed heartily for some minutes.

“Well, really!” he cried, and then he choked and laughed again until he was obliged to lie back, limp and helpless, in the chair.

“What is it?”

“It’s quite too funny.  I am sure you could never guess how I employed my morning, or what I ended by doing.”

“I can’t imagine.  I suppose that you have been watching the habits, and perhaps the house, of Miss Irene Adler.”

“Quite so; but the sequel was rather unusual.  I will tell you, however.  I left the house a little after eight o’clock this morning in the character of a groom out of work.  There is a wonderful sympathy and freemasonry among horsey men.  Be one of them, and you will know all that there is to know.  I soon found Briony Lodge.  It is a bijou villa, with a garden at the back, but built out in front right up to the road, two stories.  Chubb lock to the door.  Large sitting-room on the right side, well furnished, with long windows almost to the floor, and those preposterous English window fasteners which a child could open.  Behind there was nothing remarkable, save that the passage window could be reached from the top of the coach-house.  I walked round it and examined it closely from every point of view, but without noting anything else of interest.

“I then lounged down the street and found, as I expected, that there was a mews in a lane which runs down by one wall of the garden.  I lent the ostlers a hand in rubbing down their horses, and received in exchange twopence, a glass of half and half, two fills of shag tobacco, and as much information as I could desire about Miss Adler, to say nothing of half a dozen other people in the neighbourhood in whom I was not in the least interested, but whose biographies I was compelled to listen to.”

“And what of Irene Adler?” I asked.

“Oh, she has turned all the men’s heads down in that part.  She is the daintiest thing under a bonnet on this planet.  So say the Serpentine-mews, to a man.  She lives quietly, sings at concerts, drives out at five every day, and returns at seven sharp for dinner.  Seldom goes out at other times, except when she sings.  Has only one male visitor, but a good deal of him.  He is dark, handsome, and dashing, never calls less than once a day, and often twice.  He is a Mr. Godfrey Norton, of the Inner Temple.  See the advantages of a cabman as a confidant.  They had driven him home a dozen times from Serpentine-mews, and knew all about him.  When I had listened to all they had to tell, I began to walk up and down near Briony Lodge once more, and to think over my plan of campaign.