In the sixth of Barrie Roberts's highly accomplished pastiches of the masterly Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes is facing only dull professional prospects in London when Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard arrives at 221b Baker Street with a most peculiar parcel. After a swift but adept examination of the contents inside an ordinary shoe box tied with tarred twine, Holmes announces that the small, leathery-looking object before him is nothing...