Prologue

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

-William Blake

A/N: Elecktrum sent a plot bunny hopping my way, and I think I shall be doing it as my next fic.

Disclaimer: If I owned them, would I be writing fanfiction? Like duh.

I have endeavored, throughout these scattered memoirs of the cases I shared with the world's most foremost consulting detective, to put before the public only those problems which either gave my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, a field for his special powers or ones whose bizarre and outré features more than made up for the simplicity of their solutions.

It has not been a practice of mine to lay before readers cases which touched either Holmes or myself in a personal nature, the events of said cases usually being too private for public consumption.

However, I feel that I must, for my own sake only if this account never sees the light of publication, put down on paper the events which occurred in the spring of 1899, so that I may long remember their poignancy after the emotion of said events has worn off.

I shall now devote my energies to recalling accurately the sordid drama that was forced upon Holmes and myself in early May of that year.

Just a teaser. More to follow, naturally.