All The Adventure of the Golden-Pince Nez

The Golden-Pince Nez

The Adventure of The Golden Pince Nez Watson tells us occurred in November 1894. It is one of 13 Sherlock Holmes short stories in The Return of Sherlock Holmes. It was first published in The Strand Magazine in 1904. Watson and Holmes travel to Yoxley Old Place near Chatham in Kent to assist Inspector Gregson who is baffled by the apparently motiveless murder of Willoughby Smith private secretary to Professor Coram who is engaged in producing an academic treatise on Coptic monasteries in Egypt and Syria. The Secretary was murdered in the professor’s study, his last words being ‘The professor – It was she’. The only females in the household were two servants who were away from the study at the time. Holmes and Watson find out that the origins of the crime lie in the Nihilist movement in Russia but another death will occur before the case is closed.