The Adventure of the Retired Colourman

The Adventure of the Retired Colourman (dated to 1899) is one of 12 Sherlock Holmes short stories in The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes. It was first published in The Strand Magazine in 1927. Josiah Amberley a partner in a firm that manufactured paintboxes (hence Colourman) retired at the age of 61 and purchased a house called The Haven at Lewisham. He subsequently married a woman 20 years younger than himself who has left him for his younger chess playing friend Dr Ray Ernest. Both have disappeared along with Amberley’s financial investments. Amberley asks Holmes to track them down and recover the money. As always, nothing is as it seems, and Watson will find himself involved in a case that would become ‘the eager debate of all England’.