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eyes sparkled with interest. “In your letter you allude to murder,” he said.
    “Murder it is, Mr. Holmes. Brutal murder of the boldest kind.”
    “And the murderer? You believe it to be Trout Shue?”
    “I know it to be him!”
    “How is it that you are so certain?”
    “My daughter told me.” She said it without the slightest pause.
    “Your…dead daughter?”
    “Yes, Mr. Holmes. For several nights she has come to me in dreams and told me that she was murdered by Trout Shue. She is caught between worlds, trapped and bound here to this world because of the evil that was done to her. Until justice is served upon her killer my daughter will wander the earth as a ghost. That, gentlemen, is why I implore you to help me with this matter.”
    Holmes sat still and studied Mrs. Heaster’s face, looking—as indeed I looked—for the spark of madness, or the dodgy eye-shift of guile—and he, like I, saw none. She was composed, clear and compelling, which neither of us had expected considering the wild nature of her telegram. Holmes sat back and steepled his fingers. The long seconds of his silent deliberation were counted out by an ornately carved grandfather clock and it was not until an entire legion of seconds lay spent upon the floor that he spoke.
    “I will help you,” he said.
    Mrs. Heaster closed her eyes and bowed her head. After a moment her shoulders began to tremble with silent tears.
     
     
    -4-
     
     
    “Surely you don’t believe her, Holmes,” I said as we cantered along a byroad on a pair of horses the good lady had lent us. Holmes, astride a chestnut gelding, did not answer me as we made our way through sun-dappled lanes.
    It was only after we had reached our Lewisburg inn and handed the horses off to a stable lad that Holmes stopped and looked first up at the darkening late afternoon blue of the American sky and then at me.
    “Do you not?” he replied as if I had just asked my question this minute instead of an hour past.
    I opened my mouth to reply, but Holmes would say no more.
     
     
    -5-
     
     
    The very next morning found us in the telegraph office where Holmes dictated a dozen telegrams and left me to pay the operator. We then went to municipal offices where Holmes demanded to speak to the county prosecutor, one Mr. John A. Preston. Upon presenting his credentials Mr. Preston first raised bushy eyebrows in surprise and then shot to his feet.
    “Dear me!” he said.
    Holmes gave him a rueful smile. “I perceive that I am not entirely unknown even this far from London.”
    “Unknown! Good heavens, Mr. Holmes, but there is not a lawman in these United States who has not heard of the great Consulting Detective. Why, not eight months ago I attended a lecture in Norfolk on modern police procedure in which the lecturer thrice quoted from your monographs. I believe it’s fair to say that the future of police and legal investigation will owe you a debt, sir.”
    Preston’s words penetrated even Holmes’ unusually unflappable cool and for a moment he was at a loss for words. “Why thank you, sir. If only Scotland Yard were as progressive in their thinking.”
    “Give them time, Mr. Holmes, give them time. A prophet is never accepted in his own country.” Preston laughed at his own witticism and waved us to chairs. “What can I do for the great Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”
    “I will get right to it, then,” said Holmes, and he told Preston everything Mrs. Heaster had told us, even to the point of handing him her letter for examination. Preston chewed the fringe of his walrus mustache as he handed the letter back.
    “Mrs. Heaster has already been to see me,” he admitted.
    “And have you done nothing?”
    Preston cleared his throat. “To be honest, Mr. Holmes, superstition abounds in these parts. Though we are fairly modern here in Lewisburg, much of West Virginia is still wild and a good many of my fellow citizens are deeply superstitious. Everyone has a tale of a ghost or goblin, and