A Study in Scarlet, Chapter 4 summary

What happens

1. After sending a telegram, Holmes explains how tracks, writing, and cigar ash support his deductions about the two men.
2. Holmes calls the German writing a deliberate distraction and describes one man's increasingly excited movements inside the house.
3. At Audley Court, John Rance describes finding a light in the empty house and discovering the body.
4. Holmes reconstructs Rance's movements, then presses him about a seemingly drunken stranger outside the gate.
5. Rance describes a tall, red-faced man in a brown overcoat whom the police leave unattended.
6. Holmes says the stranger returns for the ring and proposes using it as bait.

In this chapter

What to notice

Holmes supplies a motive for the stranger's return. The ring becomes a possible means of drawing the suspect into reach.

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