A Grand Slam full of surprises

The 2026 French open has been the craziest one in recent memory. Even before the tournament started the mens defending champion Carlos Alcaraz had withdrawn with a wrist injury not just from Roland Garros but from Wimbledon too. Then late in the first week the first shock came with Sinner losing to unseeded JM Cerundolo in the second round. The Italian was suffering from illness and lost in five sets after being two sets up and two breaks up in the third set. Novak Djokovic fans might have become very excited at this believing the way was clear for his 25th title but the 24 time major champion would be the next top mens player to exit in the third round to the young and talented Brazilian Joao Fonseca. Djokovic too was leading two sets to none but lost in what was arguably the best match of the tournament.

On the ladies side too the seeds were falling. Elena Rybakina the number two seed fell in the second round. Then in the next round we had Coco Gauff the defending champion losing to Anastasia Potapova after being up a set.

Ukranian player Marta Kostyuk has been one of the most talked about players of the clay court season having won the Madrid masters and not having lost a single match throughout the season. But having struggled in the her second round match, it was uncertain how she would play against the four time champion Iva Swaitek in the fourth round. Swaitek though has struggled with loss of form after she won Wimbledon last year. And Kostyuk was the better player in their fourth round encounter winning in straight sets. Although on form it wasn’t an upset on paper it was with Kostyuk the 15th seed beating the 3rd seeded Pole. Kostyuk followed it up by beating her compatriot Elena Svitolina in the quarterfinal. Svitolina too was in great form having won the Rome masters but her younger opponent prevailed in three sets. When fans thought they surely could not see any more upsets, the top womens seed Aryna Sabalenka lost to 25th seed Schnaider in the quarterfinal after being a set and a break up leaving the teenager Mirra Andreeva as the highest ranked player left at the semifinal stage.

On the mens side too surprises were in store as Fonseca lost to Jakub Mensik after beating another experienced player Casper Ruud. At the quarter final stage with most of the top seeds out the Canadian Felix Auger Aliasimme might have thought he had a chance to win a major but he couldn’t hold off the challenge from Italian Flavio Cobolli and lost in four sets after winning the first set which was another upset.

In the ladies semi finals the in form Kostyuk couldn’t find her best game on a windy day in Paris against Andreeva, the latter playing very well to win with the loss of just four games. The much anticipated clash turned out to be a disappointment for the neutrals. In the other semi final the Polish qualifier Maja Chwalinska beat Schneider to get through which made her the first ever qualifier to reach the Roland Garros final.In the final though she couldn’t put up much of a fight against the 8th seeded teenager Andreeva ,losing 6-3, 6-2 on another windy day in the French capital.

On the mens side, in the semis, Zverev beat the Czech player Jakub Mensik in four sets. Much was expected from Mensik after he had beaten Fonseca in a thrilling high quality match but apart from the third set, he couldn’t deal with the big hitting of Sasha. Then came the big shock when the unseeded Italian Matteo Arnaldi announced that he wasn’t healthy enough to compete in the second semi final giving his fellow Italian Cobolli a berth in the final. The mens final turned out to be an exciting five set match. Cobolli started slowly losing the first set after being broken 3 times but managed to keep holding his serve in the early stages of the second until the Zverev serve faltered and the Italian managed to serve out the set. Zverev took the third set by breaking Cobolli at 5-4 but Cobolli managed to clinch a tight fourth set in a tiebreak. Zverev seemed to struggle with cramps from the end stages of the fourth set but managed to play his best tennis in the decider while Cobolli seemed to struggle. The much greater experience of Zverev in the final stages of grand slams seemed to help him and he finally secured the prize that has always eluded him despite him getting to the final on multiple occasions. A grand slam title.

The action now will move to the grass court season and although we can certainly say that we wont see as many upsets and shocks as at the clay court slam, there will be plenty of exciting tennis.

Sherlock Holmes short stories summaries 2

The adventure of the devils foot

Dr. Watson has taken Holmes to the countryside so that he can rest and recover his strength after some hard work. However they have no such luck as they are approached by a vicar and a man who has been lodging with him Mr. Mortimer Tregennis. Mortimer had gone the previous night to meet his siblings. He had left their house at quarter past ten. That morning however, he was going on his regular walk he met a doctor who had been called urgently to Motimers’ siblings house. When they reached there, they found that his sister was dead and both of his brothers had gone insane. All his siblings occupied the same chairs that they were in the previous night when Mortimer had left and that was close to their bedtime so it is deduced that this happened a short while after Mortimer had left. There had been a dispute among the siblings over property some time back but it had been resolved and they were now on friendly terms.

Holmes visits the house where the incident happened. He finds out that although the blinds of the sitting room were open, the window was closed. A fire had been burnt in the room. When the doctor had come the first time to check Mortimer’s siblings, he had nearly fainted; that was how stuffy and nauseous the room was. Holmes doesn’t discover any footmarks outside the house though Mortimer says that he and one of his brothers saw some movement in the bushes the previous night.

Later , Holmes is visited by Dr. Leon Sterndale , a well known explorer who asks him if he has any clues the case to which Holmes replies in the negative. When he leaves, Holmes follows him. The next morning, Mortimer is found dead in his room. Holmes investigates and discovers two things. A lamp was burning in the room even though it was daytime and there was gravel on the window. It is the same gravel that he has seen around Sterndale’s house. There was some powder over the lamp which Holmes collects (Holmes is conducting this investigation independently so he doesn’t tell of his findings to anyone except Watson )

Back in their cottage, Holmes tells Watson that he believes that this powder has been responsible for all these happenings. In order to test it, they burn the powder in a lamp similar to the manner in which it had been done in Mortimer’s room.They find themselves having the same symptoms that the victims of murder and insanity had ( a look of horror on their faces and mental imbalance) .They leave the room and go outside to take some fresh air and sunlight to recover. While they are thus outside, Mr. Sterndale whom Holmes had called to the cottage arrives. Holmes accuses him of murder. Sterndale refuses the charge initially but when Holmes threatens further action, he confesses . Mortimer had killed his sister and made his brothers insane using a certain powder of African origin. Sterndale had brought this powder from Africa and it was from him that Mortimer came to know about it and its effects. Mortimer had stolen some of it and used it in the fire in the Treginnis’ sitting room that night just before leaving. This powder (called the devils foot) produces the effect of either killing the person or driving him or her crazy. So Mortimer’s sister died due to its effects while her brothers became insane. Mortimer did this as after his siblings became insane or died he would become the owner of the entire family property.

Sterndale was in love with Mortimer’s sister but couldn’t marry her as he was finding it difficult to divorce his first wife who had left her. When he came to know about the murder of this woman whom he loved, grief and anger drove him to seek revenge. He took gravel from around his house and threw it at the window to call Mortimer who let Sterndale in through the same window. Once inside, Sterndale put some of the devils foot powder over the lamp which he then ignited. Then, threatening to shoot him with a gun he forced Mortimer to stay in the room until the fumes had their effect and Mortimer perished. Sterndale believed that justice wouldn’t be done in the case so he decided to avenge his lovers death himself.

Holmes has sympathy for Sterndale and lets him go.

The adventure of the engineers thumb( a short story by Sherlock Holmes)

A patient arrives at Dr. Watsons clinic and asks for treatment of his injured hand.His thumb has been cut off . Dr. Watson treats the injury and asks this man, whose name is Hatherley, as to how he was hurt. Hatherley says that someone tried to kill him and eventually cut of his thumb but he adds that he doesn’t believe that justice will be done in the case. Dr. Watson advises him to take the case to Sherlock Holmes the famous detective, and they go together. At Holmes’ place, the client who is a hydraulic engineer by profession , narrates the following tale.

Hatherley was apprenticed to a firm for seven years. After this, he set up a consultancy business of his own but he got little work and so he was idle most of the time. Only the day before, a German man named Mr. Stark walked into his office and asked him if he could come to his place in the country to fix a hydraulic machine. He told Hatherley that they had discovered something called fullers earth (something precious) in a place in the country that they had recently purchased. They were extracting it with the help of a hydraulic machine but as the machine was having some problems, they needed an engineer to come and fix it. He was ready to pay a very big amount for a single visit( 50 Guineas) if Hatherley was ready to come that very night. Hatherley had his suspicions about the man and thought that this was dark business but he agreed to this offer because the fees was high. As agreed between the two, Hatherley reached the appointed train station(Eyford station) and found that Stark had come to receive him in a single horse carriage.

At this point, Holmes interrupted Hatherley and asks if that one horse looked fresh or worn out to which the engineer replies that it looked fresh. Hatherley then continues his story. On the journey, Hatherley couldn’t see anything outside because the windows were made of frost glass but he judged from the speed of the horse and the time it took to reach the place that they must have covered 10 or 12 miles in the carriage . On reaching the place, Hatherley was ushered into a large house with multiple floors. He was asked to wait in a room initially. There , a beautiful woman came to him and advises him to leave the place as that would save his life. Hatherley politely refused to do so as he was yet to do his job and receive his payment. He also felt that this woman could be a monomaniac.

After the lady departed, the German man returned and takes Hatherley to inspect the machine. Hatherley , after checking it, offered his suggestions. However, he started doubting whether Stark’s story of the machine being used to extract fuller earth was true. He also found some metal in the machine. When he expresses this to his client, the German who had forewarned him earlier that this visit should be kept a secret and also to avoid asking questions not related to his work, became angry. He tried to kill the engineer by crushing him in the machine itself. Hatherley though managed to escape and found the lady who had warned him. She tried to guide him to safety but Stark arrived and attacked him again. Hatherley tried to escape through the window but he was trying to jump, the other tried to murder him but only succeeded in cutting off his thumb. After getting outside the house, Hatherley ran for his life but being exhausted and wounded, he collapsed and fainted. The next morning, he found himself lying close to the station and wonders who brought him there. He catches a train back to London.

Holmes, Watson , Hatherley and an inspector now reach Eyford station. When each of the others tries to guess in which direction the Germans place might be, Holmes deduces that the place must be very close to the station because the horse looked fresh when it started on the journey back the day of Hatherleys professional visit. So it could not have travelled a long way on the way to the station ! The group also learn that a building close to the station has caught fire. When they reach this building, Hatherley confirms that this is indeed the house that he was brought to a couple of days back. Holmes surmises that when Stark tried to crush Hatherley in the machine, the walls of the machine which were made of wood might have caught fire from the lamp which Hatherley was holding at the time. The fire must have then spread. Footmarks also reveal that the injured engineer was brought to the place near the station by the woman and an Englishman who was the Germans manager and whom Hatherley had met the day before, before his machine inspection. These two might have persuaded the violent Stark to spare his life. These people were counterfeiters who were minting fake coins. Holmes and his group come to know that the gang left after the house caught fire with their counterfeit money. They were seen by a peasant that morning but manage to escape and are never caught.

Holmes later produces an old newspaper article from a year ago which tells of a missing hydraulic engineer hinting that Stark might have asked another engineer previously to advise him about his machine and ended up killing him.

The adventure of the Speckled band (short story by Sherlock Holmes)

A woman named Helen Stoner comes to Sherlock Holmes and tells him of the situation she finds herself in and asks him to guide her. She lives with her stepfather Dr. Roylott who had married Helens mother in India. Helen and her sister Julia were twins who were only two years old at the time of her mothers remarriage.According to her mothers will, she had bequeathed 1000 pounds a year to Dr. Roylott entirely while the daughters resided with him.However, when each daughter married, she was to have 250 pounds a year from the 1000 pounds that her father now got.

When Julia was about to get married, she had told Helen about the strange sound of whistling that she used to hear during the night.Helen then tells Holmes of the arrangement of their house. Dr. Roylott, Julia and Helen had bedrooms in a straight line with the the stepfathers room on one side, Julias in the middle and Helens on the other side. All the bedrooms opened out into the same corridor. That fatal night two years ago when Julia died, she had screamed and rushed out of her room. Hearing her sister, Helen too came out. Julia seemed stunned, was unable to keep her balance ,collapsed onto the floor and died in Helens arms. Her last words were ‘the speckled band’. No injury marks were found on Julias body and Helen assumed that her sister died of pure shock.

Two years later in the present time, Helen is about to get married. She has recently been asked to move to Julias room- the middle room in which the death occurred because repairs have been started on the side of Helens room .She herself hears a whistling sound herself at night. That is why she immediately came to consult detective Holmes. On further questioning, Helen reveals that her stepfather often beats her.

Holmes asks Miss Stoner if he and Dr. Watson may visit their Stoke Moran house later that very day to which she agrees. After she has left, Dr. Roylott himself barges into Holmes’ office and threatens him with consequences if he takes up the case.

When Holmes inspects the bedrooms of Miss Stoners house at Stoke Moran , he finds that there is a small ventilator(a window) high up between the bedroom of Roylott and the middle bedroom where Julia had died and where Helen now sleeps. There is also a rope hanging in the middle bedroom which is apparently an alarm for help but it is a dummy in reality. These changes were made in Julias room only a few days before her death . Wild animals – a cheetah and a baboon are also seen in the garden. Roylott had brought these from India. In Roylotts own bedroom, Holmes discovers an iron safe and a wooden chair against the bed. He also finds a saucer of milk and a dogs lash.

Holmes then tells Miss Stoner to do exactly as he says. He and Watson would take a room in an inn near the house from where Helens bedroom would be visible. At night Helen would retire early to bed making the excuse that she had a headache. Then, when Roylott retired to his bedroom for the night, she would open the window of the middle room, put a lamp there as a signal to Holmes and Watson and move to her own regular bedroom for the night.

Things go according to plan. Holmes and Watson enter the middle bedroom through the window. Then they wait until long past midnight. At 3 am they see a light from the direction of the ventilator for a moment. Watson also hears a whistle and then Holmes starts striking repeatedly at the bell pull. After he stops striking, Holmes looks up at the ventilator and a loud scream is heard. Holmes and Watson then enter Roylotts bedroom where they find him dead. It is here that they see the ‘speckled band” which Julia had mentioned just before her death. It is a swamp adder; a poisonous snake which the cruel stepfather had used to kill Julia and then tried to kill Helen as well. When Holmes injured the snake with a stick, the beating roused its temper and the snake turned upon its master , biting it to death. A

The Gloria Scott (short story by Sherlock Holmes )

Sherlock Holmes relates to Dr. Watson the tale of his college friend. This was Sherlocks first case.

Just after his education was completed, Sherlock had been invited by his friend Victor Trevor to spend time at Victors family estate. He became acquainted with Victors father too. When Victor told his father about Holmes’ talent as a detective, Mr. Trevor asks him to tell him something about himself that others don’t know. When Sherlock does indeed do so, Mr. Trevor faints. Although he later dismisses his shock as nothing to be concerned about, Holmes starts to feel that his own presence is making his host uncomfortable and prepares to leave. On the day prior to his departure however, a rough looking sailor barges into the Trevor’s place. Mr. Trevor seems to be afraid of him and gives him a job and lodgings.

Sherlock returns back to his own home but a few weeks later a letter arrives from Victor asking him to come back and help. On the way from the station to Victor’s estate, Victor describes to Holmes the events of the past few weeks. After Holmes had left, Mr. Trevor seemed incredibly afraid of this seaman whose name was Hudson. Apparently, Hudson was blackmailing Mr. Trevor and was thus taking liberties with his employer. On one occasion after Hudson had talked rudely to Mr. Trevor in the presence of Victor, Victor took the sailor by the shoulder and turned him out of the room. Mr. Trevor asks him to apologise to Hudson for this but Victor refuses. Furious, Hudson leaves the house after threatening them and Mr. Trevor dreads what may happen. A few days later, a letter arrives for Mr. Trevor from an old acquaintance. Its contents appear innocuous to Victor but Mr. Trevor was terrified by it. Holmes decodes the message which shocked Mr. Trevor . The message was ‘The game is up. Hudson has told all. Fly for your life.’ He constructed it by taking every third word of the original message. Mr. Trevor, terrified by this, wrote a long letter to Victor, explaining the situation to him but he did not reveal the location of it until his dying moments.

Victor and Sherlock find out about Mr. Trevors letter and read it. They discover that that Mr. Trevor’s real name was James Armitage. He had been caught stealing money from his employer, been convicted and sent to Australia aboard a prison ship-the Gloria Scott. His fellow prisoners, led by the formidable Jack Prendergast, organise an armed takeover of of the ship to regain their freedom. The takeover is successful but Prendergast and a few others insist on murdering the remaining crew to prevent having any witnesses against them later. Mr. Trevor (JA ) and some others are against this so they are given a small boat and some provisions to leave. In the later violence, the Gloria Scott explodes when the stock of gunpowder catches fire. JA and his group of the small boat manage to save the single survivor, Hudson, who is a member of the crew. They are all saved by a larger ship and make their way to Australia as free men. Evans (who sent that coded message to Mr. Trevor )and JA became wealthy men there and come back to England and buy estates.

It was many years later that the ungrateful Hudson came back to blackmail them but despite his threats and Mr. Trevors fears, Hudson is never of again. Victor goes to work at the Terai tea plantation and establishes a successful career. According to Holmes, Evans had murdered Hudson and then fled. The authorities believed that Hudson had murdered Evans .

The Copper Beeches (short story by Sherlock Holmes )

A young woman named Miss Violet Hunter visits Holmes and tells him about her situation and the decision she has to make. Her former employers have left the country. She worked as a maid with them and so she is looking for a new job. She has registered herself with an employment agency . When she had gone there, she found a man who made her a strange job offer. He is ready to pay her two and a half times the usual salary for such a job but he puts a few conditions to her. One of them is that she will have to cut her hair short. Though she initially refuses, she gives in when Mr. Rucastle, her prospective employer increases the salary to 120 pounds from the 100 pound offer earlier. Holmes asks her to contact him through telegram , if she needs his help.

A couple of weeks later, Holmes receives a message from Miss Hunter, asking him to meet her in Winchester (away from the place in the countryside where she is working as a governess for Mr. Rucastle and his family). She describes the family;Mr. Rucastle lives with his second wife. He has two children- one is Alice from his first wife, a young woman who is of the same age as Miss Violet and who lives in America and the other is a cruel and badly behaving boy from his second wife. The boy is Miss Violet’s charge. Once in their service, Violet found the service required was light but weird acts were required of her. She was asked to wear an electric blue dress and sit with her back turned towards an open window. Rucastle would entertain her during this sitting. She became suspicious and using a piece of a broken mirror to look behind her, observed that a young man with a beard was looking inside at them.

Further, she discovered that there is a wing inside the house which is deserted. When Violet tried to explore it, she met Mr. Rucastle who told her that he does photography there and uses it as a dark room. He also forbade Hunter from ever entering the wing and threatened to let a big dog onto her is she did. She also found a tress of hair in one of the drawers . When she compared this with the tress of her own hair that she had cut, she found that they appeared the same.

Holmes deduces that someone is being held prisoner in the forbidden wing and Miss Hunter has been brought to the Copper Beeches to impersonate that person. The prisoner is probably Alice Rucastle, Mr. Rucastles daughter from his late first wife. As the Rucastle family is expected to go out later that day, Holmes instructs Violet to lock up the other servant (a maid ) inside a room with some excuse. As the maids husband is a drunkard, taking care of him wouldn’t be difficult and then they could free Alice.Violet does as she is told. When Holmes and Watson arrive at Rucastles house, Violet leads them to the forbidden wing. However they find that Alice’s room is empty. She has been taken away through the skylight.

The Rucastles’ maid narrates Alice’s story. Rucastle tried to get her to sign in favour of Rucastle her own inheritance from Rucastles’ first wife. When he tried to force her to do so despite her initial refusal, she had an attack of brain fever which resulted in her having to get her hair cut short. Rucastle then tried to keep her fiancee Mr. Fowler away from her by hiring Hunter to impersonate Alice. However, Fowler wasn’t deceived and succeeded in helping Alice to escape from her room. They end up getting married.

When Rucastle finds that Alice has escaped, he suspects that Holmes is responsible for it and tries to get the mastiff to attack the detective. However, as the dog has been starved for too long, it ends up attacking its master and Rucastle survives only because Watson shoots the dog in time.

Sherlock Holmes stories summmaries

These are summaries of the fictional detective Sherlock Holme’s short stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. Dr. Watson is a character who is Holmes’ friend and accompanies him on his adventures.

The adventure of the Sussex Vampire by Sherlock Holmes

A man comes to Holmes and tells him that he believes that his wife is a vampire.She is a South American from Peru (married to an Englishman) .The man has a son from his late first wife .This boy is a cripple, suffering from a spine deformity.This teenager is very attached to his father but doesn’t like his step mother and infant half brother. His wife has been behaving strangely of late.She has hit her stepson but even more strange has been her behaviour towards her own newborn son. She has been caught sucking his blood. When the man saw this, he immediately took the baby away from her and she hasn’t been allowed to see her son since.The man asks Holmes to investigate. When Holmes and Watson go to the mans house, Watson first meets the wife alone in her room because Watson is a doctor and the woman is sick.On talking to the woman, Watson discovers that she desperately wants to speak to the child.

Holmes asks to see the baby and Jack, the son of Mr. Ferguson.When they are both together with Mr. Ferguson and Ferguson is looking lovingly at the newborn, Holmes observes through the reflection in the window that Jack is staring at the baby with jealousy.

It turns out that the 15 year old Jack has been attacking the baby with poisoned darts. The mother in order to save her boy, sucked out the poison from his wounds which gave the appearance that she was sucking his blood. She also hit Jack hoping to stop his actions.

Mrs Ferguson did not tell of this to her husband because she wanted the truth to come from somebody else’s lips. Watson was initially surprised when he saw Holmes was staring at the window. He believed that he was thinking of something else whereas in reality he was looking at the reflection of Mr. Ferguson, Jack and the newbor

the adventure of the Musgraves ritual by Sherlock Holmes

Holmes tells Watson a story of one of his cases brought to him by a former college friend of his by the name of Reginald Musgrave. Reginald, an aristocrat, had come to Holmes asking for help in a matter that involved a butler of his who had disappeared. A few days before his disappearance, Reginald had caught this butler sitting in the library of the house at two in the morning reading certain private papers. One of these papers was a poem called the Musgrave ritual. An old aristocratic family, the Musgraves had a ritual that the eldest male of the house memorise and recite a poem about the whereabouts of something precious. Long considered as something meaningless by the Musgraves themselves, the butler probably believed that it might reveal the location of a treasure perhaps. Angry at this, Reginald orders the butler to leave the job and the house but he asks for a weeks time so that he may leave respectfully which is given. However , a couple of days after this incident, the butler, whose name is Brunton suddenly disappears although his belongings are still in his room.Then ,one of his maids named Rachel, becomes sick and two days later also disappears . Her footmarks were found to lead to a lake from which a package has been found.

Holmes believes as Brunton did that the Mugraves ritual is not meaningless and tries to find the location hinted at in the poem with the help of Reginald.They find an underground place,(a storage room ).Under this, there is a secret location where they find Bruntons body. An empty wooden box is also found next to it along with some old coins.

Holmes deduces that removing a huge stone to get inside this place would have required two people and Brunton had probably brought Rachel (who was his former lover whom he had betrayed) along with him to try and search for this precious object. Brunton would have descended into the hole with Rachel staying above. Brunton might have handed Rachel the packet. After that Rachel had either killed Brunton for revenge by closing the hole due to his past disloyalty or Brunton had died due to an accident and Rachel fled due to fear.

Upon cleaning the contents of the packet, it is found that these are gold and precious stones which were stored there in the 17th century by an ancestor of the Musgraves. But he couldn’t pass on the information about the true contents of the package to his family .So his descendants have considered the poem as just a meaningless ritual .The gold and gems were part of the crown of the English king of the 17th century. However, during an invasion of the country , when the king was concerned about his own safety and also of his crown, he gave it to the Musgraves ancestor to keep it safe. In the end the Musgraves are allowed by the authorities to keep the precious contents.

Adventure of the Naval Treaty (by Sherlock Holmes)

Dr. Watson receives a letter from an old school acquaintance of his asking if he can get Holmes to help him. This friend whose name is Percy, has been fortunate to have connections in the government due to which he had managed to secure a top level government job. Recently a naval treaty was finalised between the governments of Great Britain and Italy.The original copy of this treaty was given to Percy with the instructions that he was to make a copy of it in secret and keep the original back safely. On the night that Percy stayed back in the office to do this work, he had left the treaty in his cabin to go and order tea. When he returned at the sound of an alarm, he found the original treaty gone. Despite an investigation, there was no headway in the case. This incident threatened to ruin Percys career and he had fallen sick due to the shock. It was only after recovering for nine weeks after this event that he had sent the aforementioned letter to Watson asking for his and Holmes’ help. Holmes starts an investigation meeting Percy’s uncle and the officer in charge of the case. He finds out that until then, there had been no attempt by the thief to contact the French or the Russians to sell the treaty.

Another incident takes place this time at Percys home. After having recovered from his illness, Percy had tried to sleep alone for the first time in weeks. That night, he sees a man covered with a shawl with a knife in hand trying to enter his room. When Percy gives the alarm, the man runs away. Holmes reaches the place and checks the room and the garden outside.He gives strict instructions to Percys fiancee, Annie not to leave Percys room (which is the sick room of the house) the entire day and when she retires to her room at night, to lock this one. At the same time, he asks Percy to come to London with him and Watson. However at the station, he asks Percy and Watson to go on while Holmes himself had some business to attend there so he would remain in Briarbrae

Watson tries to cheer Percy up in the train and back in Baker street in London but to no avail.They pass a restless night . Holmes arrives in the morning looking dejected. At the breakfast table however, Percy finds the lost treaty served to him in his plate ! He rejoices at this. Holmes explains that the previous night, he waited outside Percys house knowing that the thief would try to break into Percy’s room again .Holmes knew that the treaty had been in Percys room all this time, hidden under the floor ! The thief, who was none other than Percy’s to be brother in law Joseph Harrison, tried to recover the treaty but was confronted by Holmes who won it after a boxing bout.

Joseph was to visit Percys office the night the treaty was stolen. Finding the treaty on the table and nobody around, Joseph stole it to sell it. Joseph and his sister Annie had been staying at Percys house and the sick room was being used by Joseph as his bedroom so he had hid it there. When Percy fell ill, the room had been converted back to a sick room and Joseph had had to vacate it. For weeks, Joseph did not get any chance to recover the treaty. Holmes ,knowing this, had asked Annie to sit in the room so that Joseph wouldn’t be able to recover it in the daytime when Holmes had pretended to go away. When Percy asks if Joseph would have murdered him with the knife that night, Holmes replies that such a man cannot be expected to show mercy.

The disappearance of the lady Frances Carfax (short story by Sherlock Holmes )

Holmes tells Watson about the disappearance of a woman named Lady Frances Carfax. She is a lone, unwed, forty year old woman. Her inheritance is old Spanish jewellery to which she is so attached that she doesn’t leave it with bankers but carries it with her wherever she goes.Lady Frances is in the habit of writing letters regularly to her former governess. However the governess hasn’t received a word from the lady for the past five weeks so she consulted Holmes .

It is known that the lady Frances stayed at the Hotel National at Lausanne for several weeks.She had written two cheques recently. The first one was a large one which paid her bill in the hotel and the next one was made for fifty pounds to a hotel maid. Holmes asks Watson to investigate the matter alone as he himself is busy with other work. Watson finds out from the maid and her fiance that the Lady Frances was being bothered at the hotel by a man who was trying to woo her. It was likely because of this man that she left the hotel and also tried to throw this man off her track. Watson also discovers that after leaving the National hotel, she had gone to Baden. There she made the acquaintance of Dr. Shlessinger and his wife, who were missionaries from South America. The lady and the couple had become friends and when the doctor and his wife left for London, Lady Frances accompanied them. Before going she had given her maid 50 pounds and had dismissed her.

After Watson has finished his talk with the maid and is leaving her place, he finds a rough looking man who is the pursuer of Lady Frances seems to be entering the maids house. When Watson confronts this man, he attacks Watson physically. Watson is about to lose consciousness when he is helped by a stranger who fights off this rough man. This stranger turns out to be none other than Holmes, who then criticises the way Watson has investigated the matter.

Holmes then introduces Watson to the rough looking man who just beat up Watson. He is Mr. Green, who loves the Lady Frances and is an honest man. The lady though doesn’t like him because of his rough manners . Holmes asks Green to have patience until they find out more about the missing woman.

After Green has left, Holmes tells Watson that he suspects Dr. Shlessinger for harming Lady Frances. Shlessinger is actually a rascal Holy Peters. The woman who poses as his wife is also just a hired woman. They have ensnared lady Frances for her jewellery and have possibly murdered her.

When it becomes known that a Spanish pendant has been pawned in London, Holmes asks Green to keep an eye on the same pawnbroker. A second pendant is pawned at the same place this time by a lady.Green follows the woman who later visits an undertakers shop. She enquired about a coffin whose delivery hadn’t been done at the committed time.The person at the counter replies, “It took longer, being out of the ordinary”. Green continues to follow this woman and discovers the place where she is staying.

When Green tells all this to Holmes, Holmes asks Green to get a warrant from the authorities while he and Watson go to confront Holy Peters . Once in his house, they ask to see the coffin which had arrived. However , when Holmes opens it, the body of a ninety year old woman is found. Peter meanwhile has called in an inspector because Holmes has searched his house without a warrant and Holmes is asked to leave. Green had had difficulty in obtaining the warrant .

Holmes spends a sleepless night thinking over the problem. Early next morning, he finally has a clue and they rush to Peters’ place because the coffin is to be taken for burial at 8 am. When they open it, they find Lady Frances who is unconscious but alive. Peters and his accomplice had tried to bury her alive by keeping her senseless with the use of chloroform. She is brought to consciousness by Dr. Watson .

Holmes then gives his explanation. Peters ,reluctant to commit murder had tried to bury Lady Frances alive with the body of the ninety year old woman (whom they had taken under their care from an old age home for this very purpose). They had ordered a very large coffin to be made to fit two bodies in it. When the woman at the undertakers had said that the coffin was out of the ordinary, it was a hint.

Sapiens- book review

Sapiens is a nonfiction history book by the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari. It is an attempt to summarise the entire history of humanity. Humans or homo Sapiens appeared on the earth present form around 1 lakh years ago but today we are the most powerful species on the planet. Harare attempt to explain how this species which is still very young(remember that many species have existed for much longer than that) managed to achieve so much

Harari says that we have managed to do this because he can corporate with each other flexibly in large numbers. And are the only species on the on the planet who can do so. He says that we can do so because we believe in fictitious entities which exist not in reality but only in our collective imagination. These include Gods Nations money and corporations.

Sapiens explains the history of Empires, capitalism money and how human civilization and systems came to be the way they are. There is an interesting paragraph where he says that only 500 years ago when European discovered America, human civilization was far different from what it is today in terms of the total population, level of Technology and energy consumption. Yet we hardly ever think about it although 500 years is a very short time if we consider recorded history

Harari also talks philosophy all his books and he says that he practices Vipassana meditation regularly.vipassana Meditation by the way was restarted by S N Goenka, ab Burmese in India

Sapiens received praise from some famous names like Mark Zuckerberg, Barack Obama and Bill Gates and so has become a highly Gates book. In fact former US President Barak Obama said in one interview reading this book give him a sense of perspective” the people of ancient civilizations may have had their economic upheavals political scandal but nothing much remains of their cities this teaches us not to sweat the small stuff because in the future nothing may remain of our present civilization”

More than just history

Origin Story is a nonfiction book written by historian David Christian that cuts across various disciplines from astrophysics to modern history.Most people when they think about history imagine ancient kingdoms engaged in wars.Atmost they may include human prehistory or even human evolution.But in Origin story,Christian goes back almost 14 billion years ago to the start of the universe.

He summarizes the(theory of)the history of the universe,then the history of the earth,including the history of life on earth and finally,in the last part of the book,gives a brief account of human history.All this in a book no longer than 300 pages.Expectedly,he gives a birds eye view of events.He calls it Big History

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has praised Christains work and that enough is a big marketing strength for the book.David Christian coined the term big history and has been teaching it since 1989.Bill Gates has been helping fund Christians efforts to teach Big history to secondary school students all over the world.

The idea of Big History is novel and the book is informative to anyone looking for accurate and concise knowledge of geology, evolution, astrophysics and the human past and a perspective of where we as Homo Sapiens fit into the entire picture.

Origin Story is similar to Bill Brysons A Short History of nearly everything.The difference is that while Bryson’s book gives details of the scientists lives and how the knowledge that we know today was discovered,Christian gives a systematic and birds eye view of the way the past unfolded.Bryson also infuses humour into his writing while Origin Story is more educational.

As the author rightly mentions at the end ,this is the Origin Story with the knowledge that humans currently have.And a lot of this knowledge we have gained only in the past 200 years or so.Before that,there were less scientific although equally convincing sounding-with religious weight-origin stories.And who knows,in a 100 years,this book written in the 2010s may seem like a compilation of the theories of an ignorant age.But as of today, with what we know, this is the ultimate history story.

Vincent Van Gogh-the great but misunderstood genius

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Vincent Van Gogh was a Dutch painter of the 19th century.Post impressionism was the style of painting that he followed.Although he began painting only in his late 20s and died at the age of 37,for 10 years he was a prolific painter and he left hundreds of paintings and drawings behind.

Misunderstood and ostracized during his lifetime,he lived a difficult life and his problems included severe poverty and mental illness.He was considered a failure during his lifetime and officially managed to sell just one painting during his life although towards the end ,he was beginning to receive critical acclaim atleast from his fellow artists. Ironically, during the 20th century, some of his paintings were some of the most expensive paintings ever sold.

The sunflowers ,starry night and the potato eaters are some of his famous works and most of his best pieces were produced during his final years when he was grappling with mental illness.It was during this time that he cut off his own ear after an argument with a fellow painter(Paul Gaugian) and for some time was confined to an asylum.

Throughout his attempted painting career,Van Gogh was supported financially and emotionally by his younger brother Theo who was an art dealer himself.Theo died not long after Vincent’s death and his widow Johanna Bonger was left with Vincent’s vast collection of paintings and letters.It was she who managed to market successfully the works of her brother in law after his death.

Vincent Van Gogh took up painting only after he had tried his hand at several other professions in his teens and early twenties.He received money from his brother during his painting career and although he spent liberally on paints and canvases,he neglected his own physical health and ate poorly.

He died under mysterious circumstances and his death was believed for a long time to be a suicide athough new evidence has indicated that he might have been murdered ,possibly accidentally by a 16 year old village bully.

technology today

The 21st century can best be called the gadget age.We are hooked onto our devices be it mobile phones or laptops or ipods or pads.Gaming,buying,banking communicating and reading can all be done on these.The TV and the radio seem passe.So does the landline phone.

Of course the internet has its advantages.It makes tasks convenient, storage cheap.One can download movies, songs or books easily and free(at times).Email has revolutionized written communication in the same way as the mobile phone has revolutionized oral communication.We can buy things on the internet and pay by netbanking.

Our corporate stocks too are purchased online.I can sit here and type out an article which the world can read.This was an undreamt of thing a few decades ago. Technology has also changed our offices.They are paperless with a lot of hitherto manually performed work done by machines.Everything from ppts ,excel sheets to accounts. Technology has also given us access to a lot of information.We have all the views and news on our smartphones and laptops.

But arent we caught in a whirlwind of information.We want more because we can have more and not necessarily need more.For example,on the social media platform,there is facebook,twitter,google+,linkedin and what not.How many am I to join.Often,new technologies are difficult to operate by laymen. And then there is also the fear of these devices breaking down leading to loss of information.They are machines after all.

Technology also changes at a rapid pace and everyone struggles to keep up with it to varying degrees.Those who cannot keep up with the change often suffer from complexes and phobias.They desire a return back to the old days.These are mainly the middle aged and older people but includes youngsters as well. The overuse of devices by children and adults alike has led to the sedentary lifestyle society.

We have shortening attention spans and lifestyle diseases, obesity and the like. We cant escape technology in our day and age.But we can be wise and aware and not get addicted to our devices and technology.We can take the full benefit of them without losing ourselves in them.This can be done by discipline ,by realizing that there is a lot around us other than devices-there is the real world, our family, our neighbours, outdoors and nature.

A short history of everything by Bill Bryson

A short history by Bill Bryson tries to explain all the history of science.How we understand things today and how that understanding was reached.Who were the people who hit upon those insights which would lead to the understanding that we have today of the world ,the universe and of ourselves.

It deals with astronomy.It includes the solar system ,the big bang and how the elements came to be forged.There are the leaps in physics by Newton ,by Einstein and by Bohr and Rutherford.How the elements came to be discovered and how businessmen made huge profits from them while the discoverers faded into oblivion.

There are chapters on biology, on how Charles Darwin compiled his theory of evolution despite many obstacles including his own ill health.Mention is also made of ancient fossil discoveries and how it helped us understand human evolution.

There is a chapter on lead toxicity and the companies which profited from it.How the scientist tried to create awareness of lead poisoning but was thwarted by corporations until he finally succeeded.

The tales of the calculation of the size of the earth, the weight of the earth and the age of the earth find mention.The process of how those and other conclusions were reached is also given giving an insight into the minds of scientists,their relations with other scientists and the politics involved because discoverers not only dealt with science problems.They also dealt with the greed and jealosies of their fellow scientists who were ready to trip them or take credit for their work.

It is a dream book for anyone wanting to understand general science and looking for some entertainment(the book is also rich with humor!).

Great attention is given not to the science itself but to the scientific personalities from Newtons eccentricities,Einsteins marriage and Curies affairs are mentioned!

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