The Adventure of the Empty House

CEFR A2 Simplified Version

In the spring of 1894, people all over London talked about a shocking event. A young man named Ronald Adair was found dead in his room. He came from a rich and important family. His death was very strange, and no one could explain it easily.

The newspapers wrote about the crime, and the police shared some details. However, not everything was made public. The police already believed the case was strong, so they did not share all the facts. Now, many years later, I am allowed to tell the full story.

The murder itself was serious, but what happened later was even more surprising to me. It was the greatest shock of my life. Even now, when I think about it, I feel excited and amazed. I want readers to know that I did not hide the truth by choice. I was not allowed to speak until very recently.

I was a close friend of Sherlock Holmes. Because of him, I became very interested in crimes. After Holmes disappeared, I read about many cases in the newspapers. Sometimes I tried to solve them myself using his ideas, but I was not very successful. Still, no case interested me as much as the death of Ronald Adair.

An inquest was held. This is a public investigation after a strange death. The result said that Ronald Adair was murdered by someone unknown. When I read this, I felt the loss of Sherlock Holmes very strongly. I was sure that Holmes would have understood this case better than anyone else. The police tried their best, but the mystery remained.

Ronald Adair was the second son of the Earl of Maynooth. His father was working in Australia as a governor. Ronald’s mother returned to England for an eye operation. She lived with Ronald and his sister Hilda in a house on Park Lane, a rich area of London.

Ronald lived a quiet life. He had no known enemies and no bad habits. He was once engaged to a woman named Edith Woodley, but they ended the engagement peacefully some months before. It did not seem to upset him very much. His life was calm and ordinary.

However, Ronald Adair died in a very strange way on the night of March 30, 1894, between ten o’clock and eleven-twenty.

Ronald liked playing cards, but he did not gamble large amounts of money. He was a member of several gentlemen’s clubs. These were private places where rich men met to relax and play games. On the day of his death, Ronald played a card game called whist at one of these clubs.

People who played with him said the game was fair. Ronald lost only a small amount of money. He was rich, so this loss was not important to him.

That evening, Ronald returned home at ten o’clock. His mother and sister were not at home. A servant said that Ronald went into his sitting room on the second floor. A fire was burning there, but it was smoking, so the servant opened the window.

No sound came from the room until eleven-twenty, when Ronald’s mother and sister returned. They wanted to say good night, but the door was locked from the inside. Ronald did not answer their calls.

The door was forced open. Ronald Adair was found lying on the floor near the table. He had been shot in the head and was dead. There was no gun in the room.

On the table, there was money arranged in small piles. There was also a piece of paper with names and numbers. It looked like Ronald was checking card winnings and losses. Nothing had been stolen.

The room was examined carefully, but the mystery grew deeper. No one understood why the door was locked from the inside. Some people thought the killer escaped through the window, but the window was high above the ground. The flowers below were not damaged, and there were no footprints.

No one outside heard a gunshot. The street was busy, and cabs were nearby. Still, Ronald was dead. There was no clear reason, no missing money, and no suspect.

All day, I thought about these facts. In the evening, I walked past the house on Park Lane. A small crowd stood outside, looking up at one of the windows. A man who looked like a detective was talking to them. I listened for a moment, but his ideas seemed foolish, so I walked away.

As I turned, I bumped into an old man with a bent back. He was carrying many books. I helped him pick them up. The books looked rare and difficult. The man seemed angry and walked away without thanking me.

Later that evening, after I returned home, my servant told me that a visitor was waiting. To my surprise, it was the same old book collector. He apologized for being rude before and began talking about my bookshelves.

When I turned my head to look at the shelf and then looked back again, Sherlock Holmes was standing in my room.

I could not believe my eyes. The shock was too great, and I fainted.

When I woke up, Holmes was beside me.

“My dear Watson,” he said, “I’m sorry. I did not mean to surprise you so much.”

When I opened my eyes, Sherlock Holmes was standing beside me. He was holding a small bottle and watching me with concern.

“My dear Watson,” he said, “I am sorry. I did not think my return would shock you so much.”

I sat up slowly and looked at him again. He was real. He was alive.

“Holmes,” I said, “everyone believed you were dead.”

“Yes,” he replied calmly. “That was exactly what I wanted.”

He asked me to sit down and listen. Then he began to explain everything.

Holmes told me that he never fell into the waterfall at the Reichenbach Falls. Professor Moriarty attacked him and tried to pull him down, but Holmes used a special fighting skill that he had learned long ago. Moriarty lost his balance and fell into the deep water below.

“I watched him fall,” Holmes said. “He did not survive.”

After that, Holmes climbed up the rocks and hid on a narrow ledge. From there, he saw me and others arrive and search for his body. When we believed he was dead and left the area, Holmes stayed hidden.

Suddenly, a large rock fell near him. Then another rock followed. Holmes realized that Moriarty had not been alone. Another dangerous man was trying to kill him from above.

Holmes had no time to think. He climbed down the rocks and ran through the mountains in the dark. He escaped and disappeared from Europe.

“At that moment,” Holmes said, “I decided the world must believe I was dead.”

Moriarty had many followers. Some of them were very dangerous. If they believed Holmes was alive, they would try to kill him. But if they believed he was dead, they would feel safe and make mistakes.

Holmes told only one person the truth: his brother Mycroft. Mycroft helped him with money and protected his rooms in Baker Street.

“I did not tell you, Watson,” Holmes said kindly. “If you had known, your feelings would have shown the truth.”

For the next three years, Holmes lived quietly under different names. He traveled to faraway places and stayed out of sight. He waited until most of his enemies were gone.

Then Holmes read about the strange murder of Ronald Adair. The case interested him deeply.

“I knew who was responsible,” Holmes said. “And I knew he would be afraid if he thought I had returned.”

Holmes came back to London secretly. He visited Baker Street and placed a life-sized model of himself in the window. From the street, it looked like Holmes sitting calmly in his room.

Mrs. Hudson helped him. She moved the figure from time to time so it looked alive.

“This was a trap,” Holmes said. “And I knew my enemy would come.”

That evening, Holmes asked me to join him. After dinner, we left together in a horse-drawn cab. Holmes was quiet and serious.

“I believe we are being watched,” he said.

He led me through small streets and narrow paths that I had never noticed before. At last, we entered an empty house across from Baker Street.

From an upstairs room, we could clearly see the window of Holmes’s old room. The false Holmes was sitting inside, lit by a bright lamp.

“This is the best place to wait,” Holmes whispered.

We stood in the dark room for a long time. The street slowly became quiet. The wind blew cold along the road.

Suddenly, Holmes touched my arm.

“Someone is coming,” he whispered.

I heard a soft sound behind us. A door opened quietly inside the house. Footsteps moved slowly along the floor.

A dark figure entered the room. The man did not see us. He walked carefully to the window and opened it a little.

The streetlight fell on his face. He was an older man with a hard expression and a thick moustache. He held a strange weapon.

The man aimed at the figure in the Baker Street window.

There was a sharp sound. Glass broke.

At that moment, Holmes jumped forward and knocked the man to the floor. The man fought wildly. I struck him with my revolver, and together we held him down.

Holmes blew a whistle. A few moments later, police officers rushed into the room.

The man was arrested.

Holmes turned to me and said quietly, “The trap has worked.”

When the police lights filled the room, I could see the man clearly. He looked strong and dangerous. His eyes were cold, and his face showed anger and surprise.

“You clever man,” he muttered again and again.

Holmes stood calmly and looked at him.

“Colonel Sebastian Moran,” Holmes said. “We meet again.”

Holmes explained who the man was. Moran had once been an officer in the British army. He was an excellent shot and a dangerous man. After leaving the army, he became a criminal and worked with Professor Moriarty. He was the man who had tried to kill Holmes at the waterfall.

A police officer named Lestrade arrived. He was pleased to see Holmes again.

“It’s good to see you back, Mr. Holmes,” he said.

Holmes nodded. “You have arrested the right man,” he said.

Lestrade looked at the prisoner. “Attempted murder,” he said.

Holmes shook his head. “No. Murder.”

Holmes showed the police the strange weapon. It was a powerful air gun. It could fire a bullet without making a loud noise.

“This gun explains the mystery,” Holmes said. “No sound. No gun found. A locked room.”

Then Holmes explained what had happened to Ronald Adair.

Moran and Adair played cards together at several clubs. Moran cheated at cards, but he was careful. Holmes believed that Adair discovered the cheating and spoke to Moran in private.

Adair likely told Moran to stop playing cards and leave the clubs quietly. If the truth became public, Moran would lose everything.

On the night of the murder, Moran followed Adair home. From the street, he used the air gun to shoot through the open window. The bullet killed Adair at once.

Inside the room, Adair locked the door because he did not want to be disturbed. He was writing down names and money to see how much he needed to return, because he did not want to keep money from cheating.

This explained the money on the table and the locked door.

After the shot, Moran escaped easily. No one heard anything. Nothing was stolen. The crime looked impossible.

Lestrade listened carefully and nodded. “That makes sense,” he said.

The police took Moran away. He looked at Holmes with hate, but he could not escape.

Later that night, Holmes and I returned to Baker Street. The rooms looked the same as before. Mrs. Hudson greeted us happily.

The wax model of Holmes still stood by the window. A hole in its head showed where the bullet had passed through.

Holmes picked up the bullet and showed it to me.

“A soft bullet,” he said. “Very clever. But not clever enough.”

Holmes put on his old dressing gown and sat down in his chair. It felt like the old days had returned.

“Now,” Holmes said, “the danger is over.”

I sat beside him and felt calm again. Sherlock Holmes was alive. The mystery was solved. Justice was done.

The strange story of the empty house had finally come to an end.