A battered hat. A Christmas goose. A puzzle that begins in jest.

On a winter evening in Baker Street, what starts as idle curiosity leads Sherlock Holmes into the heart of London's markets and back alleys, where something precious has gone astray and the wrong man may pay the price.

The trail winds through shopkeepers and strangers, each holding one fragment of the truth. But detection is not merely about finding answers—sometimes it asks harder questions. What is justice worth? When does punishment heal, and when does it only harden?

In the glow of the season, a small mystery reveals the weight of mercy.

Published in The Strand Magazine, January 1892, with illustrations by Sidney Paget. Later collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, October 1892.

Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, was a Scottish physician and writer born in 1859. Beyond detective fiction, he wrote historical novels, campaigned against injustice, and devoted his later years to spiritualism, dying in 1930.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices