A body on the London Underground; the strange disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax; a parcel containing some coarse salt and two freshly severed human ears ... In the course of these investigations, Holmes himself is truck down by a virulent Eastern disease, and we are reintroduced to his remarkable brother Mycroft. Finally, with the approach of the German War, Holmes emerges from retirement among his books and bees on the South Downs to lay his unique intellect at the disposal of the British Government, with the historic results disclosed in His Last Bow.