Chapter 30: The Case-Notes of Sherlock Holmes, Transcribed

The Baker Street sitting room smelled of chemical experiment and cold tobacco, which was entirely correct.

Holmes stepped through onto the hearthrug and stood for a moment with his pipe between his teeth, breathing it in — the particular combination of carbolic and old wool and London coal-smoke that had accumulated in these walls over years of methodical habitation. The fire had burned low. The clock on the mantelpiece read eleven forty-three. On the table beside his chair, the Whitechapel forgery invoice lay where he had left it, one corner lifting slightly in a draught from the badly fitted window-frame he had been meaning to report to Mrs Hudson since February.

Three minutes, by the mantelpiece clock.