twenty minutes after
nine, Monday morning, April
Wild horses shall not drag from me the name of that ducal scoundrel , and , besides , there might be a German spy looking over your shoulder as you read this . Holmes and I decided to stay back in the tight little isle for a while after that episode , and there in the same old den , at 221-B Baker Street , in the city of London , we were domiciled on that eventful April morning in 1912 that saw us introduced to what turned out to be positively the dog-gonedest , most mixed-up , perplexing , and mysterious case we ever bumped up against in all our long and varied career in Arthur Conan Doyle 's dream-pipe . It completely laid over `` The Sign of the Four '' and `` The Study in Scarlet , '' and had `` The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle '' all beaten to a frazzle . To be painfully precise about it , it was just twenty minutes after nine , Monday morning , April the eighth , 1912 , the day after Easter , and it was raining something fierce outside . The whirling raindrops pattered against our second-story windows , and occasional thunder and lightning varied the scene . Holmes was sitting , or , rather , sprawling in a Morris chair , wrapped in his old lavender dressing-gown , and was wearing the red Turkish slippers King George had given him for Christmas a few months before . He had his little old bottle of cocaine on the table beside him , and his dope-needle , which he had just filled , in his hand .