2nd BOOK REPORT

THE CREEPING MAN

Sherlock holmes has a new case, a very interesting one, Mr. Bennett is the Professor Presbury's secretary and he has come to Holmes with a serious problem, Mr. Bennett is also engaged to the professor's daughter.
Professor Presbury at the age of sixty one suddenly fell in love with the youngest daughter of a colleague. And the trouble seems to have begun with the Professor Presbury and Alice engagement.
First, the professor suddenly left home for two weeks without telling anyone where he was going. It was only through a letter from a friend sent to Mr. Bennett that the family knew that Professor Presbury had been in Prague.
Since the professor came back from Prague began to happen very strange things, his dog has attacked him several ocassions, and his strange behaviour took place every nine days, on July 2, 11 and 20. Holmes knew that the dog´s behaviour was very significant in the case.
Upon returning from Prague, Professor Presbury told Mr. Bennett that he had prohibited to open the letters that would arrive with a cross under the stamp, and it was more strange because until this time, Mr. Bennett had enjoyed the professor's trust and had opened all his letters as part of his job.
One night Mr.Bennett heard strange noises outside his bedroom and saw the professor crawling along the passage on his hands and feet. The proffesor´s daughter told to Holmes that she had seen her father at her bedroom window one night at two o'clock in the morning. Her bedroom is on the second floor, and there no any possible way of reaching that window and she didn´t know how he had colud to arrive until there.
The Professor Presbury had brought a wood box from Prague and he got really angry when Bennet took it by accident and he take care of it with a special way.
Holmes and Watson go to see the professor the next day. They decide to pretend that they have an appointment, and that if Professor Presbury dont remember making it, but the professor is quite sure that he has made no appointment, and confirms this with his embarrassed secretary, Mr. Bennett. Professor Presbury becomes furious at the intrusion, and Watson believes that they might going out.
Mr. Bennett told Holmes that he has found the address that Professor Presbury has been writing and receiving the mysterious letters. The addressee is a man named Dorak, a Czechoslovakian name
Before leaving the professor's house, Holmes has a look at Edith's bedroom window, and saw
that the only possible way for someone to climb up there is by using the creeper, rather unlikely for a 61-year-old man.
Holmes has formed a theory that every nine days, Professor Presbury takes some kind of drug which causes the odd behaviour. Holmes believed that he became addicted in Prague, and is now supplied by this Dorak in London. Holmes has told Mr. Bennett that he and Watson will be in the professor´s house once again on the next Tuesday.
Holmes has observed the professor's hands and they were thick and rought, and until now, has not made the connection between these, the odd behaviour, the dog's change in attitude towards his master, and the creeper. The professor is behaving like a monkey!
Holmes then examines the professor's little wooden box, it contained a drug, as Holmes expected, but there was also a letter there from a man named Lowenstein who is helping the professor
to achieving rejuvenation, which he thought would be advisable if he were going to marry a young woman. The drug is an extract obtained from langurs,(a kind of monkey) and although it has apparently given the professor renewed energy, it has also given him some of the langur's traits.

SHOSCOMBE OLD PLACE

Shoscombe Old Place, is the last of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

John Mason is the horse´s trainer from Shoscombe Old Place, a racing stable in Berkshire, comes to Holmes to talk about his master, Robert Norberton. Mason thinks he has gone mad. Sir Robert’s sister, Lady Falder owns Shoscombe, but it will revert to her husband’s brother when she dies. The stable has a horse, Shoscombe Prince, who Sir Robert hopes will win the Derby. He would be out of debt if that actually happened, because his creditorse are pressing him.
Mason is not quite sure what he wants Holmes to investigate, but a number of odd changes have happened at the stable:
Lady Falder used to visit the horses because she loves them, but suddenly has forgotten her usual habit of stopping to greet her favourite horse.
Why has Sir Robert become so bad moon lately?
Another clue that Holmes has is that he has given his sister’s dog away to a neighbourhood but he don´t know why.
Manson realized that his boss had gone to the old crypt of the house at nigh and there was another man wit him
He discovered too that he had burnt human bones in the chinmey of the house and Watson agreed with the bones are human.
Holmes decides to investigate, he and Dr. Watson go to Berkshire. The innkeeper where they are staying is the one who now had Lady Beatrice’s dog, and it is quite an expensive breed, one that an innkeeper ordinarily could never afford.
With the innkeeper’s permission, Holmes takes the dog for a walk, and goes to Shoscombe, where he releases it as Lady Beatrice’s carriage comes out of the gate. The dog went forward enthusiastically at first, but then scaped in terror. Then, even though a maid and Lady Beatrice are supposedly the only two people in the carriage, it is a male voice that shouted “Drive on!”
Then in the crypt, John Mason observes that a heap of bones there earlier is now gone. Holmes finds a coffin with a fresh body inside. Just then, Sir Robert arrives, catching Holmes and Watson in the act. After Holmes makes it plain that he has deduced most of the odd goings-on, Sir Robert invites him and Watson back to the house and explains everything.
About a week earlier, Lady Falder died of natural way due to an illness and Sir Robert felt compelled to keep that in secret so that the creditors can´t not arrive to Shoscombe before he had a chance to win the Derby and pay all his debts. He and the maid’s husband hid the body in the crypt, but also found that they had to burn an older body in the chinmey. This same man also dressed in Lady ’s Falder and took her place in the carriage each day. The dog knew what had happened and might have given the game away if its noise had aroused suspicion.
Holmes refers the matter to the police, but the story ends happily. Shoscombe Prince wins the Derby, Sir Robert escapes any major judicial penalty for what he did to his sister’s body, and he pays off all his debts.