October 12, 1886 (per Baring-Gould): Lord Bellinger and the Right Honorable Trelawney Hope consulted Holmes at Baker Street, and “The Adventure of the Second Stain” began.
It was, then, in a year, and even in a decade, that shall be nameless, that upon one Tuesday morning in autumn we found two visitors of European fame within the walls of our humble room in Baker Street. The one, austere, high-nosed, eagle-eyed, and dominant, was none other than the illustrious Lord Bellinger, twice Premier of Britain. The other, dark, clear-cut, and elegant, hardly yet of middle age, and endowed with every beauty of body and of mind, was the Right Honourable Trelawney Hope, Secretary for European Affairs, and the most rising statesman in the country. They sat side by side upon our paper-littered settee, and it was easy to see from their worn and anxious faces that it was business of the most pressing importance which had brought them. The Premier’s thin, blue-veined hands were clasped tightly over the ivory head of his umbrella, and his gaunt, ascetic face looked gloomily from Holmes to me. The European Secretary pulled nervously at his moustache and fidgeted with the seals of his watch-chain.
From my Limerick Corner;
The Adventure of the Second Stain
Holmes is needed as never before.
England’s Highest are shaken and sore.
There’s a document gone.
With so much hanging thereon.
If it isn’t retrieved it means—War!
Composed by Issac Asimov BSI