 "the adventure of the reigate squire", also known as "the adventure of the reigate squires" and "the adventure of the reigate puzzle", was one of the 56 sherlock holmes short stories written by british author sir arthur conan doyle. the adventure of the reigate squires was first published in 1893. it is one of 12 stories in the cycle collected as the memoirs of sherlock holmes. doyle ranked "the adventure of the reigate squire" twelfth in his list of his twelve favorite holmes stories. ==synopsis== thumb|the cunninghams fighting with holmes. watson takes holmes to a friend's estate near reigate in surrey to rest after a rather strenuous case in france. holmes finds that his services are needed here, but he also finds that his recent illness serves him well. his host is colonel hayter. there has recently been a burglary at the nearby acton estate in which the thieves stole a motley assortment of things, even a ball of twine, but nothing terribly valuable. then one morning, the colonel's butler tells news of a murder at another nearby estate, the cunninghams'. the victim is william kirwan, the coachman. inspector forrester has taken charge of the investigation, and there is one physical clue: a torn piece of paper found in william's hand with a few words written on it. holmes takes an instant interest in this, seeing something that forrester has missed: it is quite clear to holmes that the fragment of a note was written by two men, each writing alternate words. one man is young, and the other rather older. moreover, they are related. holmes, an expert at studying handwriting, does not voice this or any other observation or conclusion until the end of the story. he also observes that one line says "quarter to twelve", coincidentally the time of william's murder. one of the first facts to emerge is that there is a longstanding legal dispute between the actons and the cunninghams involving ownership of about half of the estate currently in the cunninghams' hands. holmes spends quite a bit of time investigating and interviewing the two cunningham men, young alec and his ageing father. alec tells holmes that he saw the burglar struggling with william when a shot went off and william fell dead. the burglar ran off through a hedge to the road. the elder cunningham claims that he was in his room smoking at the time, and alec says that he had also still been up. holmes knows that they are lying. no burglar with any sense would break into a house when he could see by the lit lamps that someone was still afoot. also, william's body has no powder burns on it; so he was not shot at point-blank range as the cunninghams claim. the escape route also does not bear their story out: there is a boggy ditch next to the road that the f
1893_short_stories Sherlock_Holmes_short_stories_by_Arthur_Conan_Doyle Works_originally_published_in_The_Strand_Magazine