Tracing the goose to Mrs. Oakshott

1 A hard-frosted Baker Street under a starry sky, seen from above.

2 In the firelit sitting-room at Baker Street, the round-shouldered Henry Baker warms his trembling hand at the grate while Sherlock Holmes stands behind him, studying him with quiet amusement.

3 Holmes and Watson stride briskly through a hard-frosted, starlit Bloomsbury street toward the glowing corner of the Alpha Inn, their breath and that of distant passers-by bursting white in the bitter cold.

4 Over Holmes's shoulder in the amber glow of the Alpha Inn's private bar, the ruddy landlord wipes his hand on his apron and shakes his head: those geese were never his.

5 Outside the Alpha Inn on a frosty night, Holmes buttons his ulster and flings out an arm toward the south, declaring the chase will run to the bitter end, while Watson stands ready at his side.

6 On a frosty Covent Garden night, the poultry dealer and his boy put up the shutters over bare marble slabs while two men in ulsters cross the cobbles toward the stall.

7 Breckinridge, the Covent Garden goose salesman, flares with sudden anger under his stall lamp.

8 Breckinridge, the Covent Garden poultry dealer, glares down in gleeful triumph over his open ledgers beneath the harsh gas lamp.

9 Under the hanging lamp of the Covent Garden stall, Holmes flings a gold sovereign onto the marble and turns away in feigned disgust, while the gloating poultry dealer reaches for the coin and the trap closes.