The Adventure of the Dead Inventor

Mr. & Mrs. Henry Foster of Yorkshire were part of a large group staying at the Hotel for an Inventors Conference. Yesterday morning Mr. Foster was found dead in his Hotel room, stabbed in the chest.

Scotland Yard has arrested Mrs. Foster and is holding her for the murder of her husband.

According to Mrs. Foster, she and her husband had returned from the Theatre about midnight the night before. They were tired and went straight to bed. She awoke in the morning and found her husband lying dead at the foot of his Hotel room bureau, a knife stuck in his chest. Among the items on the victim's bureau were a newspaper, a large bed spring and an open box of his favourite cigars.

The windows and the door were all still locked from the inside; and Mrs. Foster is at a loss to explain what happened. But she swears that she is innocent.

Among the persons routinely questioned by Inspector Lestrade were Damian Pimperton, the Hotel manager; Beatrice Melbourne, a Hotel maid; Teddy Wallingford, the Hotel doorman; and two other couples who were friends of the Fosters and were also staying at the Hotel for the Inventors Conference -- Mr. & Mrs. T. Walton and Mr. & Mrs. H.R. Sotherington.

The Fosters' son, Robert, has come to 221B Baker Street for help in proving his mother's innocence. "Although my father was somewhat of a scoundrel," he says, "my mother would never have killed him".