The Empty House
Complete textThe unexplained killing of Ronald Adair attracts Watson's attention, drawing him toward a London mystery with few apparent openings. An unexpected encounter transforms his understanding of the situation and leads to a watch kept from an empty house across from familiar rooms.
Continue readingAbout The Empty House
The story combines reunion with a carefully staged investigation, using concealed positions and lines of sight to reorganize what can be seen. Watson's surprise gives the reader an emotional stake alongside the puzzle. Its action depends on patience and observation as much as on the more dramatic confrontations that the setup promises.
Reading focus
Return to Holmes's London for a tightly staged case involving concealed observers, an unexplained death, and a dangerous watch from an empty house.
This reading edition contains 8,706 words in 1 original section. Read the text online with adjustable type and three colour themes, or keep a printable PDF.
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle. Language: English. Reading edition: 28 October 2026.
Opening excerpt
It was in the spring of the year 1894 that all London was interested, and the fashionable world dismayed, by the murder of the Honourable Ronald Adair under most unusual and inexplicable circumstances. The public has already learned those particulars of the crime which came out in the police investigation, but a good deal was suppressed upon that occasion, since the case for the prosecution was so overwhelmingly strong that it was not necessary to bring forward all the facts. Only now, at the end of nearly ten years, am I allowed to supply those missing links which make up the whole of that remarkable chain. The crime was of interest in itself, but that interest was as nothing to me…
Contents
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This edition contains the complete English literary text, with 1 section and 8,706 words. This reading edition preserves the checked English text and its section order. No study notes have been added.
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