I can't even

I can't ever speak you I'm gonna be five. You know, As our tale begins, a man wakes from slumber by a familiar calling voice somewhere in the distance.

Satan!

Satan!

Satan now! Rapping himself in a robe and following the repeated cries for help the man cautiously makes his way downstairs

where he finds himself in the presence of a funerary service beckoned by a pallbearer to raise the lid of the casket.

The man recoils in fright when he sees the occupant of the coffin is none other than himself.

Fleeing to the safety of his bedroom, he bolts the door behind him, but is terrified when

the voice of the dead man calls to him once again, this time from his own bed.

Satan!

Satan!

He turns, shocked to see himself staring, to see himself staring back at him.

It was simply a nightmare, but its true meaning is unknown to all but the resident patient.

In his book, A Study in Celluloid, Michael Cox shared his thoughts on the first act of this episode.

He wrote,

As all Holmes scholars know, Conan Doyle added a section to this story when it was first

published in book form in the memoirs of 1894 he had decided not to include

the cardboard box in that collection but was reluctant to lose the impressive

mind-reading trick about General Gordon and Henry Ward Beecher, which originally appeared in that story.

So he transposed it to the resident patient, which goes to show what importance he attached to these exercises in domestic deduction.

They were, of course, a continual challenge to Watson, who was regularly dazzled by his

friend's skill and must have longed to turn the tables. Conan Doyle certainly realized this,

...