The Blue Carbuncle (Easy English)

I visited my friend Sherlock Holmes on the second morning after Christmas, to wish him the compliments of the season. He was lying on the sofa in a purple dressing gown. Beside him, on a wooden chair, was a very old, very dirty black hat, cracked in several places. A magnifying glass lay next to it.

"You are busy," I said. "Perhaps I am interrupting you."

"Not at all. I am glad to have a friend to discuss my results with. The matter is perfectly trivial." He pointed at the hat. "But there are some points of interest."

"I suppose," I said, "that this old hat is connected with some terrible crime."

"No, no. No crime. Only one of those strange little accidents that happen when four million people live together in a few square miles. You know Peterson, the commissionaire?"

"Yes."

"On Christmas morning, at about four o'clock, Peterson was walking home from a small party. In front of him, in the light of a street lamp, he saw a tall man walking a little unsteadily, carrying a white goose on his shoulder. At a corner, the man was attacked by a group of young men. One of them knocked off his hat. The man raised his walking stick to defend himself and broke the shop window behind him. Peterson ran forward to help. But the man, frightened by the broken glass and seeing a person in a uniform running towards him, dropped the goose and ran away. The young men ran away too.