The Mystery of the Singapore Box

A teakwood box reaches London with every seal intact. Four hundred pounds in sapphires gone - the camphor packing still fresh.

“Holmes in the opium den”
Sidney Paget · The Strand Magazine, December 1891 · Public Domain

Section I

The Scene

Setting: The firm of Carstairs, Drewett & Co, Mincing Lane, City of London - and the bonded shed of the West India Docks
Time: Wednesday afternoon, late January 1895
Weather: A raw, foggy day, the river yellow and slow under a low sky
Atmosphere: The peculiar smell of bonded cargo - camphor, tea-chests, hessian, river-mud - overlaid on a respectable City counting-house.

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