To the unobservant, the sitting room looked only a trifle more disorderly than usual. Papers were out of place, files and indexes lay opened and rifled-through. Many books had been rudely pulled from shelves and not returned. Holmes surveyed it before plunging into the mess, digging frantically. Watson joined him, equally concerned.
At long last they surfaced, empty-handed and stunned. The Peterson file – and all its information about the politician of that name and his counterfeiting schemes – was simply nowhere to be found.
Holmes dragged a hand through his hair. "There's no denying it," he said hollowly. "We've been burglarized."
". . . the writers of agonized letters, who beg that the honour of their families or the reputation of famous forebears may not be touched, have nothing to fear . . . I deprecate, however, in the strongest way the attempts which have been made lately to get at and to destroy these papers. The source of these outrages is known, and if they are repeated I have Mr. Holmes's authority for saying that the whole story concerning the politician, the lighthouse, and the trained cormorant will be given to the public. There is at least one reader who will understand." -- The Veiled Lodger