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HE Great Detective and I had just finished breakfast in his study, when the maid announced Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I rose at once to go, but Holmes stopped me.

"Don't go," he said. "I was expecting Sir Arthur. He has come to consult me about the mystery of the Fairy Photographs."

A moment later Sir Arthur was ushered in, and Holmes greeted him warmly.

"I will come to the point at once," said Sir Arthur. "The fairy photographs, which I have presented to the public as genuine, have been attacked on all sides as fraudulent. I want you to make a complete investigation of the case and present a report. If there were any possibility of fraud, you of all men in the world would discover it. So if you report them genuine, as I am sure you will, the scoffers will be silenced."

"You flatter me," said Holmes, "but tell me the story."

Sir Arthur in answer presented a group of photographs. I looked at them in amazement. For the first time in human history, fairies had actually been photographed! There they were, exactly as we have pictured them in our imagination, with gossamer wings, tights, and ballet skirts. They were shown flitting about the head of the young girl in the photographs, sitting on little twigs before her, and one of them was even offering her a tiny flower.

"They were taken," said Sir Arthur, "by two young girls in the North of England. These children had often seen the fairies in the wood near their home, and one day they took a camera along, with the results you see. How the photographs came into my hands is a long story, and you will find it in detail in my book. When I first saw the photographs, I was sceptical, so I took them to the Kodak Company and asked their opinion. They replied that the photographs could have been produced by fraud. This seemed inconclusive to me, so I took them to another prominent photo-