Sherlock Holmes is bored because there are no puzzles for him to solve until a beautiful woman (who catches the eye of Watson) asks Holmes to track down the mysterious person who is sending her very expensive pearls every month. Said woman's father serviced in the East India Company, but disappeared upon his return to England. The mystery deepens as the pearls seem to be part of a much greater lost treasure.

I enjoyed this book more than the first one. The action doesn't break in the middle and Holmes has to make a bigger effort to catch the clever criminal. And again, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle let us know that justice is not black or white, but lies in a grey area.