In the days before Watson’s marriage, while he still lives with Holmes, a new case presents itself in the form of a letter from Lord St. Simon. The nobleman requests Holmes’s help in solving a delicate matter. When he arrives shortly after, he is described by Watson as a gentleman with “a pleasant, cultured face, high-nosed and pale, with something perhaps of petulance about the mouth, and with the steady, well-opened eye of a man whose pleasant lot it had ever been to command and to be obeyed.” (194). He behaves somewhat condescendingly to Holmes before learning that the detective has helped royalty in the past. St. Simon is newly married to Hatty Doran, a young American heiress, whose father made his fortune from gold mining late in life. Right after the marriage, however, the woman disappeared and is believed to have been killed by St. Simon’s former lover.

Holmes quickly deduces the truth, locates the missing bride, and arranges a meeting between the aristocrat and the young woman. It turns out that several years ago Hatty secretly married a miner, but soon after was told he was killed by Native Americans. Years later, to make her father happy, she agrees to marry an English aristocrat.