The Adventure of the Retired Colourman

The Adventure of the Retired Colourman is a short detective story by Arthur Conan Doyle, first published in 1926, and part of the Sherlock Holmes canon. It is one of the 56 short stories Doyle wrote about Holmes, and it also appears in The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes. The story is built as a compact mystery, with the focus on clues, deductions, and the way Holmes pieces together what matters rather than on broad action.

It suits readers who enjoy classic detective fiction and short, concentrated cases. If you want a story that can be read in one sitting and that stays close to Doyle's familiar Holmes formula, this is a good fit. It should also appeal to anyone already comfortable with the Holmes stories and looking for another brief entry in the same style, where observation and reasoning carry the book more than spectacle.