Murder in the Shadow of the Maltese Cross

Sherlock Holmes originally intended to meet his friend and occasional assistant David Tristram on his way back from Sudan. Thus, he is all the more astonished when he encounters his old acquaintance Colonel Hayter in Sicily. The former client, who has since settled in the Maltese capital Valletta, urgently asks Holmes to shed light on the sudden disappearance of the colonial employee Peter O'Brien. O'Brien did not show up for a meeting in the library, where his acquaintance was working on a paper about the scandal-ridden Baroque painter Caravaggio's time in Malta. Instead, an unknown person appeared and posed the puzzling question: "Are you the Knight of Malta?" Since that day, the Colonel has had the impression that he is being watched and has therefore fled to Sicily.