When we think of a detective, we think first of Sherlock Holmes. Even now, a hundred years after the first story (By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) about him, he is still the greatest detective of all. Tourists still go to Baker Street, in London, to see the place where he had his flat. There are films about him - we all know what he looked like, we all know what kind of clothes he wore.

And yet he never existed. The stories about him are just stories. So, why do we remember him?

It’s because he loves catching criminals. Sherlock Holmes chases the criminal as a hunter chases a fox. He is a bloodhound, a police dog, with his nose to the ground – following the criminal to the end of the world. The criminal may try to hide – but when Sherlock Holmes has started the case, we know that he will finish it with a “kill”.