Although the story is presented as having been written by Dr. John Watson, unusually for a Sherlock Holmes story, the main narrator of "The Musgrave Ritual" is not Dr. Watson but Holmes himself. The story begins with Dr. Watson complaining about the untidy habits of his housemate Sherlock Holmes and asking Holmes to do some tidying up. Holmes returns from his bedroom with a large metal box, ostensibly to put some papers related to his past cases in it. The box contains documents relating to Holmes' early cases from the time before he met Watson. Inside the large metal box, Holmes finds a smaller wooden box which contains a piece of paper, an old key, a wooden peg attached to some string and some old rusty coins. Holmes explains that those objects are the only reminders he has of the Case o