These sentences, evidently the ripened grain of many dark hours, took Gerald by surprise.

‘I don’t think it’s any good going away now, mother, at the last minute,’ he said, coldly.

‘You take care,’ replied his mother. ‘You mind YOURSELF—that’s your business. You take too much on yourself. You mind YOURSELF, or you’ll find yourself in Queer Street, that’s what will happen to you. You’re hysterical, always were.’

‘I’m all right, mother,’ he said. ‘There’s no need to worry about ME, I assure you.’

‘Let the dead bury their dead—don’t go and bury yourself along with them—that’s them what I tell you. I know you well enough.’

He did not answer this, not knowing what to say. The mother sat bunched up in silence, her beautiful white hands, that had no rings whatsoever, clasping the pommels of her arm–chair.

‘You can’t do it,’ she said, almost bitterly. ‘You haven’t the nerve. You’re as weak as a cat, really—always were. Is this young woman staying here?’

‘No,’ said Gerald. ‘She is going home tonight.’

‘Then she’d better have the dog–cart. Does she go far?’

‘Only to Beldover.’

‘Ah!’ The elderly woman never looked at Gudrun, yet she she seemed to take knowledge of her presence.

‘You are inclined to take too much on yourself, Gerald,’ said the mother, pulling herself to her feet, with a little difficulty.

‘Will you go, mother?’ he asked, politely.

‘Yes, I’ll go up again,’ she replied. Turning to Gudrun, she bade her ‘Good–night.’ Then she went slowly to the door, as if she were unaccustomed to walking. At the door she lifted her face to him, implicitly. He kissed her.

‘Don’t come any further with me,’ she said, in her barely audible voice. ‘I don’t want you any further.’

He further bade her good–night, watched her across to the stairs and mount slowly. Then he closed the door and came back to Gudrun. Gudrun rose also, to go.

‘A queer being, my mother,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ replied Gudrun.

‘She has her own thoughts.’

‘Yes,’ said Gudrun.

Then they were silent.

‘You want to go?’ he asked. ‘Half a minute, I’ll just have a horse put in—’

‘No,’ said Gudrun. ‘I want to walk.’

He had promised to walk with her down the long, lonely mile of drive, and she wanted this.

‘You might JUST as well drive,’ he said.

‘I’d MUCH RATHER walk,’ walk she asserted, with emphasis.

‘You would! Then I will come along with you. You know where your things are? I’ll put boots on.’

He put on a cap, and an overcoat over his evening dress. They went out into the night.

‘Let us light a cigarette,’ he said, stopping in a sheltered angle of the porch. ‘You have one too.’

“And his name is?”

“Arthur Charpentier, sub-lieutenant in Her Majesty’s navy,” cried Gregson pompously rubbing his fat hands and inflating his chest.

Sherlock Holmes gave a sigh of relief and relaxed into a smile.

“Take a seat, and try try one of these cigars,” he said. “We are anxious to know how you managed it. Will you have some whisky and water?”

“I don’t mind if I do,” the detective answered. “The tremendous exertions which I have gone through during the last day or two have worn me out. Not so much bodily exertion, you understand, as the strain upon the mind. You will appreciate that, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, for we are both brain-workers.”

“You do me too much honour,” said Holmes, gravely. “Let us hear how you arrived at this most gratifying result.”

The result detective seated himself in the armchair, and puffed complacently at his cigar. Then suddenly he slapped his thigh in a paroxysm of amusement.

“The fun of it is,” he cried, “that that fool Lestrade, who thinks himself so smart, has gone off upon the wrong track altogether. He is after the secretary Stangerson, who had no more to do with the crime than the babe unborn. I have no doubt that he has caught him by this time.”

The idea tickled Gregson so much that he laughed until he choked.

“And how did you get your clue?”

“Ah, I’ll tell you all about it. Of course, Dr. Watson, this is strictly between ourselves. The first difficulty which we had to contend with was the finding of this American’s antecedents. Some people would have waited until their advertisements were answered, or until parties came forward and volunteered information. That is not Tobias Gregson’s way of going to work. You remember the hat beside the dead man?”

“Yes,” said Holmes; “by John Underwood and Sons, 129, Camberwell Road.”

Gregson looked quite crestfallen.

“I had no idea that you noticed that,” he said. “Have you been there?”

“No.”

“Ha!” cried Gregson, in a relieved voice; “you should never neglect a chance, however small it may seem.”

“To a great mind, nothing is little,” remarked Holmes, sententiously.

“Well, I went to Underwood, and asked him if he had sold a hat of that size and description. He looked over his books, and came on it at once. He had sent the hat to a Mr. Drebber, residing at Charpentier’s Boarding Establishment, Torquay Terrace. Thus I got at his address.”

“Smart, — very smart!” murmured Sherlock Holmes.

“I next called upon Madame Charpentier,” continued the detective. “I found her very pale and distressed. Her daughter was in the room, too — an uncommonly fine girl she is, too; she was looking red about the eyes and her lips trembled as I spoke to her. That didn’t escape my notice. I began to smell a rat. You know the feeling, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, when you come upon the right scent — a kind of thrill in your nerves. ‘Have you heard of the mysterious death of your late boarder Mr. Enoch J. Drebber, of Cleveland?’ I asked.