author - "Arthur Conan Doyle"

over her account. The last check but one paid her bill atLausanne, but it was a large one and probably left her with cashin hand. Only one check has been drawn since."

"To whom, and where?"

"To Miss Marie Devine. There is nothing to show where the checkwas drawn. It was cashed at the Credit Lyonnais at Montpellierless than three weeks ago. The sum was fifty pounds."

"And who is Miss Marie Devine?"

"That also I have been able to discover. Miss Marie Devine wasthe maid of Lady Frances Carfax. Why she should have paid herthis check we have not yet determined. I have no doubt, however,that your researches will soon clear the matter up."

"MY researches!"

"Hence the health-giving expedition to Lausanne. You know that Icannot possibly leave London while old Abrahams is in such mortalterror of his life. Besides, on general principles it is bestthat I should not leave the country. Scotland Yard feels lonelywithout me, and it causes an unhealthy excitement among thecriminal clas

windows, andI bought that something might be wrong. I am very glad I did so, sinceit has given me the chance of making the general's acquaintance."

Whilst I was talking, I was conscious that the new tenant of CloomberHall was peering at me very closely through the darkness. As Iconcluded, he stretched out a long, tremulous arm, and turned thegig-lamp in such a way as to throw a flood of light upon my face.

"Good Heavens, McNeil!" he cried, in the same quivering voice as before,"the fellow's as brown as chocolate. He's not an Englishman. You'renot an Englishman--you, sir?"

"I'm a Scotchman, born and bred," said I, with an inclination to laugh,which was only checked by my new acquaintance's obvious terror.

"A Scotchman, eh?" said he, with a sigh of relief. "It's all onenowadays. You must excuse me, Mr.--Mr. West. I'm nervous, infernallynervous. Come along, McNeil, we must be back in Wigtown in less than anhour. Good-night, gentlemen, good-night!"

The two clambered into their pl

oken his neck."

"Not I. He has only fainted. The better for him if he never came out of it again."

I felt a hand within my tunic.

"Matteo is right," said a voice. "His heart beats like a hammer. Let him lie and he will soon find his senses."

I waited for a minute or so and then I ventured to take a stealthy peep from between my lashes. At first I could see nothing, for I had been so long in darkness and it was but a dim light in which I found myself. Soon, however, I made out that a high and vaulted ceiling covered with painted gods and goddesses was arching over my head. This was no mean den of cut-throats into which I had been carried, but it must be the hall of some Venetian palace. Then, without movement, very slowly and stealthily I had a peep at the men who surrounded me. There was the gondolier, a swart, hard-faced, murderous ruffian, and beside him were three other men, one of them a little, twisted fellow with an air of authority and several keys in his hand, the other two

exactly as it stands, beginning at page three of theblood-soaked note-book:

"Nevertheless, when I dined at Rheims with Coselli and GustavRaymond I found that neither of them was aware of any particulardanger in the higher layers of the atmosphere. I did not actuallysay what was in my thoughts, but I got so near to it that if theyhad any corresponding idea they could not have failed to expressit. But then they are two empty, vainglorious fellows with nothought beyond seeing their silly names in the newspaper. It isinteresting to note that neither of them had ever been much beyondthe twenty-thousand-foot level. Of course, men have been higherthan this both in balloons and in the ascent of mountains. Itmust be well above that point that the aeroplane enters the dangerzone--always presuming that my premonitions are correct.

"Aeroplaning has been with us now for more than twenty years,and one might well ask: Why should this peril be only revealingitself in our day? The answer is obvious.

ient looked down with a rueful face at his own unconventional appearance.

"I'm sure it must look very bad, Mr. Holmes, and I am not aware that in my whole life such a thing has ever happened before. But will tell you the whole queer business, and when I have done so you will admit, I am sure, that there has been enough to excuse me."

But his narrative was nipped in the bud. There was a bustle outside, and Mrs. Hudson opened the door to usher in two robust and official-looking individuals, one of whom was well known to us as Inspector Gregson of Scotland Yard, an energetic, gallant, and, within his limitations, a capable officer. He shook hands with Holmes and introduced his comrade as Inspector Baynes, of the Surrey Constabulary.

"We are hunting together, Mr. Holmes, and our trail lay in this direction." He turned his bulldog eyes upon our visitor. "Are you Mr. John Scott Eccles, of Popham House, Lee?"

"I am."

"We have been following you about all the morning."

"You t

to tell him you're an American citizen. 'It's British law and order over here,' says he. By the way, mister, talking of Jack James, it seems to me you don't do much to cover your men."

"What do you mean?" Von Bork asked sharply.

"Well, you are their employer, ain't you? It's up to you to see that they don't fall down. But they do fall down, and when did you ever pick them up? There's James--"

"It was James's own fault. You know that yourself. He was too self-willed for the job."

"James was a bonehead--I give you that. Then there was Hollis."

"The man was mad."

"Well, he went a bit woozy towards the end. It's enough to make a man bug-house when he has to play a part from morning to night with a hundred guys all ready to set the coppers wise to him. But now there is Steiner--"

Von Bork started violently, and his ruddy face turned a shade paler.

"What about Steiner?"

"Well, they've got him, that's all. They raided his store last night, and he and his

n the others! Now, Count, you are a card-player. When the other fellow has all the trumps, it saves time to throw down your hand."

"What has all this talk to do with the jewel of which you spoke?"

"Gently, Count. Restrain that eager mind! Let me get to the points in my own humdrum fashion. I have all this against you; but, above all, I have a clear case against both you and your fighting bully in the case of the Crown diamond."

"Indeed!"

"I have the cabman who took you to Whitehall and the cabman who brought you away. I have the commissionaire who saw you near the case. I have Ikey Sanders, who refused to cut it up for you. Ikey has peached, and the game is up."

The veins stood out on the Count's forehead. His dark, hairy hands were clenched in a convulsion of restrained emotion. He tried to speak, but the words would not shape themselves.

"That's the hand I play from," said Holmes. "I put it all upon the table. But one card is missing. It's the king of diamonds. I do

his is very painful--very painful and terrible," said Mr. Scott Eccles in a querulous voice, "but it is really uncommonly hard on me. I had nothing to do with my host going off upon a nocturnal excursion and meeting so sad an end. How do I come to be mixed up with the case?"

"Very simply, sir," Inspector Baynes answered. "The only document found in the pocket of the deceased was a letter from you saying that you would be with him on the night of his death. It was the envelope of this letter which gave us the dead man's name and address. It was after nine this morning when we reached his house and found neither you nor anyone else inside it. I wired to Mr. Gregson to run you down in London while I examined Wisteria Lodge. Then I came into town, joined Mr. Gregson, and here we are."

"I think now," said Gregson, rising, "we had best put this matter into an official shape. You will come round with us to the station, Mr. Scott Eccles, and let us have your statement in writing."

"Certainly, I w

"That he desired to conceal his handwriting."

"But why? What can it matter to him that his landlady shouldhave a word of his writing? Still, it may be as you say. Then,again, why such laconic messages?"

"I cannot imagine."

"It opens a pleasing field for intelligent speculation. The wordsare written with a broad-pointed, violet-tinted pencil of a notunusual pattern. You will observe that the paper is torn away atthe side here after the printing was done, so that the 's' of'soap' is partly gone. Suggestive, Watson, is it not?"

"Of caution?"

"Exactly. There was evidently some mark, some thumbprint,something which might give a clue to the person's identity. Now.Mrs. Warren, you say that the man was of middle size, dark, andbearded. What age would he be?"

"Youngish, sir--not over thirty."

"Well, can you give me no further indications?"

"He spoke good English, sir, and yet I thought he was a foreignerby his accent."

"And he was well dressed?"

"Very smartly dressed,

rnold upon the glorious "Lays," where he calls out "is this poetry?" after quoting--

"And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds For the ashes of his fathers And the Temples of his Gods?"

In trying to show that Macaulay had not the poetic sense he was really showing that he himself had not the dramatic sense. The baldness of the idea and of the language had evidently offended him. But this is exactly where the true merit lies. Macaulay is giving the rough, blunt words with which a simple-minded soldier appeals to two comrades to help him in a deed of valour. Any high-flown sentiment would have been absolutely out of character. The lines are, I think, taken with their context, admirable ballad poetry, and have just the dramatic quality and sense which a ballad poet must have. That opinion of Arnold's shook my faith in his judgment, and yet I would forgive a good deal to the man who wrote--

"One more charge and then be dumb, When the forts of Folly fall, May the victors when they c