part muffled round——”

“That will do,” cried Holmes. “What became of him?”

“We’d enough to do without lookin’ after him,” the policeman said, in

an aggrieved voice. “I’ll wager he found his way home all right.”

“How was he dressed?”

“A brown overcoat.”

“Had he a whip in his hand?”

“A whip—no.”

“He must have left it behind,” muttered my companion. “You didn’t

happen to see or hear a cab after that?”

“No.”

“There’s a half-sovereign for you,” my companion said, standing up and

taking his hat. “I am afraid, Rance, that you will never rise in the

force. That head of yours should be for use as well as ornament. You

might have gained your sergeant’s stripes last night. The man whom you

held in your hands is the man who holds the clue of this mystery, and

whom we are seeking. There is no use of arguing about it now; I tell

you that it is so. Come along, Doctor.”

We started off for the cab together, leaving our informant incredulous,

but obviously uncomfortable.

“The blundering fool,” Holmes said, bitterly, as we drove back to our

lodgings. “Just to think of his having such an incomparable bit of good

luck, and not taking advantage of it.”

“I am rather in the dark still. It is true that the description of this

man tallies with your idea of the second party in this mystery. But why

should he come back to the house after leaving it? That is not the way

of criminals.”

“The ring, man, the ring: that was what he came back for. If we have no

other way of catching him, we can always bait our line with the ring. I

shall have him, Doctor—I’ll lay you two to one that I have him. I must

thank you for it all. I might not have gone but for you, and so have

missed the finest study I ever came across: a study in scarlet, eh? Why

shouldn’t we use a little art jargon. There’s the scarlet thread of

murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to

unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it. And now for

lunch, and then for Norman Neruda. Her attack and her bowing are

splendid. What’s that little thing of Chopin’s she plays so

magnificently: Tra-la-la-lira-lira-lay.”

Leaning back in the cab, this amateur bloodhound carolled away like a

lark while I meditated upon the many-sidedness of the human mind.