staring about him with sleepy bewilderment. Then suddenly realising the

exposure, he broke into a scream and threw himself down with his face to the

pillow.


“Great heavens!” cried the inspector, “it is, indeed, the

missing man. I know him from the photograph.”


The prisoner turned with the reckless air of a man who abandons himself to his

destiny. “Be it so,” said he. “And pray what am I charged

with?”


“With making away with Mr. Neville St.— Oh, come, you can’t

be charged with that unless they make a case of attempted suicide of it,”

said the inspector with a grin. “Well, I have been twenty-seven years in

the force, but this really takes the cake.”


“If I am Mr. Neville St. Clair, then it is obvious that no crime has been

committed, and that, therefore, I am illegally detained.”


“No crime, but a very great error has been committed,” said Holmes.

“You would have done better to have trusted your wife.”


“It was not the wife; it was the children,” groaned the prisoner.

“God help me, I would not have them ashamed of their father. My God! What

an exposure! What can I do?”


Sherlock Holmes sat down beside him on the couch and patted him kindly on the

shoulder.


“If you leave it to a court of law to clear the matter up,” said

he, “of course you can hardly avoid publicity. On the other hand, if you

convince the police authorities that there is no possible case against you, I

do not know that there is any reason that the details should find their way

into the papers. Inspector Bradstreet would, I am sure, make notes upon

anything which you might tell us and submit it to the proper authorities. The

case would then never go into court at all.”


“God bless you!” cried the prisoner passionately. “I would

have endured imprisonment, ay, even execution, rather than have left my

miserable secret as a family blot to my children.


“You are the first who have ever heard my story. My father was a