at mankind through the bars of his civilisation, like untamed beasts in a cage.

As evening drew in, the storm grew higher and louder, and the wind cried and

sobbed like a child in the chimney. Sherlock Holmes sat moodily at one side of

the fireplace cross-indexing his records of crime, while I at the other was

deep in one of Clark Russell’s fine sea-stories until the howl of the

gale from without seemed to blend with the text, and the splash of the rain to

lengthen out into the long swash of the sea waves. My wife was on a visit to

her mother’s, and for a few days I was a dweller once more in my old

quarters at Baker Street.


“Why,” said I, glancing up at my companion, “that was surely

the bell. Who could come to-night? Some friend of yours, perhaps?”


“Except yourself I have none,” he answered. “I do not

encourage visitors.”


“A client, then?”


“If so, it is a serious case. Nothing less would bring a man out on such

a day and at such an hour. But I take it that it is more likely to be some

crony of the landlady’s.”


Sherlock Holmes was wrong in his conjecture, however, for there came a step in

the passage and a tapping at the door. He stretched out his long arm to turn

the lamp away from himself and towards the vacant chair upon which a newcomer

must sit.


“Come in!” said he.


The man who entered was young, some two-and-twenty at the outside, well-groomed

and trimly clad, with something of refinement and delicacy in his bearing. The

streaming umbrella which he held in his hand, and his long shining waterproof

told of the fierce weather through which he had come. He looked about him

anxiously in the glare of the lamp, and I could see that his face was pale and

his eyes heavy, like those of a man who is weighed down with some great

anxiety.


“I owe you an apology,” he said, raising his golden pince-nez to

his eyes. “I trust that I am not intruding. I fear that I have brought