I
could make myself known, and so I had to walk up. I was further
delayed by taking the wrong turning on the top and finding myself at
that charming spot in the neighbourhood where a sailor was murdered by
two ruffians a century or so ago.'

There was a note of warning in Doyle's voice when he said:--'Did that
incident teach you no lesson? Did you not realise that you are in a
dangerous locality?'

'And likely to fall in with two ruffians?' asked Holmes, slightly
elevating his eyebrows, while the same sweet smile hovered round his
thin lips. 'No; the remembrance of the incident encouraged me. It was
the man who had the money that was murdered. I brought no coin with
me, although I expect to bear many away.'

'Would you mind telling us, without further circumlocution, what
brings you here so late at night?'

Sherlock Holmes heaved a sigh, and mournfully shook his head very
slowly.

'After all the teaching I have bestowed upon you, Doyle, is it
possible that you cannot deduct even so simple a thing as that? Why am
I here? Because Sir George made a mistake about those bags. He was
quite right in taking one of them to 'Undershaw', but he should have
left the other at 221B, Baker Street. I call this little trip 'The
Adventure of the Second Swag'. Here is the second swag on the table.
The first swag you received long ago, and all I had for my share was
some honeyed words of compliment in the stories you wrote. Now, it is
truly said that soft words butter no parsnips, and, in this instance,
they do not even turn away wrath. So far as the second swag is
concerned, I have come to demand half of it.'

'I am not so poor at deduction as you seem to imagine,' said Doyle,
apparently nettled at the other's slighting reference to his powers.
'I was well aware, when you came in, what your errand was. I deduced
further that if you saw Sir George withdraw gold from the bank, you
also followed him to Waterloo station.'

'Quite right.'

'When he purchased his ticket for Haslemere, you did the same.'

'I did.'

'When you arrived at Haslemere, you sent a telegram to your friend, Dr
Watson, telling him of your whereabouts.'

'You are wrong there; I ran after the motor car.'

'You certainly sent a telegram from somewhere, to someone, or at least
dropped a note in the post-box. There are signs, which I need not
mention, that point irrevocably to such a conclusion.'

The doomed man, ruined by his own self-complacency, merely smi