o my grave with me, equal, if not worse, than the horrors of
Nannie Williams' death."

Questioned by the district attorney, Holmes met this fresh evidence by
evoking once again the mythical Edward Hatch and suggesting that Miss
Minnie Williams, in a "hellish wish for vengeance" because of Holmes'
fancied desertion, and in order to make it appear probable that he,
and not she, had murdered her sister, had prompted Hatch to commit the
horrid deed. Holmes asked to be allowed to go to Toronto that he might
collect any evidence which he could find there in his favour. The
district attorney refused his request; he had determined to try Holmes
in Philadelphia. "What more could, be said?" writes Holmes. Indeed,
under the circumstances, and in the unaccountable absence of Edward
Hatch and Minnie Williams, there was little more to be said.

Detective Geyer reopened his search in Indianapolis by obtaining a list
of advertisements of houses to let in the city in 1894. Nine hundred
of these were followed up in vain. He then turned his attention to the
small towns lying around Indianapolis with no happier result. Geyer
wrote in something of despair to his superiors: "By Monday we will
have searched every outlying town except Irvington. After Irvington, I
scarcely know where we shall go." Thither he went on August 27, exactly
two months from the day on which his quest had begun. As he entered the
town he noticed the advertisement of an estate agent. He called at
the office and found a "pleasant-faced old gentleman," who greeted him
amiably. Once again Geyer opened his now soiled and ragged packet of
photographs, and asked the gentleman if in October, 1894, he had let
a house to a man who said that he wanted one for a widowed sister. He
showed him the portrait of Holmes.

The old man put on his glasses and looked at the photograph for some
time. Yes, he said, he did remember that he had given the keys of
a cottage in October, 1894, to a man of Holmes' appearance, and he
recollected the man the more distinctly for the uncivil abruptness with
which he had asked for the keys; "I felt," he said, "he should have had
more respect for my grey hairs."

From the old gentleman's office Geyer hastened to the cottage, and
made at once for the cellar. There he could find no sign of recent
disturbance. But beneath the floor of a piazza adjoining the house he
found the remains of a trunk, answering to the description of that which
the Pitezel chi