dead husband."

He sank with a deep groan on to the settee and buried his face in his
manacled hands. For five minutes he was silent. Then he raised his face
once more, and spoke with the cold composure of despair.

"I have nothing to hide from you, gentlemen," said he. "If I shot the
man he had his shot at me, and there's no murder in that. But if you
think I could have hurt that woman, then you don't know either me or
her. I tell you there was never a man in this world loved a woman more
than I loved her. I had a right to her. She was pledged to me years ago.
Who was this Englishman that he should come between us? I tell you that
I had the first right to her, and that I was only claiming my own."

"She broke away from your influence when she found the man that you
are," said Holmes, sternly. "She fled from America to avoid you, and she
married an honourable gentleman in England. You dogged her and followed
her and made her life a misery to her in order to induce her to abandon
the husband whom she loved and respected in order to fly with you, whom
she feared and hated. You have ended by bringing about the death of a
noble man and driving his wife to suicide. That is your record in this
business, Mr. Abe Slaney, and you will answer for it to the law."

"If Elsie dies I care nothing what becomes of me," said the American.
He opened one of his hands and looked at a note crumpled up in his palm.
"See here, mister," he cried, with a gleam of suspicion in his eyes,
"you're not trying to scare me over this, are you? If the lady is
hurt as bad as you say, who was it that wrote this note?" He tossed it
forwards on to the table.

"I wrote it to bring you here."

"You wrote it? There was no one on earth outside the Joint who knew the
secret of the dancing men. How came you to write it?"

"What one man can invent another can discover," said Holmes. There is
a cab coming to convey you to Norwich, Mr. Slaney. But, meanwhile, you
have time to make some small reparation for the injury you have wrought.
Are you aware that Mrs. Hilton Cubitt has herself lain under grave
suspicion of the murder of her husband, and that it was only my presence
here and the knowledge which I happened to possess which has saved her
from the accusation? The least that you owe her is to make it clear
to the whole world that she was in no way, directly or indirectly,
responsible for his tragic end."

"I ask nothing better," said the American. "I gues