a minute or two. Then I seized the
poker and went downstairs. When I entered this room I found the window
wide open, and I at once observed that the bust was gone from the
mantelpiece. Why any burglar should take such a thing passes my
understanding, for it was only a plaster cast and of no real value
whatever.

"You can see for yourself that anyone going out through that open window
could reach the front doorstep by taking a long stride. This was clearly
what the burglar had done, so I went round and opened the door. Stepping
out into the dark I nearly fell over a dead man who was lying there. I
ran back for a light, and there was the poor fellow, a great gash in his
throat and the whole place swimming in blood. He lay on his back, his
knees drawn up, and his mouth horribly open. I shall see him in my
dreams. I had just time to blow on my police-whistle, and then I must
have fainted, for I knew nothing more until I found the policeman
standing over me in the hall."

"Well, who was the murdered man?" asked Holmes.

"There's nothing to show who he was," said Lestrade. "You shall see the
body at the mortuary, but we have made nothing of it up to now. He is a
tall man, sunburned, very powerful, not more than thirty. He is poorly
dressed, and yet does not appear to be a labourer. A horn-handled clasp
knife was lying in a pool of blood beside him. Whether it was the weapon
which did the deed, or whether it belonged to the dead man, I do not
know. There was no name on his clothing, and nothing in his pockets save
an apple, some string, a shilling map of London, and a photograph. Here
it is."

It was evidently taken by a snap-shot from a small camera. It
represented an alert, sharp-featured simian man with thick eyebrows, and
a very peculiar projection of the lower part of the face like the muzzle
of a baboon.

"And what became of the bust?" asked Holmes, after a careful study of
this picture.

"We had news of it just before you came. It has been found in the front
garden of an empty house in Campden House Road. It was broken into
fragments. I am going round now to see it. Will you come?"

"Certainly. I must just take one look round." He examined the carpet and
the window. "The fellow had either very long legs or was a most active
man," said he. "With an area beneath, it was no mean feat to reach
that window-ledge and open that window. Getting back was comparatively
simple. Are you coming with us to see the remains of