not been for the
sake of robbery, what had been its object?

The interest of the case was emphasised and enlarged by an article in
'The Daily Telegraph,' in which was called to mind the singular story in
its Paris correspondence a day or two before, of the young woman in the
Hotel-Dieu, which Lefevre had forgotten. The writer remarked on the
points of similarity which the case in the Brighton train bore to that
of the Paris pavement; insisted on the probable identity of the man in
the fur coat with the man in the cloak; and appealed to Dr Lefevre to
explain the mystery, and to the police to find the man "who has alarmed
the civilised world by a new form of outrage."

Lefevre was piqued by that article, and he went to see his patient day
after day, in the constant hope of finding a solution of the puzzle that
perplexed him. The direction in which he looked for light will be best
suggested by remarking what were his peculiar theory and practice.
Lefevre was not a materialistic physician; indeed, in the opinion of
many of his brethren, he erred on the other side, and was too much
inclined to mysticism. It may at least be said that he had an open mind,
and a modest estimate of the discoveries of modern medical science. He
had perceived while still a young man (he was now about forty) that all
medical practice--as distinct from surgical--is inexact and empirical,
that, like English common law, it is based merely on custom, and a
narrow range of experience; and he had therefore argued that a wider
experience and research, especially among decaying nations, might lead
to the discovery of a guiding principle in pathology. That conviction
had taken him as medical officer to Egypt and India, where, amid the
relics of civilisations half as old as time, he found traditions of a
great scientific practice; and thence it had brought him back to study
such foreign medical writers as Du Bois-Reymond, Nobili, Matteucci, and
Mueller, and to observe the method of the famous physicians of the
Salpetriere. Like the great Charbon, he made nervous and hysterical
disorders his specialty, in the treatment of which he was much given to
the use of electricity. He had very pronounced "views," though he seldom
troubled his brethren with them; for he was not of those who can hold a
belief firmly only if it is also held by others.

More than a week had passed without discovery or promise of light, when
one afternoon he went to the hospital resolved