shall drive as far as
Church Row. It is a quarter of an hour's walk from there to Appledore
Towers. We shall be at work before midnight. Milverton is a heavy
sleeper, and retires punctually at ten-thirty. With any luck we should
be back here by two, with the Lady Eva's letters in my pocket."

Holmes and I put on our dress-clothes, so that we might appear to be two
theatre-goers homeward bound. In Oxford Street we picked up a hansom and
drove to an address in Hampstead. Here we paid off our cab, and with our
great coats buttoned up, for it was bitterly cold, and the wind seemed
to blow through us, we walked along the edge of the heath.

"It's a business that needs delicate treatment," said Holmes. "These
documents are contained in a safe in the fellow's study, and the study
is the ante-room of his bed-chamber. On the other hand, like all these
stout, little men who do themselves well, he is a plethoric sleeper.
Agatha--that's my fiancee--says it is a joke in the servants' hall that
it's impossible to wake the master. He has a secretary who is devoted
to his interests, and never budges from the study all day. That's why we
are going at night. Then he has a beast of a dog which roams the garden.
I met Agatha late the last two evenings, and she locks the brute up so
as to give me a clear run. This is the house, this big one in its own
grounds. Through the gate--now to the right among the laurels. We might
put on our masks here, I think. You see, there is not a glimmer of light
in any of the windows, and everything is working splendidly."

With our black silk face-coverings, which turned us into two of the most
truculent figures in London, we stole up to the silent, gloomy house.
A sort of tiled veranda extended along one side of it, lined by several
windows and two doors.

"That's his bedroom," Holmes whispered. "This door opens straight into
the study. It would suit us best, but it is bolted as well as locked,
and we should make too much noise getting in. Come round here. There's a
greenhouse which opens into the drawing-room."

The place was locked, but Holmes removed a circle of glass and turned
the key from the inside. An instant afterwards he had closed the door
behind us, and we had become felons in the eyes of the law. The thick,
warm air of the conservatory and the rich, choking fragrance of exotic
plants took us by the throat. He seized my hand in the darkness and led
me swiftly past banks of shrubs which brush