murder.
Now, you see how the affair begins to clear up. The other fellow is
probably an Italian also, and a member of the Mafia. He has broken
the rules in some fashion. Pietro is set upon his track. Probably the
photograph we found in his pocket is the man himself, so that he may not
knife the wrong person. He dogs the fellow, he sees him enter a house,
he waits outside for him, and in the scuffle he receives his own
death-wound. How is that, Mr. Sherlock Holmes?"

Holmes clapped his hands approvingly.

"Excellent, Lestrade, excellent!" he cried. "But I didn't quite follow
your explanation of the destruction of the busts."

"The busts! You never can get those busts out of your head. After all,
that is nothing; petty larceny, six months at the most. It is the murder
that we are really investigating, and I tell you that I am gathering all
the threads into my hands."

"And the next stage?"

"Is a very simple one. I shall go down with Hill to the Italian Quarter,
find the man whose photograph we have got, and arrest him on the charge
of murder. Will you come with us?"

"I think not. I fancy we can attain our end in a simpler way. I can't
say for certain, because it all depends--well, it all depends upon
a factor which is completely outside our control. But I have great
hopes--in fact, the betting is exactly two to one--that if you will come
with us to-night I shall be able to help you to lay him by the heels."

"In the Italian Quarter?"

"No, I fancy Chiswick is an address which is more likely to find him. If
you will come with me to Chiswick to-night, Lestrade, I'll promise to go
to the Italian Quarter with you to-morrow, and no harm will be done by
the delay. And now I think that a few hours' sleep would do us all good,
for I do not propose to leave before eleven o'clock, and it is unlikely
that we shall be back before morning. You'll dine with us, Lestrade, and
then you are welcome to the sofa until it is time for us to start. In
the meantime, Watson, I should be glad if you would ring for an express
messenger, for I have a letter to send and it is important that it
should go at once."

Holmes spent the evening in rummaging among the files of the old daily
papers with which one of our lumber-rooms was packed. When at last
he descended, it was with triumph in his eyes, but he said nothing to
either of us as to the result of his researches. For my own part, I had
followed step by step the methods by which he h