or at all other points, but that one bookcase was
left clear. This, then, might be the door. I could see no marks to guide
me, but the carpet was of a dun colour, which lends itself very well
to examination. I therefore smoked a great number of those excellent
cigarettes, and I dropped the ash all over the space in front of the
suspected bookcase. It was a simple trick, but exceedingly effective.
I then went downstairs, and I ascertained, in your presence, Watson,
without your perceiving the drift of my remarks, that Professor Coram's
consumption of food had increased--as one would expect when he is
supplying a second person. We then ascended to the room again, when,
by upsetting the cigarette-box, I obtained a very excellent view of
the floor, and was able to see quite clearly, from the traces upon the
cigarette ash, that the prisoner had in our absence come out from her
retreat. Well, Hopkins, here we are at Charing Cross, and I congratulate
you on having brought your case to a successful conclusion. You are
going to headquarters, no doubt. I think, Watson, you and I will drive
together to the Russian Embassy."

THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING THREE-QUARTER

We were fairly accustomed to receive weird telegrams at Baker Street,
but I have a particular recollection of one which reached us on a gloomy
February morning, some seven or eight years ago, and gave Mr. Sherlock
Holmes a puzzled quarter of an hour. It was addressed to him, and ran
thus:

Please await me. Terrible misfortune. Right wing three-quarter missing,
indispensable to-morrow. OVERTON.

"Strand postmark, and dispatched ten thirty-six," said Holmes, reading
it over and over. "Mr. Overton was evidently considerably excited when
he sent it, and somewhat incoherent in consequence. Well, well, he will
be here, I daresay, by the time I have looked through the TIMES, and
then we shall know all about it. Even the most insignificant problem
would be welcome in these stagnant days."

Things had indeed been very slow with us, and I had learned to dread
such periods of inaction, for I knew by experience that my companion's
brain was so abnormally active that it was dangerous to leave it without
material upon which to work. For years I had gradually weaned him
from that drug mania which had threatened once to check his remarkable
career. Now I knew that under ordinary conditions he no longer craved
for this artificial stimulus, but I was well aware that t