morning,
Hopkins. I don't see that I can be of any use to you, and you appear
to have your case very clear. You will let me know when Randall is
arrested, and any further developments which may occur. I trust that I
shall soon have to congratulate you upon a successful conclusion. Come,
Watson, I fancy that we may employ ourselves more profitably at home."

During our return journey, I could see by Holmes's face that he was much
puzzled by something which he had observed. Every now and then, by an
effort, he would throw off the impression, and talk as if the matter
were clear, but then his doubts would settle down upon him again, and
his knitted brows and abstracted eyes would show that his thoughts had
gone back once more to the great dining-room of the Abbey Grange, in
which this midnight tragedy had been enacted. At last, by a sudden
impulse, just as our train was crawling out of a suburban station, he
sprang on to the platform and pulled me out after him.

"Excuse me, my dear fellow," said he, as we watched the rear carriages
of our train disappearing round a curve, "I am sorry to make you the
victim of what may seem a mere whim, but on my life, Watson, I simply
CAN'T leave that case in this condition. Every instinct that I possess
cries out against it. It's wrong--it's all wrong--I'll swear that it's
wrong. And yet the lady's story was complete, the maid's corroboration
was sufficient, the detail was fairly exact. What have I to put up
against that? Three wine-glasses, that is all. But if I had not taken
things for granted, if I had examined everything with the care which
I should have shown had we approached the case DE NOVO and had no
cut-and-dried story to warp my mind, should I not then have found
something more definite to go upon? Of course I should. Sit down on this
bench, Watson, until a train for Chiselhurst arrives, and allow me to
lay the evidence before you, imploring you in the first instance to
dismiss from your mind the idea that anything which the maid or her
mistress may have said must necessarily be true. The lady's charming
personality must not be permitted to warp our judgment.

"Surely there are details in her story which, if we looked at in cold
blood, would excite our suspicion. These burglars made a considerable
haul at Sydenham a fortnight ago. Some account of them and of their
appearance was in the papers, and would naturally occur to anyone who
wished to invent a story in which imaginar