the door of No. 16 was
ajar. He knocked, but received no answer. Perceiving a light in the
front room, he advanced into the passage and again knocked, but without
reply. He then pushed open the door and entered. The room was in a state
of wild disorder, the furniture being all swept to one side, and one
chair lying on its back in the centre. Beside this chair, and still
grasping one of its legs, lay the unfortunate tenant of the house. He
had been stabbed to the heart and must have died instantly. The knife
with which the crime had been committed was a curved Indian dagger,
plucked down from a trophy of Oriental arms which adorned one of the
walls. Robbery does not appear to have been the motive of the crime, for
there had been no attempt to remove the valuable contents of the room.
Mr. Eduardo Lucas was so well known and popular that his violent and
mysterious fate will arouse painful interest and intense sympathy in a
widespread circle of friends.

"Well, Watson, what do you make of this?" asked Holmes, after a long
pause.

"It is an amazing coincidence."

"A coincidence! Here is one of the three men whom we had named as
possible actors in this drama, and he meets a violent death during the
very hours when we know that that drama was being enacted. The odds are
enormous against its being coincidence. No figures could express them.
No, my dear Watson, the two events are connected--MUST be connected. It
is for us to find the connection."

"But now the official police must know all."

"Not at all. They know all they see at Godolphin Street. They know--and
shall know--nothing of Whitehall Terrace. Only WE know of both events,
and can trace the relation between them. There is one obvious point
which would, in any case, have turned my suspicions against Lucas.
Godolphin Street, Westminster, is only a few minutes' walk from
Whitehall Terrace. The other secret agents whom I have named live in
the extreme West End. It was easier, therefore, for Lucas than for the
others to establish a connection or receive a message from the
European Secretary's household--a small thing, and yet where events are
compressed into a few hours it may prove essential. Halloa! what have we
here?"

Mrs. Hudson had appeared with a lady's card upon her salver. Holmes
glanced at it, raised his eyebrows, and handed it over to me.

"Ask Lady Hilda Trelawney Hope if she will be kind enough to step up,"
said he.

A moment later our modest apartm