on the paper."

"Oh, what an ass I have been!" I exclaimed.

"I could see that you were commiserating with me over my weakness," said
Holmes, laughing. "I was sorry to cause you the sympathetic pain which I
know that you felt. We then went upstairs together, and having entered
the room and seen the dressing-gown hanging up behind the door, I
contrived by upsetting a table to engage their attention for the moment
and slipped back to examine the pockets. I had hardly got the paper,
however, which was, as I had expected, in one of them, when the two
Cunninghams were on me, and would, I verily believe, have murdered me
then and there but for your prompt and friendly aid. As it is, I feel
that young man's grip on my throat now, and the father has twisted my
wrist round in the effort to get the paper out of my hand. They saw that
I must know all about it, you see, and the sudden change from absolute
security to complete despair made them perfectly desperate.

"I had a little talk with old Cunningham afterwards as to the motive of
the crime. He was tractable enough, though his son was a perfect demon,
ready to blow out his own or anybody else's brains if he could have got
to his revolver. When Cunningham saw that the case against him was so
strong he lost all heart, and made a clean breast of everything. It
seems that William had secretly followed his two masters on the night
when they made their raid upon Mr. Acton's, and, having thus got them
into his power, proceeded under threats of exposure to levy blackmail
upon them. Mister Alec, however, was a dangerous man to play games of
that sort with. It was a stroke of positive genius on his part to see in
the burglary scare, which was convulsing the country side, an
opportunity of plausibly getting rid of the man whom he feared. William
was decoyed up and shot; and, had they only got the whole of the note,
and paid a little more attention to detail in their accessories, it is
very possible that suspicion might never have been aroused."

"And the note?" I asked.

Sherlock Holmes placed the subjoined paper before us:--

[Illustration]

"It is very much the sort of thing that I expected," said he. "Of
course, we do not yet know what the relations may have been between Alec
Cunningham, William Kirwan, and Annie Morrison. The result shows that
the trap was skilfully baited. I am sure that you cannot fail to be
delighted with the traces of heredity shown in the p's and in the t