as H. I went round to my employer, found
him in the same dismantled kind of room, and was told to keep at it
until Wednesday, and then come again. On Wednesday it was still
unfinished, so I hammered away until Friday--that is, yesterday. Then I
brought it round to Mr. Harry Pinner.

"'Thank you very much,' said he. 'I fear that I underrated the
difficulty of the task. This list will be of very material assistance to
me.'

"'It took some time,' said I.

"'And now,' said he, 'I want you to make a list of the furniture shops,
for they all sell crockery.'

"'Very good.'

"'And you can come up to-morrow evening at seven, and let me know how
you are getting on. Don't overwork yourself. A couple of hours at Day's
Music-Hall in the evening would do you no harm after your labours.' He
laughed as he spoke, and I saw with a thrill that his second tooth upon
the left-hand side had been very badly stuffed with gold."

Sherlock Holmes rubbed his hands with delight, and I stared in
astonishment at our client.

"You may well look surprised, Dr. Watson, but it is this way," said he.
"When I was speaking to the other chap in London at the time that he
laughed at my not going to Mawson's, I happened to notice that his tooth
was stuffed in this very identical fashion. The glint of the gold in
each case caught my eye, you see. When I put that with the voice and
figure being the same, and only those things altered which might be
changed by a razor or a wig, I could not doubt that it was the same man.
Of course, you expect two brothers to be alike, but not that they should
have the same tooth stuffed in the same way. He bowed me out and I found
myself in the street, hardly knowing whether I was on my head or my
heels. Back I went to my hotel, put my head in a basin of cold water,
and tried to think it out. Why had he sent me from London to Birmingham;
why had he got there before me; and why had he written a letter from
himself to himself? It was altogether too much for me, and I could make
no sense of it. And then suddenly it struck me that what was dark to me
might be very light to Mr. Sherlock Holmes. I had just time to get up to
town by the night train, to see him this morning, and to bring you both
back with me to Birmingham."

There was a pause after the stockbroker's clerk had concluded his
surprising experience. Then Sherlock Holmes cocked his eye at me,
leaning back on the cushions with a pleased and yet critical face, like