himself that they were in good working order in spite of
being hidden. It was the first occasion on which Joe had worn a glove.

"It was found in the room in which Sir Horace Fewbanks was murdered,"
continued Crewe. "The other one was not there. The question I want to
solve is, did it belong to Sir Horace, or to some one who visited him on
the night he was murdered? The police think it belonged to Sir Horace
because it is the same size as the gloves he wore, and because Sir
Horace's hosier stocks the same kind--as does nearly every fashionable
hosier in London. They think he lost the right-hand glove on his way up
from Scotland. It will occur to you, Joe, though you don't wear gloves,
that it is more common for men to lose the right-hand glove than the
left-hand, because the right hand is used a great deal more than the
left, and even men who would not be seen in the street without gloves
find there are many things they cannot do with a gloved hand. For
instance, to dive one's hand into one's trouser pocket where most men
keep their loose change the glove has to be removed."

"Then the gentleman would take off his right glove when he paid for his
taxi-cab from St. Pancras," said Joe, who was familiar through the
accounts in the newspapers with the main details of the Fewbanks mystery.

"Right, Joe," said his master approvingly. "And in that case he dropped
the glove between the taxi-cab outside his front gates and his room, and
it would have been found. I have made inquiries and I am satisfied it was
not found."

"He might have lost it when he was getting into the train at Scotland,"
suggested the lad. "He had to change trains at Glasgow--he might have
lost it there."

"That is a rule-of-thumb deduction," said Crewe, with a kindly smile. "It
is good enough for the police, for they have apparently adopted it, but
it is not good enough for me. What you don't understand, Joe, is that an
odd glove is of no value in the eyes of a man who wears gloves. He
doesn't take it home as a memento of his carelessness in losing the
other. He throws it away. Therefore if this is Sir Horace's glove he took
it home because he was unaware that he had lost the other. He would put
on his gloves before leaving the train at St. Pancras. And he would pull
off the right-hand one--he was not left-handed--when the taxi-cab was
nearing his home so as to be able to pay the fare. Therefore, if it is
Sir Horace's glove the fellow to it was dropped