hear Mr. Kara speak?"

"I fancy I did, sir," said Fisher; "anyway the old gentleman was quite
pleased with himself."

"Why do you say 'old gentleman'!" asked T. X.; "he was not an old man."

"Not exactly, sir," said Fisher, "but he had a sort of fussy irritable
way that old gentlemen sometimes have and I somehow got it fixed in my
mind that he was old. As a matter of fact, he was about forty-five, he
may have been fifty."

"You have told me all this before. Was there anything peculiar about
him!"

Fisher hesitated.

"Nothing, sir, except the fact that one of his arms was a game one."

"Meaning that it was--"

"Meaning that it was an artificial one, sir, so far as I can make out."

"Was it his right or his left arm that was game!" interrupted T. X.

"His left arm, sir."

"You're sure?"

"I'd swear to it, sir."

"Very well, go on."

"He came downstairs and went out and I never saw him again. When you
came and the murder was discovered and knowing as I did that I had my
own scheme on and that one of your splits might pinch me, I got a bit
rattled. I went downstairs to the hall and the first thing I saw lying
on the table was a letter. It was addressed to me."

He paused and T. X. nodded.

"Go on," he said again.

"I couldn't understand how it came to be there, but as I'd been in the
kitchen most of the evening except when I was seeing my pal outside to
tell him the job was off for that night, it might have been there before
you came. I opened the letter. There were only a few words on it and I
can tell you those few words made my heart jump up into my mouth, and
made me go cold all over."

"What were they!" asked T. X.

"I shall not forget them, sir. They're sort of permanently fixed in my
brain," said the man earnestly; "the note started with just the figures
'A. C. 274.'"

"What was that!" asked T. X.

"My convict number when I was in Dartmoor Prison, sir."

"What did the note say?"

"'Get out of here quick'--I don't know who had put it there, but I'd
evidently been spotted and I was taking no chances. That's the whole
story from beginning to end. I accidentally happened to meet the young
lady, Miss Holland--Miss Bartholomew as she is--and followed her to her
house in Portman Place. That was the night you were there."

T. X. found himself to his intense annoyance going very red.

"And you know no more?" he asked.

"No more, sir--and if I may be struck dead--"

"Keep all that sabbath t