ery suddenly, thrusting his chair from him
with much violence.

"Do you recollect the matter of Soames leaving Palace Mansions?" he
snapped.

Sowerby's air of serio-comic defiance began to leave him. He scratched
his head reflectively.

"Soames got away like that because no one was expecting him to do it. In
the same way, neither Leroux, Exel, nor Dr. Cumberly knew that there was
any one else IN the flat at the very time when the murderer was making
his escape. The cases are identical. They were not looking for a
fugitive. He had gone before the search commenced. A clever man could
have slipped out in a hundred different ways unobserved. Sowerby, you
are..."

What Sowerby was, did not come to light at the moment; for, the door
quietly opened and in walked M. Gaston Max arrayed in his inimitable
traveling coat, and holding his hat of velour in his gloved hand. He
bowed politely.

"Good morning, gentlemen," he said.

"Good morning," said Dunbar and Sowerby together.

Sowerby hastened to place a chair for the distinguished visitor. M.
Max, thanking him with a bow, took his seat, and from an inside pocket
extracted a notebook.

"There are some little points," he said with a deprecating wave of the
hand, "which I should like to confirm." He opened the book, sought the
wanted page, and continued: "Do either of you know a person answering
to the following description: Height, about four feet eight-and-a-half
inches, medium build and carries himself with a nervous stoop. Has a
habit of rubbing his palms together when addressing anyone. Has plump
hands with rather tapering fingers, and a growth of reddish down upon
the backs thereof, indicating that he has red or reddish hair. His chin
recedes slightly and is pointed, with a slight cleft parallel with the
mouth and situated equidistant from the base of the chin and the lower
lip. A nervous mannerism of the latter periodically reveals the lower
teeth, one of which, that immediately below the left canine, is much
discolored. He is clean-shaven, but may at some time have worn whiskers.
His eyes are small and ferret-like, set very closely together and of
a ruddy brown color. His nose is wide at the bridge, but narrows to an
unusual point at the end. In profile it is irregular, or may have been
broken at some time. He has scanty eyebrows set very high, and a low
forehead with two faint, vertical wrinkles starting from the inner
points of the eyebrows. His natural complexio