The Sign of the Four

t of a

ight, eager, and in excellent spirits,-a mood which in

taking the cup of tea which I had poured out for him.

have solved

suggestive. The details are still to be added. I have just found, on consulting the back files of the Times

Holmes, but I fail to s

HIN A WEEK OF HIS DEATH Captain Morstan's daughter receives a valuable present, which is repeated from year to year, and now culminates in a letter which describes her as a wronged woman. What wrong can it refer to except this deprivation

than six years ago? Again, the letter speaks of giving her justice. What justice can she have? It is too

But our expedition of to-night will solve them all. Ah, here is a four-wheeler, and Miss Morst

took his revolver from his drawer and slipped it into his pocket. It

than woman if she did not feel some uneasiness at the strange enterprise upon which we were embarking, yet her

he troops at the Andaman Islands, so they were thrown a great deal together. By the way, a curious paper was found in papa's desk which no one coul

ed it out upon his knee. He then very methodic

red ink, and above it is '3.37 from left,' in faded pencil-writing. In the left-hand corner is a curious hieroglyphic like four crosses in a line with their arms touching. Beside it is written, in very rough and coarse characters, 'The sign of the four,-J

pocket-book tha

at first supposed. I must reconsider my ideas." He leaned back in the cab, and I could see by his drawn brow and his vacant eye that he was thinking intently. Miss Morst

, vaporous air, and threw a murky, shifting radiance across the crowded thoroughfare. There was, to my mind, something eerie and ghost-like in the endless procession of faces which flitted across these narrow bars of light,-sad faces and glad, haggard and merry. Like all human kind, they flitted from the gloom into the light, and so back into the gloom once more. I am not subject to impressions,

-wheelers were rattling up, discharging their cargoes of shirt-fronted men and beshawled, bediamonded women. We had hardly

s who come with Mis

these two gentlemen ar

ill excuse me, miss," he said with a certain dogged manner, "but I was to ask

word on that,

an who had addressed us mounted to the box, while we took our places inside. We had hardly done so be

iniscences of my adventures in Afghanistan; but, to tell the truth, I was myself so excited at our situation and so curious as to our destination that my stories were slightly involved. To this day she declares that I told her one moving anecdote as to how a musket looked into my tent at the dead of night, and how I fired a double-barrelled tiger cub at it. At first I

xhall Bridge Road. We are making for the Surrey side, apparently. Yes, I

e lamps shining upon the broad, silent water; but our cab dashed on,

Lane. Stockwell Place. Robert Street. Cold Harbor Lane. Our

f new staring brick buildings,-the monster tentacles which the giant city was throwing out into the country. At last the cab drew up at the third house in a new terrace. None of the other houses were inhabited, and that at which we stopped was as dark as its neighbors, save for a single glimmer in the kitc

came a high piping voice from some inner room. "Show them in