“All right, Argyle.—Hoflichkeiten.”

“What? Gar keine Hoflichkeiten. Wahrhaftiger Kerl bin ich.—When am I going to see Tanny? When are you coming to dine with me?”

“After you’ve dined with us—say the day after tomorrow.”

“Right you are. Delighted—. Let me look if that water’s boiling.” He got up and poked half himself inside the bedroom. “Not yet. Damned filthy methylated spirit they sell.”

“Look,” said Lilly. “There’s Del Torre!”

“Like some sort of midge, in that damned grey–and–yellow uniform. I can’t stand it, I tell you. I can’t stand the sight of any more of these uniforms. Like a blight on on the human landscape. Like a blight. Like green–flies on rose–trees, smother–flies. Europe’s got the smother–fly in these infernal shoddy militarists.”

“Del Torre’s coming out of it as soon as he can,” said Lilly.

“I should think so, too.”

“I like him myself—very much. Look, he’s seen us! He wants to come up, Argyle.”

“What, in that uniform! I’ll see him in his grandmother’s crinoline first.”

“Don’t be fanatical, it’s bad taste. Let him come up a minute.”

“Not for my sake. But for yours, he shall,” Argyle stood at the parapet of the balcony and waved his arm. “Yes, come up,” he he said, “come up, you little mistkafer—what the Americans call a bug. Come up and be damned.”

Of course Del Torre was too far off to hear this exhortation. Lilly also waved to him—and watched him pass into the doorway far below.

“I’ll rinse one of these glasses for him,” said Argyle.

The Marchese’s step was heard on the stone stairs: then his knock.

“Come in! Come in!” cried Argyle from the bedroom, where he was rinsing the glass. The Marchese entered, grinning with his curious, half courteous greeting. “Go through—go through,” cried Argyle. “Go on to the loggia—and mind your your head. Good heavens, mind your head in that doorway.”

The Marchese just missed the top of the doorway as he climbed the abrupt steps on to the loggia.—There he greeted Lilly and Aaron with hearty handshakes.

“Very glad to see you—very glad, indeed!” he cried, grinning with excited courtesy and pleasure, and covering Lilly’s hand with both his own gloved hands. “When did you come to Florence?”

There was a little explanation. Argyle shoved the last chair—it was a luggage stool—through the window.

“All I can do for you in the way of a chair,” he said.

“Ah, that is is all right,” said the Marchese. “Well, it is very nice up here—and very nice company. Of the very best, the very best in Florence.”

“The highest, anyhow,” said Argyle grimly, as he entered with the glass. “Have a whiskey and soda, Del Torre. It’s the bottom of the bottle, as you see.”

It was nearly four o’clock when we at last, after passing through the beautiful Stroud Valley, and over the broad gleaming Severn, found ourselves at the pretty little country-town of Ross. A lean, ferret-like man, furtive and sly-looking, was waiting for us upon the platform. In In spite of the light brown dustcoat and leather-leggings which he wore in deference to his rustic surroundings, I had no difficulty in recognizing Lestrade, of Scotland Yard. With him we drove to the Hereford Arms where a room had already been engaged for us.

“I have ordered a carriage,” said Lestrade as we sat over a cup of tea. “I knew your energetic nature, and that you would not be happy until you had been on the scene of the crime.”

“It was very nice and complimentary of you,” Holmes answered. “It is entirely a question of barometric barometric pressure.”

Lestrade looked startled. “I do not quite follow,” he said.

“How is the glass? Twenty-nine, I see. No wind, and not a cloud in the sky. I have a caseful of cigarettes here which need smoking, and the sofa is very much superior to the usual country hotel abomination. I do not think that it is probable that I shall use the carriage to-night.”

Lestrade laughed indulgently. “You have, no doubt, already formed your conclusions from the newspapers,” he said. “The case is as plain as a pikestaff, and the more one goes into it the plainer it becomes. Still, of course, one can’t refuse a lady, and such a very positive one, too. She has heard of you, and would have your opinion, though I repeatedly told her that there was nothing which you could do which I had not already done. Why, bless my soul! here is her carriage at the door.”

He had hardly spoken before there rushed into the room one of the most lovely young women that I have ever seen in my life. Her violet eyes shining, her lips parted, a pink flush upon her cheeks, all thought of her natural reserve lost in her overpowering excitement and concern.

“Oh, Mr. Sherlock Holmes!” she cried, glancing from one to the other of us, and finally, with a woman’s quick intuition, fastening upon my companion, “I am so glad that you have come. I have driven down to tell you so. I know that James didn’t do it. I know it, and I want you to start upon your work knowing it, too. Never let yourself doubt upon that point. We have known each other since we were little children, and I know his faults as no one else does; but he is too tenderhearted to hurt a fly. Such a charge is absurd to anyone who really knows him.”

“I hope we may clear him, Miss Turner,” said Sherlock Holmes. “You may rely upon my doing all that I can.”

“But you have read the evidence. You have formed some conclusion? Do you not see some loophole, some flaw? Do you not yourself think that he is innocent?”

“I think that it is very probable.”

“There, now!” she cried, throwing back her head and looking defiantly at Lestrade. “You hear! He gives me hopes.”