I took a cigarette in the old lady's
room on the occasion of my first visit. I told them so.

"You cannot swear to it?" asked the old Don.

"No," I answered, "I cannot swear to it; it may be the case, and it may
not."

"Now, Inspector," he said, turning to the police officer, "kindly show
Mr. Anstruther _that_."

He pointed to a bundle lying on the table, the last of the articles,
and the inspector took it up, and slowly unfolded it. _It was a lady's
quilted white silk dressing-gown, and the whole of the bosom of it was
deeply stained with what was evidently dried blood._

I turned in triumph to the police officer.

"_That_ is the dressing-gown worn by the old lady the last time I saw
her lying bleeding on her bed in the basement of 190 Monmouth Street.
I told you of it at the time, and you would not believe it."

Don Juan appeared exceedingly interested at this exhibit, and leant
over it with his gold pince-nez held to his eyes.

"Ah!" he remarked at last, removing his glasses with a sigh, "then I
suppose that is all you have to show Mr. Anstruther, Inspector?"

The inspector gathered up the articles ceremoniously before he answered.

"That is all we 'ave to exhibit to Mr. Anstruther _at present_," he
said.

Mr. Bull was not going to commit himself.

From Cruft's Folly we went straight to 190 Monmouth Street, and there
we found the sergeant's wife in her Sunday clothes to do honour to the
occasion; the baby as usual dangled easily from her arm.

Descending to the basement, I was astonished to find a well-known
gentleman waiting us in the room with so many sad remembrances for me.

This gentleman was a Mr. Fowler, and I knew him to be one of the Crown
solicitors. His presence there, however, was accounted for when Don
Juan asked me for the key of the steel safe, which I still had in my
possession.

Under the circumstances I felt fully justified in giving it to him.

"Now, Anstruther," he said cheerfully, "I will get you to show me and
Mr. Fowler the secret of the panel."

The broken glass had been already cleared from the frame over the
mantelpiece; therefore, as soon as I touched the carved rose on the
left-hand side, the framework moved up. I touched the spring beneath
and the door in the wall flew open; there within was the steel safe,
exactly as I had seen it last, Don Juan turned to me with a look of
solicitude.

"Don't feel offended, Anstruther," he began, "at what I was going to
say, b