e. That's why it is so puzzling."

"You forget. The wealth, beauty and social consequence of the present
victim has blinded you to the strong resemblance which her case bears to
one you know, in which the sufferer had none of the worldly advantages
of Miss Challoner. I allude to--"

"Wait! the washerwoman in Hicks Street! Sweetwater, what have you got up
your sleeve? You do mean that Brooklyn washerwoman, don't you?"

"The same. The Department may have forgotten it, but I haven't. Mr.
Gryce, there's a startling similarity in the two cases if you study the
essential features only. Startling, I assure you."

"Yes, you are right there. But what if there is? We were no more
successful in solving that case than we have been in solving this. Yet
you look and act like a hound which has struck a hot scent." The young
man smoothed his features with an embarrassed laugh.

"I shall never learn," said he, "not to give tongue till the hunt is
fairly started. If you will excuse me we'll first make sure of the
similarity I have mentioned. Then I'll explain myself. I have some notes
here, made at the time it was decided to drop the Hicks Street case as a
wholly inexplicable one. As you know, I never can bear to say 'die,'
and I sometimes keep such notes as a possible help in case any such
unfinished matter should come up again. Shall I read them?"

"Do. Twenty years ago it would not have been necessary. I should have
remembered every detail of an affair so puzzling. But my memory is no
longer entirely reliable. So fire away, my boy, though I hardly see your
purpose or what real bearing the affair in Hicks Street has upon the
Clermont one. A poor washerwoman and the wealthy Miss Challoner! True,
they were not unlike in their end."

"The connection will come later," smiled the young detective, with that
strange softening of his features which made one at times forget his
extreme plainness. "I'm sure you will not consider the time lost if
I ask you to consider the comparison I am about to make, if only as a
curiosity in criminal annals."

And he read:

"'On the afternoon of December Fourth, 1910, the strong and persistent
screaming of a young child in one of the rooms of a rear tenement in
Hicks Street, Brooklyn, drew the attention of some of the inmates and
led them, after several ineffectual efforts to gain an entrance, to
the breaking in of the door which had been fastened on the inside by an
old-fashioned door-button.

"'T