tset,--and have the honor to remain your
obedient servant,

Matthew Sharpin.

FROM CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE TO MR. MATTHEW SHARPIN.

London, 5th July, 18--.

Sir,

You have begun by wasting time, ink, and paper. We both of us perfectly
well knew the position we stood in towards each other, when I sent you
with my letter to Sergeant Bulmer. There was not the least need to
repeat it in writing. Be so good as to employ your pen, in future, on
the business actually in hand. You have now three separate matters
on which to write me. First, you have to draw up a statement of your
instructions received from Sergeant Bulmer, in order to show us that
nothing has escaped your memory, and that you are thoroughly acquainted
with all the circumstances of the case which has been entrusted to you.
Secondly, you are to inform me what it is you propose to do. Thirdly,
you are to report every inch of your progress, (if you make any,) from
day to day, and, if need be, from hour to hour as well. This is your
duty. As to what _my_ duty may be, when I want you to remind me of it, I
will write and tell you _so_. In the mean time I remain yours,

Francis Theakstone.

FROM MR. MATTHEW SHARPIN TO CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE.

London, 6th July, 18--.

Sir,

You are rather an elderly person, and, as such, naturally inclined to be
a little jealous of men like me, who are in the prime of their lives
and their faculties. Under these circumstances, it is my duty to be
considerate towards you, and not to bear too hardly on your small
failings. I decline, therefore, altogether, to take offence at the tone
of your letter; I give you the full benefit of the natural generosity of
my nature; I sponge the very existence of your surly communication out
of my memory; in short, Chief Inspector Theakstone, I forgive you, and
proceed to business.

My first duty is to draw up a full statement of the instructions I have
received from Sergeant Bulmer. Here they are at your service, according
to my version of them.

At Number Thirteen, Rutherford Street, Soho, there is a stationer's
shop. It is kept by one Mr. Yatman. He is a married man, but has no
family. Besides Mr. and Mrs. Yatman, the other inmates of the house are
a lodger, a young single man named Jay, who occupies the front room on
the second floor,--a shopman, who sleeps in one of the attics,--and a
servant-of-all-work, whose bed is in the back-kitchen. Once a week a
charwoman comes to h