ched. No, Myatt was not alone!"

"No, I fear not," replied the clergyman. "I fear not: there is horrible
mystery still. The watching and besetting that terrified him so much;
the fact that he seems to have yielded up his life without a
struggle--and that with help so near; and the connection--what could it
have been?--between Mason and the other victim--Denson. That is a deep
mystery indeed! And that horrible sign! Mr. Hewitt, you have done
much--but not all!"

"No," replied Martin Hewitt, "not nearly all. It is even doubtful
whether or not it will be my lot to come across the thing again; but it
will be in the hands of the police. And, after all, we have achieved
something. For we know that if Myatt can be captured we shall be at the
heart of the mystery."

THE CASE OF THE LEVER KEY

I

In some of the cases which we now know to have been connected with the
Red Triangle, there was nothing, in the first place, to show any such
association. In some of these cases the connection has become apparent
only since the final clearing up of the whole mystery, and with these
cases we have no present concern; but in others it revealed itself
during the investigation of the case. It was to this second category
that the next case belonged--the next at all connectible, that is, after
that of the mysterious death of Mr. Jacob Mason and the flight of
Everard Myatt.

The case was remarkable in other respects also; first, because in one of
its features it had a resemblance to the case of Samuel's diamonds,
which first brought the Red Triangle to Hewitt's notice; next, because
in its course Hewitt encountered what he declared to be the most
ingenious and baffling cryptogram that he had ever seen in the length of
his strange experience; and thirdly, because I was the means of placing
that cryptogram in his hands, owing to one of those odd chances that
arise again and again in real life--are, indeed, so common as to pass
almost unregarded--and yet might be thought improbable if offered in the
guise of a mere story. Hewitt has often alluded to the curious
persistence of such chances in his experience. I think I have elsewhere
mentioned a certain police officer's prolonged search after a criminal
for whose arrest he held a warrant, ending in the discovery--because of
a misdirected call--that the man had been living all the time next door
to himself; and I have also told of the other detective inspector, who,
being sent in