gham which he had
twice entered. That flabbergasted him. He said that he couldn't answer
those questions without bringing other parties into the matter, to which
I answered that it was just those other parties that I meant to know
about, if I were to move a step in the matter. At this he got into a sad
state--imploring, actually imploring, me not to desert him. He said he
should do something desperate--something terrible--that night if I
didn't relieve his mind, and undertake the case. What he meant he'd do
I didn't know, of course, but it didn't move me. I said finally that I
would deal only with principals, and that until I had the personal
instructions of the actual owner of the diamonds, in addition to a
complete explanation of the brougham incident, I should do nothing, and
I recommended him to go to the police; and with that I left him."

"And you got nothing more from him than that?"

"Nothing more; but it was something, you see. He admitted, to all
intents, that the diamonds were not his own. And now see here. I suppose
I left him about ten o'clock. Here is a paragraph in one of this
morning's newspapers. It is only in the one paper; the matter seems to
have occurred rather late for press."

Hewitt gave me the paper in his hand, pointing to the following
paragraph:

/#
"HORRIBLE DISCOVERY.--A shocking discovery was made just before
midnight last night, near the York column, where a police-constable
found the dead body of a man lying on the stone steps. The body,
which was fully clothed in the ordinary dress of a labouring man,
bore plain marks of strangulation, and it was evident that a brutal
murder had been committed. A singular circumstance was the presence
of a curious reddish mark upon the forehead, at first taken for a
wound, but soon discovered to be a mark apparently drawn or
impressed on the skin. At the time of going to press, no arrest had
been made, and so far the affair appears a mystery."
#/

"Well," I said, "this certainly seems curious, especially in the matter
of the mark on the forehead. But what has it all to do----"

"To do with Samuel and his diamonds, you mean? I'll tell you. _That dead
man is Denson!_"

"Denson?" I exclaimed. "Denson? How?"

"I get it from the housekeeper next door. It seems that when the police
came to examine the body they found, among other things--money and a
watch, and the like--a piece of an addressed envel