ered," said he.

"I cannot see how such a message as this could inspire horror. It seems
to me to be rather grotesque than otherwise."

"Very likely. Yet the fact remains that the reader, who was a fine,
robust old man, was knocked clean down by it as if it had been the butt
end of a pistol."

"You arouse my curiosity," said I. "But why did you say just now that
there were very particular reasons why I should study this case?"

"Because it was the first in which I was ever engaged."

I had often endeavored to elicit from my companion what had first turned
his mind in the direction of criminal research, but had never caught him
before in a communicative humor. Now he sat forward in this arm-chair
and spread out the documents upon his knees. Then he lit his pipe and
sat for some time smoking and turning them over.

"You never heard me talk of Victor Trevor?" he asked. "He was the only
friend I made during the two years I was at college. I was never a very
sociable fellow, Watson, always rather fond of moping in my rooms and
working out my own little methods of thought, so that I never mixed
much with the men of my year. Bar fencing and boxing I had few athletic
tastes, and then my line of study was quite distinct from that of the
other fellows, so that we had no points of contact at all. Trevor was
the only man I knew, and that only through the accident of his bull
terrier freezing on to my ankle one morning as I went down to chapel.

"It was a prosaic way of forming a friendship, but it was effective.
I was laid by the heels for ten days, but Trevor used to come in to
inquire after me. At first it was only a minute's chat, but soon his
visits lengthened, and before the end of the term we were close friends.
He was a hearty, full-blooded fellow, full of spirits and energy,
the very opposite to me in most respects, but we had some subjects
in common, and it was a bond of union when I found that he was as
friendless as I. Finally, he invited me down to his father's place at
Donnithorpe, in Norfolk, and I accepted his hospitality for a month of
the long vacation.

"Old Trevor was evidently a man of some wealth and consideration, a
J.P., and a landed proprietor. Donnithorpe is a little hamlet just to
the north of Langmere, in the country of the Broads. The house was
an old-fashioned, wide-spread, oak-beamed brick building, with a fine
lime-lined avenue leading up to it. There was excellent wild-duck
shooting in the f