t be taken as quite a practicable
one.

New Inn, the background of this story, and one of the last surviving
inns of Chancery, has recently passed away after upwards of four
centuries of newness. Even now, however, a few of the old, dismantled
houses (including perhaps, the mysterious 31) may be seen from the
Strand peeping over the iron roof of the skating rink which has
displaced the picturesque hall, the pension-room and the garden. The
postern gate, too, in Houghton Street still remains, though the arch is
bricked up inside. Passing it lately, I made the rough sketch which
appears on next page, and which shows all that is left of this pleasant
old London backwater.

R. A. F.

GRAVESEND

[Illustration: New Inn]

Contents

CHAPTER.

I THE MYSTERIOUS PATIENT
II THORNDYKE DEVISES A SCHEME
III "A CHIEL'S AMANG YE TAKIN' NOTES"
IV THE OFFICIAL VIEW
V JEFFREY BLACKMORE'S WILL
VI JEFFREY BLACKMORE, DECEASED
VII THE CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTION
VIII THE TRACK CHART
IX THE HOUSE OF MYSTERY
X THE HUNTER HUNTED
XI THE BLACKMORE CASE REVIEWED
XII THE PORTRAIT
XIII THE STATEMENT OF SAMUEL WILKINS
XIV THORNDYKE LAYS THE MINE
XV THORNDYKE EXPLODES THE MINE
XVI AN EXPOSITION AND A TRAGEDY

Chapter I

The Mysterious Patient

As I look back through the years of my association with John Thorndyke,
I am able to recall a wealth of adventures and strange experiences such
as falls to the lot of very few men who pass their lives within hearing
of Big Ben. Many of these experiences I have already placed on record;
but it now occurs to me that I have hitherto left unrecorded one that
is, perhaps, the most astonishing and incredible of the whole series; an
adventure, too, that has for me the added interest that it inaugurated
my permanent association with my learned and talented friend, and marked
the close of a rather unhappy and unprosperous period of my life.

Memory, retracing the journey through the passing years to the
starting-point of those strange events, lands me in a shabby little
ground-floor room in a house near the Walworth end of Lower Kennington
Lane. A couple of framed diplomas on the wall, a card of Snellen's
test-types and a stethoscope lying on the writing-table, proclaim it a
doctor's consulting-room; and my own position in the round-backed chair
at the said table, proclaims me the practitioner in charge.

It was nearly nine o'clock. The nois