h your usual
happy mixture of cunning and audacity you have got him."

"Got him! Got whom, Mr. Holmes?"

"The man that the whole force has been seeking in vain--Colonel
Sebastian Moran, who shot the Honourable Ronald Adair with an expanding
bullet from an air-gun through the open window of the second-floor front
of No. 427, Park Lane, upon the 30th of last month. That's the charge,
Lestrade. And now, Watson, if you can endure the draught from a broken
window, I think that half an hour in my study over a cigar may afford
you some profitable amusement."

Our old chambers had been left unchanged through the supervision of
Mycroft Holmes and the immediate care of Mrs. Hudson. As I entered I
saw, it is true, an unwonted tidiness, but the old landmarks were all
in their place. There were the chemical corner and the acid-stained,
deal-topped table. There upon a shelf was the row of formidable
scrap-books and books of reference which many of our fellow-citizens
would have been so glad to burn. The diagrams, the violin-case, and the
pipe-rack--even the Persian slipper which contained the tobacco--all met
my eyes as I glanced round me. There were two occupants of the room--one
Mrs. Hudson, who beamed upon us both as we entered; the other the
strange dummy which had played so important a part in the evening's
adventures. It was a wax-coloured model of my friend, so admirably done
that it was a perfect facsimile. It stood on a small pedestal table with
an old dressing-gown of Holmes's so draped round it that the illusion
from the street was absolutely perfect.

"I hope you preserved all precautions, Mrs. Hudson?" said Holmes.

"I went to it on my knees, sir, just as you told me."

"Excellent. You carried the thing out very well. Did you observe where
the bullet went?"

"Yes, sir. I'm afraid it has spoilt your beautiful bust, for it passed
right through the head and flattened itself on the wall. I picked it up
from the carpet. Here it is!"

Holmes held it out to me. "A soft revolver bullet, as you perceive,
Watson. There's genius in that, for who would expect to find such a
thing fired from an air-gun. All right, Mrs. Hudson, I am much obliged
for your assistance. And now, Watson, let me see you in your old seat
once more, for there are several points which I should like to discuss
with you."

He had thrown off the seedy frock-coat, and now he was the Holmes of old
in the mouse-coloured dressing-gown which he took from