lamed face and
disreputable clothes, walked into the room. Accustomed as I was to my
friend's amazing powers in the use of disguises, I had to look three
times before I was certain that it was indeed he. With a nod he vanished
into the bedroom, whence he emerged in five minutes tweed-suited and
respectable, as of old. Putting his hands into his pockets, he stretched
out his legs in front of the fire, and laughed heartily for some
minutes.

"Well, really!" he cried, and then he choked, and laughed again until he
was obliged to lie back, limp and helpless, in the chair.

"What is it?"

"It's quite too funny. I am sure you could never guess how I employed my
morning, or what I ended by doing."

"I can't imagine. I suppose that you have been watching the habits, and,
perhaps, the house, of Miss Irene Adler."

"Quite so, but the sequel was rather unusual. I will tell you, however.
I left the house a little after eight o'clock this morning in the
character of a groom out of work. There is a wonderful sympathy and
freemasonry among horsey men. Be one of them, and you will know all that
there is to know. I soon found Briony Lodge. It is a bijou villa, with a
garden at the back, but built out in the front right up to the road, two
stories. Chubb lock to the door. Large sitting room on the right side,
well furnished, with long windows almost to the floor, and those
preposterous English window fasteners which a child could open. Behind
there was nothing remarkable, save that the passage window could be
reached from the top of the coach-house. I walked round it and examined
it closely from every point of view, but without noting anything else of
interest.

"I then lounged down the street, and found, as I expected, that there
was a mews in a lane which runs down by one wall of the garden. I lent
the hostlers a hand in rubbing down their horses, and I received in
exchange two-pence, a glass of half and half, two fills of shag tobacco,
and as much information as I could desire about Miss Adler, to say
nothing of half a dozen other people in the neighbourhood, in whom I was
not in the least interested, but whose biographies I was compelled to
listen to."

"And what of Irene Adler?" I asked.

"Oh, she has turned all the men's heads down in that part. She is the
daintest thing under a bonnet on this planet. So say the Serpentine
Mews, to a man. She lives quietly, sings at concerts, drives out at five
every day, and returns at