dge station?" I asked.

"Well, sir," said the man, "I can't exactly say I do."

"Perhaps you remember the gentleman himself? Can you call to mind
driving a foreigner last summer--a tall gentleman and remarkably fat?"
The man's face brightened directly.

"I remember him, sir! The fattest gentleman as ever I see, and the
heaviest customer as ever I drove. Yes, yes--I call him to mind, sir!
We DID go to the station, and it WAS from Forest Road. There was a
parrot, or summat like it, screeching in the window. The gentleman was
in a mortal hurry about the lady's luggage, and he gave me a handsome
present for looking sharp and getting the boxes."

Getting the boxes! I recollected immediately that Laura's own account
of herself on her arrival in London described her luggage as being
collected for her by some person whom Count Fosco brought with him to
the station. This was the man.

"Did you see the lady?" I asked. "What did she look like? Was she
young or old?"

"Well, sir, what with the hurry and the crowd of people pushing about,
I can't rightly say what the lady looked like. I can't call nothing to
mind about her that I know of excepting her name."

"You remember her name?"

"Yes, sir. Her name was Lady Glyde."

"How do you come to remember that, when you have forgotten what she
looked like?"

The man smiled, and shifted his feet in some little embarrassment.

"Why, to tell you the truth, sir," he said, "I hadn't been long married
at that time, and my wife's name, before she changed it for mine, was
the same as the lady's--meaning the name of Glyde, sir. The lady
mentioned it herself. 'Is your name on your boxes, ma'am?' says I.
'Yes,' says she, 'my name is on my luggage--it is Lady Glyde.' 'Come!'
I says to myself, 'I've a bad head for gentlefolks' names in
general--but THIS one comes like an old friend, at any rate.' I can't
say nothing about the time, sir, it might be nigh on a year ago, or it
mightn't. But I can swear to the stout gentleman, and swear to the
lady's name."

There was no need that he should remember the time--the date was
positively established by his master's order-book. I felt at once that
the means were now in my power of striking down the whole conspiracy at
a blow with the irresistible weapon of plain fact. Without a moment's
hesitation, I took the proprietor of the livery stables aside and told
him what the real importance was of the evidence of his order-book and
the evi