idence of the quartz,
it reveals to us that the assassin was a miner. What does it tell us
further? This, gentlemen: that the assassination was consummated by
means of an explosive. What else does it say? This: that the explosive
was located against the side of the cabin nearest the road--the front
side--for within six feet of that spot I found it.

"I hold in my fingers a burnt Swedish match--the kind one rubs on a
safety-box. I found it in the road, six hundred and twenty-two feet from
the abolished cabin. What does it say? This: that the train was fired
from that point. What further does it tell us? This: that the assassin
was left-handed. How do I know this? I should not be able to explain to
you, gentlemen, how I know it, the signs being so subtle that only long
experience and deep study can enable one to detect them. But the signs
are here, and they are reinforced by a fact which you must have often
noticed in the great detective narratives--that all assassins are
left-handed."

"By Jackson, that's so!" said Ham Sandwich, bringing his great hand down
with a resounding slap upon his thigh; "blamed if I ever thought of it
before."

"Nor I!" "Nor I!" cried several. "Oh, there can't anything escape
him--look at his eye!"

"Gentlemen, distant as the murderer was from his doomed victim, he did
not wholly escape injury. This fragment of wood which I now exhibit to
you struck him. It drew blood. Wherever he is, he bears the telltale
mark. I picked it up where he stood when he fired the fatal train." He
looked out over the house from his high perch, and his countenance began
to darken; he slowly raised his hand, and pointed--

"There stands the assassin!"

For a moment the house was paralyzed with amazement; then twenty voices
burst out with:

"Sammy Hillyer? Oh, hell, no! Him? It's pure foolishness!"

"Take care, gentlemen--be not hasty. Observe--he has the blood-mark on
his brow."

Hillyer turned white with fright. He was near to crying. He turned this
way and that, appealing to every face for help and sympathy; and held
out his supplicating hands toward Holmes and began to plead,

"Don't, oh, don't! I never did it; I give my word I never did it. The
way I got this hurt on my forehead was--"

"Arrest him, constable!" cried Holmes. "I will swear out the warrant."

The constable moved reluctantly forward--hesitated--stopped.

Hillyer broke out with another appeal. "Oh, Archy, don't let them do it;
it would