"

"Gone back to town, sir--to the Yard. Want him?"

"No, not yet; maybe not to-night at all. Nip off and get yourself
something to eat and be back here by nine o'clock at the latest. I shall
very likely need you. Cut along!" Then he caught up the kit bag, whisked
away with it into the darkness, and five minutes later stood again in
the room which he had so recently left.

Accustomed to rapid dressing, he got into his evening clothes in less
time than it would have taken most men to unpack and lay them out ready
for use when required; and then, taking the half-burnt labels from his
pocketbook, carried them to the light and studied them closely. None was
so big as the one which he had first inspected nor bore so much printed
matter; but fortunately one was a fragment of the exactly opposite side,
so that by joining the two together he was able to make out the greater
part of it.

Clearly, then, the original label, making allowance for what had been
totally destroyed by the flames, must have read:

JETANOLA

AN UNRIVALLED PREPARATION

FOR BOOTS, SHOES, AND ALL LEATHER

GOODS

MANUFACTURED SOLELY BY

FERDINAND LOVETSKI

63 ESSEX ROW

SOHO

After all, the imaginative reporter had not been so far out when he
figured those mysterious markings upon the dead man's shirt bosom to
read "63 Essex Row," an address where one Ferdinand Lovetski once did
manufacture a certain kind of blacking for boots, shoes, etc. Not that
they really did stand for that, of course, or that this ingenious person
had done anything more than work out as a solution to the riddle of the
marks a name and an address that were eventually to come into the
case--as they now had done--but in a totally different manner from what
the author of the theory intended or supposed.

Of two things Cleek was certain beyond all question of error. First:
that the dead man was not Ferdinand Lovetski--not in any way connected
with Ferdinand Lovetski to be precise; second: that the markings on the
shirt were not made with "Jetanola" or any other kind of blacking; and
ingenious as the theory was, he was willing to stake his life that those
marks no more stood for 63 Essex Row than they did for 21 Park Lane. For
one thing, what would be the sense of smearing them on the dead man's
shirt bosom if they merely stood for that? It was all very well for that
imaginative reporter to suggest that it was a sign given by the assassin
to the whole anarc