, "it is positive, as is the passionate red
hair of a beautiful woman."

The Professor was continuing his speech, but in the middle of it Syme
decided to act. He leant across the table, and said in a voice that
could not be neglected--

"Dr. Bull!"

The Doctor's sleek and smiling head did not move, but they could have
sworn that under his dark glasses his eyes darted towards Syme.

"Dr. Bull," said Syme, in a voice peculiarly precise and courteous,
"would you do me a small favour? Would you be so kind as to take off
your spectacles?"

The Professor swung round on his seat, and stared at Syme with a sort
of frozen fury of astonishment. Syme, like a man who has thrown his life
and fortune on the table, leaned forward with a fiery face. The Doctor
did not move.

For a few seconds there was a silence in which one could hear a pin
drop, split once by the single hoot of a distant steamer on the Thames.
Then Dr. Bull rose slowly, still smiling, and took off his spectacles.

Syme sprang to his feet, stepping backwards a little, like a chemical
lecturer from a successful explosion. His eyes were like stars, and for
an instant he could only point without speaking.

The Professor had also started to his feet, forgetful of his supposed
paralysis. He leant on the back of the chair and stared doubtfully at
Dr. Bull, as if the Doctor had been turned into a toad before his eyes.
And indeed it was almost as great a transformation scene.

The two detectives saw sitting in the chair before them a very
boyish-looking young man, with very frank and happy hazel eyes, an
open expression, cockney clothes like those of a city clerk, and
an unquestionable breath about him of being very good and rather
commonplace. The smile was still there, but it might have been the first
smile of a baby.

"I knew I was a poet," cried Syme in a sort of ecstasy. "I knew my
intuition was as infallible as the Pope. It was the spectacles that did
it! It was all the spectacles. Given those beastly black eyes, and all
the rest of him his health and his jolly looks, made him a live devil
among dead ones."

"It certainly does make a queer difference," said the Professor shakily.
"But as regards the project of Dr. Bull--"

"Project be damned!" roared Syme, beside himself. "Look at him! Look
at his face, look at his collar, look at his blessed boots! You don't
suppose, do you, that that thing's an anarchist?"

"Syme!" cried the other in an apprehensive a