w all the cards you're holding?"

"In this case, yes!" I said. "Tell everything!"

"Well," he said. "Maybe. But--it's on your advice, you'll remember,
and I'm not sure this is the time, nor just the company. However--"

So, for the second time that day, Mr. Cazalette told the story of the
tobacco-box and of his pocket-book, and produced his photograph. It
came as a surprise to all there but myself, and I saw that Mr. Raven
in particular was much perturbed by the story of the theft that
morning. I knew what he was thinking--the criminal or criminals were
much too close at hand. He cut in now and then with a question--but
the detective listened in grim, absorbed silence.

"Now, you know, this is really about the most serious and important
thing I've heard, so far," he said, when Mr. Cazalette had finished.
"Just let's sum it up. Salter Quick is murdered in a strange and
lonely place. Not for his goods, for all his money and his
valuables--not inconsiderable--are found on him. But the murderer was
in search of something that he believed to be on Salter Quick, for he
thoroughly searched his clothing, slashed its linings, turned his
pockets out--and probably, no, we may safely say certainly, failed in
his search. He did not get what he was after--any more than his
fellow-murderer who slew Noah Quick, some hundreds of miles away from
here, about the very same time, got what he was after. But now comes
in Mr. Cazalette. Mr. Cazalette, inadvertently, never thinking what he
was doing, draws public attention to certain marks and scratches,
evidently made on purpose, in Salter Quick's tobacco-box. Do you see
my point, gentlemen? The murderer hears of this and says to himself,
'That box is the thing I want!' So--he appropriates it, at the
inquest! But even then, so faint and almost illegible are the marks
within the lid, he doesn't find exactly what he wants. But he knows
that Mr. Cazalette was going to submit his photograph to an enlarging
process, which would make the marks clearer; he also knows Mr.
Cazalette's habits (a highly significant fact!) so he sets himself to
steal Mr. Cazalette's pocket-book, theorizing that Mr. Cazalette
probably has a copy of the enlarged photograph within it. And, this
morning, while Mr. Cazalette is bathing, he gets it! Gentlemen!--what
does this show? One thing as a certainty--the murderer is close at
hand!"

There was a dead silence--broken at last by a querulous murmur from
Mr. Cazalette h