rs silver-tinsel tights now, but I am afraid he is not the man we
are after, because his hair is black, and, as far as I have been able to
learn from his valet, he is utterly unacquainted with swan's-down."

We separated again and I went to the club to think. Never in my life
before had I had so baffling a case. As I sat in the cafe sipping a
cocaine cobbler, who should walk in but Hamlet, strangely enough picking
particles of swan's-down from his black doublet, which was literally
covered with it.

"Hello, Sherlock!" he said, drawing up a chair and sitting down beside
me. "What you up to?"

"Trying to make out where you have been," I replied. "I judge from the
swan's-down on your doublet that you have been escorting Ophelia to the
opera in the regulation cloak."

"You're mistaken for once," he laughed. "I've been driving with
Lohengrin. He's got a pair of swans that can do a mile in 2.10--but it
makes them moult like the devil."

"Pair of what?" I cried.

"Swans," said Hamlet. "He's an eccentric sort of a duffer, that
Lohengrin. Afraid of horses, I fancy."

"And so drives swans instead?" said I, incredulously.

"The same," replied Hamlet. "Do I look as if he drove squab?"

"He must be queer," said I. "I'd like to meet him. He'd make quite an
addition to my collection of freaks."

"Very well," observed Hamlet. "He'll be here to-morrow to take
luncheon with me, and if you'll come, too, you'll be most welcome. He's
collecting freaks, too, and I haven't a doubt would be pleased to know
you."

We parted and I sauntered homeward, cogitating over my strange client,
and now and then laughing over the idiosyncrasies of Hamlet's friend the
swan-driver. It never occurred to me at the moment however to connect
the two, in spite of the link of swan's-down. I regarded it merely as
a coincidence. The next day, however, on going to the club and meeting
Hamlet's strange guest, I was struck by the further coincidence that his
hair was of precisely the same shade of yellow as that in my possession.
It was of a hue that I had never seen before except at performances of
grand opera, or on the heads of fool detectives in musical burlesques.
Here, however, was the real thing growing luxuriantly from the man's
head.

"Ho-ho!" thought I to myself. "Here is a fortunate encounter; there may
be something in it," and then I tried to lead him on.

"I understand, Mr. Lohengrin," I said, "that you have a fine span of
swans."

"Yes,