olmes, it's in better hands than mine."

"Well, then, we will pass to this card--V.V. 341. It is rough cardboard.
Have you any of the sort in the house?"

"I don't think so."

Holmes walked across to the desk and dabbed a little ink from each
bottle on to the blotting paper. "It was not printed in this room," he
said; "this is black ink and the other purplish. It was done by a thick
pen, and these are fine. No, it was done elsewhere, I should say. Can
you make anything of the inscription, Ames?"

"No, sir, nothing."

"What do you think, Mr. Mac?"

"It gives me the impression of a secret society of some sort; the same
with his badge upon the forearm."

"That's my idea, too," said White Mason.

"Well, we can adopt it as a working hypothesis and then see how far our
difficulties disappear. An agent from such a society makes his way into
the house, waits for Mr. Douglas, blows his head nearly off with this
weapon, and escapes by wading the moat, after leaving a card beside the
dead man, which will, when mentioned in the papers, tell other members
of the society that vengeance has been done. That all hangs together.
But why this gun, of all weapons?"

"Exactly."

"And why the missing ring?"

"Quite so."

"And why no arrest? It's past two now. I take it for granted that since
dawn every constable within forty miles has been looking out for a wet
stranger?"

"That is so, Mr. Holmes."

"Well, unless he has a burrow close by or a change of clothes ready,
they can hardly miss him. And yet they HAVE missed him up to now!"
Holmes had gone to the window and was examining with his lens the blood
mark on the sill. "It is clearly the tread of a shoe. It is remarkably
broad; a splay-foot, one would say. Curious, because, so far as one can
trace any footmark in this mud-stained corner, one would say it was a
more shapely sole. However, they are certainly very indistinct. What's
this under the side table?"

"Mr. Douglas's dumb-bells," said Ames.

"Dumb-bell--there's only one. Where's the other?"

"I don't know, Mr. Holmes. There may have been only one. I have not
noticed them for months."

"One dumb-bell--" Holmes said seriously; but his remarks were
interrupted by a sharp knock at the door.

A tall, sunburned, capable-looking, clean-shaved man looked in at us. I
had no difficulty in guessing that it was the Cecil Barker of whom I had
heard. His masterful eyes travelled quickly with a questioning glance
from fac