se thoughts passed through my mind so rapidly that by the time Mrs.
Hornby had run her pocket to earth I had quite recovered from the
momentary shock.

"Ah! here it is," she exclaimed triumphantly, producing an obese Morocco
purse. "I put it in here for safety, knowing how liable one is to get
one's pocket picked in these crowded London streets." She opened the
bulky receptacle and drew it out after the manner of a concertina,
exhibiting multitudinous partitions, all stuffed with pieces of paper,
coils of tape and sewing silk, buttons, samples of dress materials and
miscellaneous rubbish, mingled indiscriminately with gold, silver, and
copper coins.

"Now just run your eye through that, Dr. Jervis," she said, handing me a
folded paper, "and give me your advice on my answers."

I opened the paper and read: "The Committee of the Society for the
Protection of Paralysed Idiots, in submitting this--"

"Oh! that isn't it; I have given you the wrong paper. How silly of me!
That is the appeal of--you remember, Juliet, dear, that troublesome
person--I had, really, to be quite rude, you know, Dr. Jervis; I had to
tell him that charity begins at home, although, thank Heaven! none of us
are paralysed, but we must consider our own, mustn't we? And then--"

"Do you think this is the one, dear?" interposed Juliet, in whose pale
cheek the ghost of a dimple had appeared. "It looks cleaner than most of
the others."

She selected a folded paper from the purse which Mrs. Hornby was holding
with both hands extended to its utmost, as though she were about to
produce a burst of music, and, opening it, glanced at its contents.

"Yes, this is your evidence," she said, and passed the paper to me.

I took the document from her hand and, in spite of the conclusion at
which I had arrived, examined it with eager curiosity. And at the very
first glance I felt my head swim and my heart throb violently. For the
paper was headed: "Evidence respecting the Thumbograph," and in every
one of the five small "e's" that occurred in that sentence I could see
plainly by the strong out-door light a small break or interval in the
summit of the loop.

I was thunderstruck.

One coincidence was quite possible and even probable; but the two
together, and the second one of so remarkable a character, were beyond
all reasonable limits of probability. The identification did not seem to
admit of a doubt, and yet--

"Our legal adviser appears to be somewhat pre