I remain yours,

FRANCIS THEAKSTONE.

FROM MR. MATTHEW SHARPIN TO CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE.

London, 6th July, 18--.

SIR--You are rather an elderly person, and as such, naturally inclined
to be a little jealous of men like me, who are in the prime of their
lives and their faculties. Under these circumstances, it is my duty
to be considerate toward you, and not to bear too hardly on your small
failings. I decline, therefore, altogether to take offense at the tone
of your letter; I give you the full benefit of the natural generosity of
my nature; I sponge the very existence of your surly communication out
of my memory--in short, Chief Inspector Theakstone, I forgive you, and
proceed to business.

My first duty is to draw up a full statement of the instructions I have
received from Sergeant Bulmer. Here they are at your service, according
to my version of them.

At Number Thirteen Rutherford Street, Soho, there is a stationer's shop.
It is kept by one Mr. Yatman. He is a married man, but has no family.
Besides Mr. and Mrs. Yatman, the other inmates in the house are a
lodger, a young single man named Jay, who occupies the front room on
the second floor--a shopman, who sleeps in one of the attics, and a
servant-of-all-work, whose bed is in the back kitchen. Once a week a
charwoman comes to help this servant. These are all the persons who, on
ordinary occasions, have means of access to the interior of the house,
placed, as a matter of course, at their disposal. Mr. Yatman has been in
business for many years, carrying on his affairs prosperously enough
to realize a handsome independence for a person in his position.
Unfortunately for himself, he endeavored to increase the amount of his
property by speculating. He ventured boldly in his investments; luck
went against him; and rather less than two years ago he found himself a
poor man again. All that was saved out of the wreck of his property was
the sum of two hundred pounds.

Although Mr. Yatman did his best to meet his altered circumstances, by
giving up many of the luxuries and comforts to which he and his wife had
been accustomed, he found it impossible to retrench so far as to allow
of putting by any money from the income produced by his shop. The
business has been declining of late years, the cheap advertising
stationers having done it injury with the public. Consequently, up
to the last week, the only surplus property possessed by Mr. Yatman
consisted of