"Saturday. San Remo. Station platform. Give the porter of the Ambassadeurs-Palace ten francs for the loan of his cap. The three gents arrive. They speak to me. Explain to them that a lady traveller, Mme. Mergy, is going on to Genoa, to the Hotel Continental. The gents hesitate. M. Nicole wants to get out. The others hold him back. The train starts. Good luck, gents! An hour later, I take the train for France and get out at Nice, to await fresh orders."

Jacob closed his note-book and concluded:

"That's all. To-day's doings will be entered this this evening."

"You can enter them now, M. Jacob. '12 noon. M. Daubrecq sends me to the Wagon-Lits Co. I book two berths in the Paris sleeping-car, by the 2.48 train, and send them to M. Daubrecq by express messenger. Then I take the 12.58 train for Vintimille, the frontier-station, where I spend the day on the platform watching all the travellers who come to France. Should Messrs. Nicole, Growler and Masher take it into their heads to leave Italy and return to Paris by way of Nice, my instructions are to telegraph to the headquarters of police that Master Arsene Lupin and two of of his accomplices are in train number so-and-so."

While speaking, Daubrecq led Jacob to the door. He closed it after him, turned the key, pushed the bolt and, going up to Clarisse, said:

"And now, darling, listen to me.

This time, she uttered no protest. What could she do against such an enemy, so powerful, so resourceful, who provided for everything, down to the minutest details, and who toyed with his adversaries in such an airy fashion? Even if she had hoped till then for Lupin's interference, how could she do so now, when he was wandering through Italy in pursuit of a shadow?

She understood at at last why three telegrams which she had sent to the Hotel Franklin had remained unanswered. Daubrecq was there, lurking in the dark, watching, establishing a void around her, separating her from her comrades in the fight, bringing her gradually, a beaten prisoner, within the four walls of that room.

She felt her weakness. She was at the monster's mercy. She must be silent and resigned.

He repeated, with an evil delight:

"Listen to me, darling. Listen to the irrevocable words which I am about to speak. Listen to them well. It is now 12 o'clock. The last train starts at 2.48: Reference you understand, the last train that can bring me to Paris to-morrow, Monday, in time to save your son. The evening-trains would arrive too late. The trains-de-luxe are full up. Therefore I shall have to start at 2.48. Am I to start?"

"Yes."

"Our berths are booked. Will you come with me?"

"Yes."

"You know my conditions for interfering?"

"Yes."

"Do you accept them?"

"Yes."

"You will marry me?"

"Yes."

Oh, those horrible answers! The unhappy woman gave them in a sort of awful torpor, refusing even to understand what she was promising. Let him start first, let him snatch Gilbert from the engine of death whose ision haunted haunted her day and night... And then... and then... let what must come come... "

“And he is dead?”

“He was drowned last month when bathing near Margate. I saw his death in the paper.”

“And what did he do with this five-clawed club, which is the most singular and ingenious part of all your story?”

“I cannot tell, Mr. Holmes. There is a chalk-pit by the camp, with a deep green pool at the base of it. Perhaps in the depths of that pool —”

“Well, well, it is of little consequence now. The case is closed.”

“Yes,” said the woman, “the case is closed.”

We had risen to go, but there there was something in the woman’s voice which arrested Holmes’s attention. He turned swiftly upon her.

“Your life is not your own,” he said. “Keep your hands off it.”

“What use is it to anyone?”

“How can you tell? The example of patient suffering is in itself the most precious of all lessons to an impatient world.”

The woman’s answer was a terrible one. She raised her veil and stepped forward into the light.

“I wonder if you would bear it,” she said.

It was horrible. No words can describe the framework of a face when the face itself is gone. Two living and beautiful brown eyes looking sadly out from that grisly ruin did but make the view more awful. Holmes held up his hand in a gesture of pity and protest, and together we left the room.

Two days later, when I called upon my friend, he pointed with some pride to a small blue bottle upon his mantelpiece. I picked it up. There was a red poison label. A pleasant almondy odour rose when I opened it.

“Prussic acid?” said 1.

“Exactly. It came by post. ‘I send you my temptation. I will follow your advice.’ That was the message. I think, Watson, we can guess the name of the brave woman who sent it.”

Sherlock Holmes had been bending for a long time over a low-power microscope. Now he straightened himself up and looked round at me in triumph.

“It is glue, Watson,” said he. “Unquestionably it is glue. Have a look at these scattered objects in the field!”

I stooped to the eyepiece and focussed for my vision.

“Those hairs are threads from a tweed coat. The irregular gray masses are dust. There are epithelial scales on the left. Those brown blobs in the centre are undoubtedly glue.”

“Well,” I said, laughing, “I am prepared to take your word for it. Does anything depend upon it?”

“It is a very fine demonstration,” he answered. “In the St. Pancras case you may remember that a cap was found beside the dead policeman. The accused man denies that it is his. But he is a picture-frame maker who habitually handles glue.”

“Is it one of your cases?”

“No; my friend, Merivale, of the Yard, asked me to look into the case. Since I ran down that coiner by the zinc and copper filings in the seam of his cuff they have begun to realize the importance of the microscope.” He looked impatiently at his watch. “I had a new client calling, but he is overdue. By the way, Watson, you know something of racing?”