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Horrified by what she had done she rushed wildly away from the scene of the tragedy.

Unfortunately for her she had lost her glasses in the scuffle, and as she was extremely short-sighted she was really helpless without them.

She ran down a corridor, which she imagined to be that by which she had come - both were lined with coconut matting - and it was only when it was too late that she understood that she had taken the wrong passage and that her retreat was cut off behind her.

What was she to do? She could not go back.

She could not remain where she was.

She must go on.

She went on.

She mounted a stair, pushed open a door, and found herself in your room."

The old man sat with his mouth open staring wildly at Holmes. Amazement and fear were stamped upon his expressive features. Now, with an effort, he shrugged his shoulders and burst into insincere laughter.

"All very fine, Mr. Holmes," said he. "But there is one little flaw in your splendid theory. I was myself in my room, and I never left it during the day."

"I am aware of that, Professor Coram."

"And you mean to say that I could lie upon that bed and not be aware that a woman had entered my room?"

"I never said so. You WERE aware of it. You spoke with her. You recognised her. You aided her to escape."

Again the Professor burst into high-keyed laughter. He had risen to his feet and his eyes glowed like embers.

"You are mad!" he cried. "You are talking insanely. I helped her to escape? Where is she now?"

"She is there," said Holmes, and he pointed to a high bookcase in the corner of the room.

I saw the old man throw up his arms, a terrible convulsion passed over his grim face, and he fell back in his chair.

At the same instant the bookcase at which Holmes pointed swung round upon a hinge, and a woman rushed out into the room.

"You are right!" she cried, in a strange foreign voice.

"You are right! I am here."

She was brown with the dust and draped with the cobwebs which had come from the walls of her hiding-place.

Her face, too, was streaked with grime, and at the best she could never have been handsome, for she had the exact physical characteristics which Holmes had divined, with, in addition, a long and obstinate chin.

What with her natural blindness, and what with the change from dark to light, she stood as one dazed, blinking about her to see where and who we were.

And yet, in spite of all these disadvantages, there was a certain nobility in the woman's bearing, a gallantry in the defiant chin and in the upraised head, which compelled something of respect and admiration.

Stanley Hopkins had laid his hand upon her arm and claimed her as his prisoner, but she waved him aside gently, and yet with an overmastering dignity which compelled obedience.

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