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"'"Just walk on a little way, dear," said Mrs. Barclay; "I want to have a word with this man. There is nothing to be afraid of." She tried to speak boldly, but she was still deadly pale and could hardly get her words out for the trembling of her lips.

"'I did as she asked me, and they talked together for a few minutes.

Then she came down the street with her eyes blazing, and I saw the crippled wretch standing by the lamp-post and shaking his clenched fists in the air as if he were mad with rage.

She never said a word until we were at the door here, when she took me by the hand and begged me to tell no one what had happened.

"'"It's an old acquaintance of mine who has come down in the world," said she.

When I promised her I would say nothing she kissed me, and I have never seen her since.

I have told you now the whole truth, and if I withheld it from the police it is because I did not realize then the danger in which my dear friend stood.

I know that it can only be to her advantage that everything should be known.'

"There was her statement, Watson, and to me, as you can imagine, it was like a light on a dark night.

Everything which had been disconnected before began at once to assume its true place, and I had a shadowy presentiment of the whole sequence of events.

My next step obviously was to find the man who had produced such a remarkable impression upon Mrs. Barclay.

If he were still in Aldershot it should not be a very difficult matter.

There are not such a very great number of civilians, and a deformed man was sure to have attracted attention.

I spent a day in the search, and by evening-this very evening, Watson-I had run him down.

The man's name is Henry Wood, and he lives in lodgings in this same street in which the ladies met him.

He has only been five days in the place.

In the character of a registration-agent I had a most interesting gossip with his landlady.

The man is by trade a conjurer and performer, going round the canteens after nightfall, and giving a little entertainment at each.

He carries some creature about with him in that box; about which the landlady seemed to be in considerable trepidation, for she had never seen an animal like it.

He uses it in some of his tricks according to her account.

So much the woman was able to tell me, and also that it was a wonder the man lived, seeing how twisted he was, and that he spoke in a strange tongue sometimes, and that for the last two nights she had heard him groaning and weeping in his bedroom.

He was all right, as far as money went, but in his deposit he had given her what looked like a bad florin.

She showed it to me, Watson, and it was an Indian rupee.

"So now, my dear fellow, you see exactly how we stand and why it is I want you.

It is perfectly plain that after the ladies parted from this man he followed them at a distance, that he saw the quarrel between husband and wife through the window, that he rushed in, and that the creature which he carried in his box got loose.

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