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At two in the morning Drebber had been found in the Brixton Road.

The question which confronted me was to find out how Stangerson had been employed between 8.30 and the time of the crime, and what had become of him afterwards.

I telegraphed to Liverpool, giving a description of the man, and warning them to keep a watch upon the American boats.

I then set to work calling upon all the hotels and lodging-houses in the vicinity of Euston.

You see, I argued that if Drebber and his companion had become separated, the natural course for the latter would be to put up somewhere in the vicinity for the night, and then to hang about the station again next morning."

"They would be likely to agree on some meeting-place beforehand," remarked Holmes.

"So it proved.

I spent the whole of yesterday evening in making enquiries entirely without avail.

This morning I began very early, and at eight o'clock I reached Halliday's Private Hotel, in Little George Street.

On my enquiry as to whether a Mr. Stangerson was living there, they at once answered me in the affirmative.

"'No doubt you are the gentleman whom he was expecting,' they said. 'He has been waiting for a gentleman for two days.'

"'Where is he now?' I asked.

"'He is upstairs in bed. He wished to be called at nine.'

"'I will go up and see him at once,' I said.

"It seemed to me that my sudden appearance might shake his nerves and lead him to say something unguarded.

The Boots volunteered to show me the room: it was on the second floor, and there was a small corridor leading up to it.

The Boots pointed out the door to me, and was about to go downstairs again when I saw something that made me feel sickish, in spite of my twenty years' experience.

From under the door there curled a little red ribbon of blood, which had meandered across the passage and formed a little pool along the skirting at the other side.

I gave a cry, which brought the Boots back.

He nearly fainted when he saw it.

The door was locked on the inside, but we put our shoulders to it, and knocked it in.

The window of the room was open, and beside the window, all huddled up, lay the body of a man in his nightdress.

He was quite dead, and had been for some time, for his limbs were rigid and cold.

When we turned him over, the Boots recognized him at once as being the same gentleman who had engaged the room under the name of Joseph Stangerson.

The cause of death was a deep stab in the left side, which must have penetrated the heart.

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