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He flew at me with his knife, and I had to grasp him twice, and got a cut over the knuckles, before I had the upper hand of him.

He looked murder out of the only eye he could see with when we had finished, but he listened to reason and gave up the papers.

Having got them I let my man go, but I wired full particulars to Forbes this morning.

If he is quick enough to catch his bird, well and good.

But if, as I shrewdly suspect, he finds the nest empty before he gets there, why, all the better for the government.

I fancy that Lord Holdhurst for one, and Mr. Percy Phelps for another, would very much rather that the affair never got as far as a police-court.

"My God!" gasped our client. "Do you tell me that during these long ten weeks of agony the stolen papers were within the very room with me all the time?"

"So it was."

"And Joseph! Joseph a villain and a thief!"

"Hum! I am afraid Joseph's character is a rather deeper and more dangerous one than one might judge from his appearance.

From what I have heard from him this morning, I gather that he has lost heavily in dabbling with stocks, and that he is ready to do anything on earth to better his fortunes.

Being an absolutely selfish man, when a chance presented itself he did not allow either his sister's happiness or your reputation to hold his hand."

Percy Phelps sank back in his chair. "My head whirls," said he. "Your words have dazed me."

"The principal difficulty in your case," remarked Holmes, in his didactic fashion, "lay in the fact of there being too much evidence.

What was vital was overlaid and hidden by what was irrelevant.

Of all the facts which were presented to us we had to pick just those which we deemed to be essential, and then piece them together in their order, so as to reconstruct this very remarkable chain of events.

I had already begun to suspect Joseph, from the fact that you had intended to travel home with him that night, and that therefore it was a likely enough thing that he should call for you, knowing the Foreign Office well, upon his way.

When I heard that some one had been so anxious to get into the bedroom, in which no one but Joseph could have concealed anything-you told us in your narrative how you had turned Joseph out when you arrived with the doctor-my suspicions all changed to certainties, especially as the attempt was made on the first night upon which the nurse was absent, showing that the intruder was well acquainted with the ways of the house."

"How blind I have been!"

"The facts of the case, as far as I have worked them out, are these: this Joseph Harrison entered the office through the Charles Street door, and knowing his way he walked straight into your room the instant after you left it.

Finding no one there he promptly rang the bell, and at the instant that he did so his eyes caught the paper upon the table.

A glance showed him that chance had put in his way a State document of immense value, and in an instant he had thrust it into his pocket and was gone.

A few minutes elapsed, as you remember, before the sleepy commissionnaire drew your attention to the bell, and those were just enough to give the thief time to make his escape.

"He made his way to Woking by the first train, and having examined his booty and assured himself that it really was of immense value, he had concealed it in what he thought was a very safe place, with the intention of taking it out again in a day or two, and carrying it to the French embassy, or wherever he thought that a long price was to be had.

Then came your sudden return.

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