night--_that_ Chrishm's night--I toogtoomany. Wha'scons'q'nce? I put m'
nephew an' m' umbrella away somewhere, an 've neverb'n able
terremembersince!"

Still sustaining his weight, the author of "The Amateur Detective" at
first seemed nonplussed; but quickly changed his expression to one of
abrupt intelligence.

"I see, now; I begin to see," he answered, slowly, and almost in a
whisper. "On the night of that Christmas dinner here, you were in a
clove-trance, and made some secret disposition, (which you have not
since been able to remember,) of your umbrella--and nephew. Until very
lately--until now, when you are nearly, but _not quite_, as much under
the influence of cloves again--you have had a vague general idea that
somebody else must have killed Mr. DROOD and stolen your umbrella. But
now, that you are partially in the same condition, physiologically and
psychologically, as on the night of the disappearance, you have once
more a partial perception of what were the facts of the case. Am I
right?"

"That's it, sir. You're a ph'los'pher," murmured Mr. BUMSTEAD, trying to
brush from above his nose the pendent lock of hair, which he took for a
fly.

"Very well, then," continued TRACEY CLEWS, his extraordinary head of
hair fairly bristling with electrical animation: "You've only to get
yourself into _exactly the same_ clove-y condition as on the night of
the double disappearance, when you put your umbrella and nephew away
somewhere, and you'll remember all about it again. You have two distinct
states of existence, you see: a cloven one, and an uncloven one; and