him in hand." What they really meant was, that they had taken
Mr. Holmes in hand for the purpose of lulling the just
suspicions of the police. One day not long ago a woman,
expensively dressed and possessed of a whole mass of flaxen hair,
burst into my office. She was very excited, spoke good English
with an altogether exaggerated French accent, and her action was
altogether grotesque and stereotyped. She informed me that she
had that morning come from Paris to consult me. When I inquired
what she knew about me and how she got my address, she said that
a well-known journalist and a member of Parliament whom she had
met in Paris had advised her to consult with me about the future
of a man shortly to be discharged from prison. As during the
whole of my life I had not met or corresponded with the brilliant
gentleman she referred to, I felt doubtful, but kept silent. So
on she went with her story, first, however, offering me a sum of
money for the benefit of as consummate a villain as ever
inhabited a prison cell.

I declined the money and refused to have anything to do with the
matter till I had had further information. Briefly her story was
as follows: The man in whom she and others were interested was
serving a term of three years for burglary. He was an educated
man, married, and father of two children. His wife loved him
dearly, and his two children were "pretty, oh, so pretty!" They
were afraid that his wife would receive him back again with open
arms, and that other children might result. They were anxious
that this should be prevented, for they felt, she was sorry to
say, that he might again revert to crime, that other
imprisonments might ensue, and that "the poor, poor little
thing," meaning the wife, might be exposed to more and worse