don't think you can have forgotten me. Don't you remember the
amateur who fought three rounds with you at Alison's rooms on the
night of your benefit four years back?"

"Not Mr. Sherlock Holmes!" roared the prize-fighter. "God's
truth! how could I have mistook you? If instead o' standin'
there so quiet you had just stepped up and given me that cross-
hit of yours under the jaw, I'd ha' known you without a question.
Ah, you're one that has wasted your gifts, you have! You might
have aimed high, if you had joined the fancy."

"You see, Watson, if all else fails me I have still one of the
scientific professions open to me," said Holmes, laughing. "Our
friend won't keep us out in the cold now, I am sure."

"In you come, sir, in you come,--you and your friends," he
answered. "Very sorry, Mr. Thaddeus, but orders are very strict.
Had to be certain of your friends before I let them in."

Inside, a gravel path wound through desolate grounds to a huge
clump of a house, square and prosaic, all plunged in shadow save
where a moonbeam struck one corner and glimmered in a garret
window. The vast size of the building, with its gloom and its
deathly silence, struck a chill to the heart. Even Thaddeus
Sholto seemed ill at ease, and the lantern quivered and rattled
in his hand.

"I cannot understand it," he said. "There must be some mistake.
I distinctly told Bartholomew that we should be here, and yet
there is no light in his window. I do not know what to make of