"Yes, sir, and returned very late--after we were all in bed. He
told me after he had taken the rooms that he would do so and
asked me not to bar the door. I heard him come up the stair
after midnight."

"But his meals?"

"It was his particular direction that we should always, when he
rang, leave his meal upon a chair, outside his door. Then he
rings again when he has finished, and we take it down from the
same chair. If he wants anything else he prints it on a slip of
paper and leaves it."

"Prints it?"

"Yes, sir; prints it in pencil. Just the word, nothing more.
Here's the one I brought to show you--soap. Here's another--
match. This is one he left the first morning--daily gazette. I
leave that paper with his breakfast every morning."

"Dear me, Watson," said Homes, staring with great curiosity at
the slips of foolscap which the landlady had handed to him, "this
is certainly a little unusual. Seclusion I can understand; but
why print? Printing is a clumsy process. Why not write? What
would it suggest, Watson?"

"That he desired to conceal his handwriting."

"But why? What can it matter to him that his landlady should
have a word of his writing? Still, it may be as you say. Then,