If we have no other way of catching him, we can always bait
our line with the ring. I shall have him, Doctor -- I'll lay
you two to one that I have him. I must thank you for it all.
I might not have gone but for you, and so have missed the
finest study I ever came across: a study in scarlet, eh?
Why shouldn't we use a little art jargon. There's the
scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein
of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and
expose every inch of it. And now for lunch, and then for
Norman Neruda. Her attack and her bowing are splendid.
What's that little thing of Chopin's she plays so
magnificently: Tra-la-la-lira-lira-lay."

Leaning back in the cab, this amateur bloodhound carolled
away like a lark while I meditated upon the many-sidedness
of the human mind.



CHAPTER V.

OUR ADVERTISEMENT BRINGS A VISITOR.


OUR morning's exertions had been too much for my weak health,
and I was tired out in the afternoon. After Holmes'
departure for the concert, I lay down upon the sofa and
endeavoured to get a couple of hours' sleep. It was a
useless attempt. My mind had been too much excited by all
that had occurred, and the strangest fancies and surmises