fumbling nervously with his hat and uncertain what to do.
"This is a most extraordinary case," he said at last --
"a most incomprehensible affair."

"Ah, you find it so, Mr. Lestrade!" cried Gregson,
triumphantly. "I thought you would come to that conclusion.
Have you managed to find the Secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson?"

"The Secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson," said Lestrade gravely,
"was murdered at Halliday's Private Hotel about six o'clock
this morning."



CHAPTER VII.

LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS.


THE intelligence with which Lestrade greeted us was so
momentous and so unexpected, that we were all three fairly
dumfoundered. Gregson sprang out of his chair and upset the
remainder of his whiskey and water. I stared in silence at
Sherlock Holmes, whose lips were compressed and his brows
drawn down over his eyes.

"Stangerson too!" he muttered. "The plot thickens."

"It was quite thick enough before," grumbled Lestrade,
taking a chair. "I seem to have dropped into a sort of council