Yet how slight a clue! Just a photograph of men's backs. What men?
When and where? It was an athletic meeting. Of what club or society?
That was the next question now I had to answer. Instinctively I made
up my mind to answer it myself, without giving any notice to the
police of my discovery.

Perhaps I should never have been able to answer it at all but for
one of the photographs which, as I thought, though lying loose by
itself, formed part of the same series. It represented the end of a
hundred-yard race, with the winners coming in at the tape by a
pavilion with a flag-staff. On the staff a big flag was flying
loosely in the wind. The folds hid half of the words on its centre
from sight. But this much at least I could read:

"ER...OM..OY...LETI...UB."

I gazed at them long and earnestly. After a minute or two of
thought, I made out the last two words. The inscription must surely
be Something-or-other Athletic Club.

But what was "Er... om.. oy..."? That question staggered me. Gazing
harder at it than ever, I could come to no conclusion. It was the
name of a place, no doubt: but what place, I knew not.

"Er"? No, "Ber": just a suspicion of a B came round the corner of a
fold. If B was the first letter, I might possibly identify it.

I took the photograph down to Aunt Emma, without telling her what I
meant. She couldn't bear to think I was ever engaged in thinking of
my First State at all.