It was open to me to make the facts public as soon as they became known
to me, and had I done so, Marcus Weatherley might have been arrested
and punished for his crime. Had not my illness supervened, I think I
should have made discoveries in the course of the day following my
arrival in Toronto which would have led to his arrest.

Such speculations are profitless enough, but they have often formed the
topic of discussion between my wife and myself. Gridley, too, whenever
he pays us a visit, invariably revives the subject, which he long ago
christened "The Gerrard Street Mystery," although it might just as
correctly be called "The Yonge Street Mystery," or, "The Mystery of the
Union Station." He has urged me a hundred times over to publish the
story; and now, after all these years, I follow his counsel, and adopt
his nomenclature in the title.




GAGTOOTH'S IMAGE.


About three o'clock in the afternoon of Wednesday, the fourth of
September, 1884, I was riding up Yonge Street, in the city of Toronto,
on the top of a crowded omnibus. The omnibus was bound for Thornhill,
and my own destination was the intermediate village of Willowdale.
Having been in Canada only a short time, and being almost a stranger in
Toronto, I dare say I was looking around me with more attention and
curiosity than persons who are "native here, and to the manner born,"
are accustomed to exhibit. We had just passed Isabella Street, and