and I chatted in an undertone about our present expedition and its
possible outcome, but our companion maintained his impenetra-
ble reserve until the end of our journey.

  It was a September evening and not yet seven o'clock, but the
day had been a dreary one, and a dense drizzly fog lay low upon
the great city. Mud-coloured clouds drooped sadly over the
muddy streets. Down the Strand the lamps were but misty splotches
of diffused light which threw a feeble circular glimmer upon the
slimy pavement. The yellow glare from the shop-windows streamed
out into the steamy, vaporous air and threw a murky, shifting
radiance across the crowded thoroughfare. There was, to my
mind, something eerie and ghostlike in the endless procession of
faces which flitted across these narrow bars of light -- sad faces
and glad, haggard and merry. Like all humankind, they flitted
from the gloom into the light and so back into the gloom once
more. I am not subject to impressions, but the dull, heavy
evening, with the strange business upon which we were engaged,
combined to make me nervous and depressed. I could see from
Miss Morstan's manner that she was suffering from the same
feeling. Holmes alone could rise superior to petty influences. He
held his open notebook upon his knee, and from time to time he
jotted down figures and memoranda in the light of his pocket-
lantern.

  At the Lyceum Theatre the crowds were already thick at the
side-entrances. In front a continuous stream of hansoms and
four-wheelers were rattling up, discharging their cargoes of shirt-
fronted men and beshawled, bediamonded women. We had hardly
reached the third pillar, which was our rendezvous, before a
small, dark, brisk man in the dress of a coachman accosted us.

  "Are you the parties who come with Miss Morstan?" he
asked.

  "I am Miss Morstan, and these two gentlemen are my friends,"
said she.

  He bent a pair of wonderfully penetrating and questioning eyes
upon us.

  "You will excuse me, miss," he said with a certain dogged
manner, "but I was to ask you to give me your word that neither
of your companions is a police-officer."

  "I give you my word on that," she answered.

  He gave a shrill whistle, on which a street Arab led across a
four-wheeler and opened the door. The man who had addressed
us mounted to the box, while we took our places inside. We had
hardly done so before the driver whipped up his horse, and we
plunged away at a furious pace through the foggy streets.

  The situation was a curious one. We were driving to an
unknown place, on an unknown errand. Yet our invitation was
either a complete hoax -- which was an inconceivable hypothesis --
or else we had good reason to think that important issues might
hang upon our journey. Miss Morstan's demeanour was as reso-
lute and collected as ever. I endeavoured to cheer and amuse her
by reminiscences of my adventures in Afghanistan; but, to tell
the truth, I was myself so excited at our situation and so curious
as to our destination that my stories were slightly involved. To
this day she declares that I told her one moving anecdote as to
how a musket looked into my tent at the dead of night, and how
I fired a double-barrelled tiger cub at it. At first I had some idea
as to the direction in which we were driving; but soon, what with
our pace, the fog, and my own limited knowledge of London, I
lost my bearings and knew nothing save that we seemed to be
going a very long way. Sherlock Holmes was never at fault,
however, and he muttered the names as the cab rattled through
squares and in and out by tortuous by-streets.

  "Rochester Row," said he. "Now Vincent Square. Now we
come out on the Vauxhall Bridge Road. We are making for the
Surrey side apparently. Yes, I thought so. Now we are on the
bridge. You can catch glimpses of the river."

  We did indeed get a fleeting view of a stretch of the Thames,
with the lamps shining upon the broad, silent water; but our cab
dashed on and was soon involved in a labyrinth of streets upon
the other side.

  "Wordsworth Road," said my companion. "Priory Road.
Lark Hall Lane. Stockwell Place. Robert Street. Cold Harbour
Lane. Our quest does not appear to take us to very fashionable
regions."

  We had indeed reached a questionable and forbidding neigh-
bourhood. Long lines of dull brick houses were only relieved by
the coarse glare and tawdry brilliancy of public-houses at the
corner. Then came rows of two-storied villas, each with a front-
ing of miniature garden, and then again interminable lines of
new, staring brick buildings -- the monster tentacles which the
giant city was throwing out into the country. At last the cab drew
up at the third house in a new terrace. None of the other houses
were inhabited, and that at which we stopped was as dark as its
neighbours, save for a single glimmer in the kitchen-window. On
our knocking, however, the door was instantly thrown open by a
Hindoo servant, clad in a yellow turban, white loose-fitting
clothes, and a yellow sash. There was something strangely in-