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While Sherlock Holmes had been detailing this singular series of

events, we had been whirling through the outskirts of the great

town until the last straggling houses had been left behind, and

we rattled along with a country hedge upon either side of us.

Just as he finished, however, we drove through two scattered

villages, where a few lights still glimmered in the windows.

"We are on the outskirts of Lee," said my companion. "We have

touched on three English counties in our short drive, starting in

Middlesex, passing over an angle of Surrey, and ending in Kent.

See that light among the trees? That is The Cedars, and beside

that lamp sits a woman whose anxious ears have already, I have

little doubt, caught the clink of our horse's feet."

"But why are you not conducting the case from Baker Street?" I

asked.