“The girl? the poor victim?”
“She is not, I am happy to say, so mortally hurt as at first it was feared. There is a chance, at least, of her recovery. The bullet has been extracted.”
“The bullet?”
“I am beginning, you see, at the end, like a Chinese book.”
“O! please to go on. I will not interrupt you again.”
“As often and as much as you like. By the way, where am I to begin?”
“O! from your visit to Doddington Grove. I know so far.”
“Very well. Now, as you may suppose, I found nothing whatever in Doddington Grove, a respectable street in a respectable neighbourhood, to afford me the slightest clue to what I sought. I had, in fact, after a hopeless investigation, come to realise my complete inability to make bricks without straw, when chance, or Providence, directed my steps, in retreating, past a shop in the Kennington Road, in the window of which I saw something which brought me to an instant stand. This something was nothing less than a bundle of bright-coloured bird-skins, tied round with a piece of red tape.
“I went at once into the shop. It was one of those second-hand concerns, used by small brokers for the disposal of articles picked up by them at sales; and I ascertained without any difficulty that the packet of skins—which I bought there and then—represented the remainder of a considerable parcel, the bulk of which had been sold to a hat and bonnet shop proprietor in the Borough. The original lot, had, I learned, figured in its entirety among the effects in a sale at a house in Doddington Grove; and with small pains I was able to discover the number of that house, the date of the auction, and the name of the late tenant, who it appeared, had been a Mrs Barclay Rivers, a widow.
“So far, so good. I had secured at length a definite base from which to conduct operations, and I felt considerably elated. I must beg you both to bear always in mind that from first to last I was my own sole detective in this matter. Any doubt in that respect would seem to tarnish my laurels, of which I am inordinately vain.