"Arrest the President and all the Officers of the Bakers' and Pastrycooks' Union, at once," said Keys. Greatly wondering, but willing to catch at any straw, the Inspector hastened to obey him.
One evening, some little time after the conviction and subsequent confession of the men whose arrest Keys had ordered, the Inspector dropped in, he said, for a smoke, but it was easy to see that he was dying to ask a question, so presently Keys said, "Well, Morebusiness, you want to know how I did it."
The Inspector nodded an eager assent.
"Well, my friend, it was quite simple. Dynamite is heavy stuff, and in such a quantity could not have been carried by hand without exciting suspicion, but what more harmless looking than a four-wheeler, and thirteen of them—isn't that a baker's dozen!"
VI.
THE ADVENTURE OF MR. SANTA CLAUS
It was Christmas Eve. Outside the snow was falling heavily, but we were comfortably seated in front of a cheerful fire, in our dining-room in Butcher Street. With strange illogicality Keys was playing "Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" on the comb, for surely one could neither rest nor be merry with that beastly row going on, but it was only another proof of the extraordinary incongruity of that marvellous man. Laying down the comb—thank goodness—he turned to me. "Whenson, when I was a little boy I believed in Santa Claus, and stockings, and—"
A knock at the door interrupted these remarkable confidences, which were revealing the Great Man in a light so foreign to his usual taciturnity.
"Come in," he said. The door opened slowly, and a strange figure appeared before our astonished eyes. It was a small boy, hardly reaching to the handle of the door, and his little cap was covered with snow.
"Ah, ha!" said Keys, in his most impressive manner, "you have just come in from outside." At the evidence of such uncanny powers of deduction the little creature started to run away.