"Why do you ask?"
"Because she's so uncommonly like a girl I used to run after in the old days—a student at the Slade School of Art. And a wonderfully good, nice girl she was. Her father, who was said to be a scoundrel, got ten years for alleged embezzlement; and the girl gave me up because I wouldn't take his side. How she stuck to him through thick and thin! I tell you, my boy, she was a loyal soul! I wonder if she is still alive."
"Such souls are hard to kill," said the other.
By this time the pair had arrived at the house indicated by the messenger. On the door of it was an enormous knocker of brass.
"Knock, and it shall be opened," said the young man.
Dr Piecraft had lifted the knocker and was about to let it fall when he heard his name called loudly down the street and saw a man running towards him with a piece of paper in his hand. The man approached and Piecraft, taking the paper, read as follows:
"Dr Phippeny Piecraft is needed at once for a matter of life and death."
"I must be off immediately," he said to his companion; "I am called to an urgent case. It's a matter of life and death. Duty first, my boy, and the clearing-up of mysteries afterwards! Remember what the sergeant said to Abdulla when he plucked him by the sleeve. Besides—who knows?—this may mean that the practice is going to revive."
"That is precisely what it does mean," said the young man. "Matters of life and death are extremely common just now, and you are the very man to deal with them."