deuce!" said Sholmes, "there is someone in the boudoir. That is what we heard. Quick, let us remove the ladder."
But at that instant a man slid down the ladder and ran toward the spot where his accomplices were waiting for him outside the fence. He carried the ladder with him. Sholmes and Wilson pursued the man and overtook him just as he was placing the ladder against the fence. From the other side of the fence two shots were fired.
"Wounded?" cried Sholmes.
"No," replied Wilson.
Wilson seized the man by the body and tried to hold him, but the man turned and plunged a knife into Wilson's breast. He uttered a groan, staggered and fell.
"Damnation!" muttered Sholmes, "if they have killed him I will kill them."
He laid Wilson on the grass and rushed toward the ladder. Too late—the man had climbed the fence and, accompanied by his confederates, had fled through the bushes.
"Wilson, Wilson, it is not serious, hein? Merely a scratch."
The house door opened, and Monsieur d'Imblevalle appeared, followed by the servants, carrying candles.
"What's the matter?" asked the baron. "Is Monsieur Wilson wounded?"
"Oh! it's nothing—a mere scratch," repeated Sholmes, trying to deceive himself.
The blood was flowing profusely, and Wilson's face was livid. Twenty minutes later the doctor ascertained that the point of the knife had penetrated to within an inch and a half of the heart.
"An inch and a half of the heart! Wilson always was lucky!" said Sholmes, in an envious tone.
"Lucky ... lucky...." muttered the doctor.
"Of course! Why, with his robust constitution he will soon be out again."
"Six weeks in bed and two months of convalescence."
"Not more?"
"No, unless complications set in."
"Oh! the devil! what does he want complications for?"
Fully reassured, Sholmes joined the baron in the boudoir. This time the mysterious visitor had not exercised the same restraint. Ruthlessly, he had laid his vicious hand upon the diamond snuff-box, upon the opal necklace, and, in a general way, upon everything that could find a place in the greedy pockets of an enterprising burglar.
The window was still open; one of the window-panes had been neatly cut; and, in the morning, a summary investigation showed that the ladder belonged to the house then in course of construction.
"Now, you can see," said Mon. d'Imblevalle, with a touch of irony, "it is an exact repetition of the affair of the Jewish lamp."
"Yes, if we accept the first theory adopted by the police."
"Haven't you adopted it yet? Doesn't this second theft shatter your theory in regard to the first?"
"It only confirms it, monsieur."
"That is incredible! You have positive evidence that last night's theft was committed by an outsider, and yet you adhere to your theory that the Jewish lamp was stolen by someone in the house."
"Yes, I am sure of it."
"How do you explain it?"
"I do not explain anything, monsieur; I have established two facts which do not appear to have any relation to each other, and yet I am seeking the missing link that connects them."
His conviction seemed to be so earnest and positive that the baron submitted to it, and said:
"Very well, we will notify the police——"
"Not at all!" exclaimed the Englishman, quickly, "not at all! I intend to ask for their assistance when I need it—but not before."
"But the attack on your friend?"
"That's of no consequence. He is only wounded. Secure the license of the doctor. I shall be responsible for the legal side of the affair."
The next two days proved uneventful. Yet Sholmes was investigating the case with a minute care, and with a sense of wounded pride resulting from that audacious theft, committed under his nose, in spite of his presence and beyond his power to prevent it. He made a thorough investigation of the house and garden, interviewed the servants, and paid lengthy visits to the kitchen and stables. And, although his efforts were fruitless, he did not despair.
"I will succeed," he thought, "and the solution must be sought within the walls of this house. This affair is quite different from that of the blonde Lady, where I had to work in the dark, on unknown ground. This time I am on the battlefield itself. The enemy is not the elusive and invisible Lupin, but the accomplice, in flesh and blood, who lives and moves within the confines of this house. Let me secure the slightest clue and the game is mine!"
That clue was furnished to him by accident.
On the afternoon of the third day, when he entered a room located above the boudoir, which served as a study for the children, he found Henriette, the younger of the two sisters. She was looking for her scissors.
"You know," she said to Sholmes, "I make papers like that you received the other evening."
"The other evening?"
"Yes, just as dinner was over, you received a paper with marks on it ... you know, a telegram.... Well, I make them, too."
She left the room. To anyone else these words would seem to be nothing more than the insignificant remark of a child, and Sholmes himself listened to them with a distracted air and continued his investigation. But, suddenly, he ran after the child, and overtook her at the head of the stairs. He said to her:
"So you paste stamps and marks on papers?"
Henriette, very proudly, replied:
"Yes, I cut them out and paste them on."
"Who taught you that little game?"
"Mademoiselle ... my governess ... I have seen her do it often. She takes words out of the newspapers and pastes them——"
"What does she make out of them?"
"Telegrams and letters that she sends away."
Herlock Sholmes returned to the study, greatly puzzled by the information and seeking to draw from it a logical deduction. There was a pile of newspapers on the mantel. He opened them and found that many words and, in some places, entire lines had been cut out. But, after reading a few of the word's which preceded or followed, he decided that the missing words had been cut out at random—probably by the child. It was possible that one of the newspapers had been cut by mademoiselle; but how could he assure himself that such was the case?
Mechanically, Sholmes turned over the school-books on the table; then others which were lying on the shelf of a bookcase. Suddenly he uttered a cry of joy. In a corner of the bookcase, under a pile of old exercise books, he found a child's alphabet-book, in which the letters were ornamented with pictures, and on one of the pages
