that my trusteeship was no longer to be a sinecure. It was
Bristol who had rung me up, and upon very strange business.

"A development at last!" he said; "but at present I don't know what
to make of it. Can you come down now?"

"Where are you speaking from?"

"From the Waterloo Road--a delightful neighbourhood. I shall be
glad if you can meet me at the entrance to Wyatt's Buildings in
half an hour."

"What is it? Have you found Dexter?"

"No, unfortunately. But it's murder!"

I knew as I hung up the receiver that my brief period of peace was
ended; that the lists of assassination were reopened. I hurried
out through the court into Fleet Street, thinking of the key of the
now empty case at the Museum which reposed at my bankers, thinking
of the devils who pursued the slipper, thinking of the hundred and
one things, strange and terrible, which went to make up the history
of that gruesome relic.

Wyatt's Buildings, Waterloo Road, are a gloomy and forbidding block
of dwellings which seem to frown sullenly upon the high road, from
which they are divided by a dark and dirty courtyard. Passing an
iron gateway, you enter, by way of an arch, into this sinister place
of uncleanness. Male residents in their shirt sleeves lounge
against the several entrances. Bedraggled women nurse dirty infants