committed. Do the police retain such things? Is there any
possibility of my finding it laid away in some drawer at
Headquarters or on some dusty shelf?"

Mr. Black was again astonished. Was this callousness or a very
deep and determined purpose.

"I don't know. I never go pottering about at Headquarters. What do
you want to see that for? What help can you get out of that?"

"None probably; but in the presence of defeat you grasp at every
hope. I dreamt of that stick last night. I was in an awful
wilderness, all rocks, terrific gorges and cloud-covered,
unassailable peaks. A light--one ray and one only--shone on me
through the darkness. Towards this ray I was driven through great
gaps in the yawning rocks and along narrow galleries sloping above
an unfathomable abyss. Hope lay beyond, rescue, light. But a wall
reared its black length between. I came upon it suddenly; a
barrier mighty and impenetrable with its ends lost in obscurity.
And the ray! the one long beam! It was still there. It shone
directly upon me from an opening in this wall. It marked a gate,--
a gate for which I only lacked the key. Where should I find one to
fit a lock so gigantic! Nowhere! unless the something which I
held--which had been in my hands from the first--would be found to
move its stubborn wards. I tried it and it did! it did! I hear the
squeak of those tremendous hinges now, and--Mr. Black, you must
have guessed what that something was. My husband's stick! the
bludgeon with whose shape I was so familiar twelve years ago! It
is that and that only which will lead us to the light. Of this I
feel quite sure."