“To find the missing glove?  It’s a tough job, ain’t it, sir?”

“Yes and no,” replied Crewe.  “It is possible to make some reasonable safe deductions in regard to it.  These would indicate what had happened to it, and knowing where to look, or, rather, in what circumstances we might expect to find it, we might throw a little light on it.  In the first place, it might be assumed that if the glove did not belong to Sir Horace it belonged to some one who visited him on the night he returned unexpectedly from Scotland.  That indicates that his visitor knew Sir Horace was returning; a most important point, for if he knew Sir Horace was returning he knew why he was returning—­which no one else knows up to the present as far as I have been able to gather—­and in all probability was responsible for his return, say, sent him a letter or a telegram which brought him to London.  So we come to the possibility of an angry scene in the room in which Sir Horace’s dead body was subsequently found.  We have the possibility of the visitor leaving the house in a high state of excitement, hastily snatching up the hat and gloves he had taken off when he arrived, and in his excitement dropping unnoticed the right-hand glove on the floor.”

“And leaving his gold-mounted stick behind him,” said Joe, who was following his master’s line of reasoning with keen interest.

“Right, Joe,” said Crewe.  “That was placed in the stand in the hall, and when the visitor left hurriedly was entirely forgotten.  But at what stage did the visitor become conscious of the loss of his glove?  Not until his excitement cooled down a little.  How long he took to cool down depends upon the cause of his excitement and his temperament, things which, at present, we can only guess at.  He would probably walk a long distance before he cooled down.  Then he would resume his normal habits and among other things would put on his gloves—­if he had them.  He would find that he had lost one and that he had left his stick behind.  He would know that the stick had been left behind in the hall, but he would not know the glove had been dropped in the house.  The probabilities are that he would think he had dropped it while walking.  But if he felt that he had dropped it in the house, and he had the best of all reasons for not wishing anyone to know that he had visited Sir Horace that night, he would destroy the remaining glove and our chance of tracing it would be gone.  The fact that he had left his stick behind was a minor matter that he could easily account for if he had been a friend of Sir Horace who had been in the habit of visiting Riversbrook.  If anything cropped up subsequently about the stick he could say that he had left it there before Sir Horace closed up his house and went to Scotland.