“Do you know where we are?” he whispered.

“Surely that is Baker Street,” I answered, staring through the dim window.

“Exactly.  We are in Camden House, which stands opposite to our own old quarters.”

“But why are we here?”

“Because it commands so excellent a view of that picturesque pile.  Might I trouble you, my dear Watson, to draw a little nearer to the window, taking every precaution not to show yourself, and then to look up at our old rooms—­the starting-point of so many of your little fairy-tales?  We will see if my three years of absence have entirely taken away my power to surprise you.”

I crept forward and looked across at the familiar window.  As my eyes fell upon it, I gave a gasp and a cry of amazement.  The blind was down, and a strong light was burning in the room.  The shadow of a man who was seated in a chair within was thrown in hard, black outline upon the luminous screen of the window.  There was no mistaking the poise of the head, the squareness of the shoulders, the sharpness of the features.  The face was turned half-round, and the effect was that of one of those black silhouettes which our grandparents loved to frame.  It was a perfect reproduction of Holmes.  So amazed was I that I threw out my hand to make sure that the man himself was standing beside me.  He was quivering with silent laughter.

“Well?” said he.

“Good heavens!” I cried.  “It is marvellous.”

“I trust that age doth not wither nor custom stale my infinite variety,” said he, and I recognized in his voice the joy and pride which the artist takes in his own creation.  “It really is rather like me, is it not?”

“I should be prepared to swear that it was you.”

“The credit of the execution is due to Monsieur Oscar Meunier, of Grenoble, who spent some days in doing the moulding.  It is a bust in wax.  The rest I arranged myself during my visit to Baker Street this afternoon.”

“But why?”

“Because, my dear Watson, I had the strongest possible reason for wishing certain people to think that I was there when I was really elsewhere.”

“And you thought the rooms were watched?”

“I knew that they were watched.”

“By whom?”

“By my old enemies, Watson.  By the charming society whose leader lies in the Reichenbach Fall.  You must remember that they knew, and only they knew, that I was still alive.  Sooner or later they believed that I should come back to my rooms.  They watched them continuously, and this morning they saw me arrive.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I recognized their sentinel when I glanced out of my window.  He is a harmless enough fellow, Parker by name, a garroter by trade, and a remarkable performer upon the jew’s-harp.  I cared nothing for him.  But I cared a great deal for the much more formidable person who was behind him, the bosom friend of Moriarty, the man who dropped the rocks over the cliff, the most cunning and dangerous criminal in London.  That is the man who is after me to-night Watson, and that is the man who is quite unaware that we are after him.”