“Why, I cut my finger and nearly fainted,” she answered, with a shamefaced little laugh.  “It was rather a bad cut, you know, but I didn’t notice it until I found my hand covered with blood.  Then I turned suddenly faint, and had to lie down on the hearthrug—­it was in Mr. Hornby’s study, which I was tidying up at the time.  Here I was found by Reuben, and a dreadful fright it gave him at first; and then he tore up his handkerchief to tie up the wounded finger, and you never saw such an awful mess as he got his hands in.  He might have been arrested as a murderer, poor boy, from the condition he was in.  It will make your professional gorge rise to learn that he fastened up the extemporised bandage with red tape, which he got from the writing table after rooting about among the sacred papers in the most ruthless fashion.

“When he had gone I tried to put the things on the table straight again, and really you might have thought some horrible crime had been committed; the envelopes and papers were all smeared with blood and marked with the print of gory fingers.  I remembered it afterwards, when Reuben’s thumb-mark was identified, and thought that perhaps one of the papers might have got into the safe by accident; but Mr. Hornby told me that was impossible; he tore the leaf off his memorandum block at the time when he put away the diamonds.”

Such was the gist of our conversation as the cab rattled through the streets on the way to the prison; and certainly it contained matter sufficiently important to draw away my thoughts from other subjects, more agreeable, but less relevant to the case.  With a sudden remembrance of my duty, I drew forth my notebook, and was in the act of committing the statements to writing, when Thorndyke entered the room.

“Don’t let me interrupt you, Jervis,” said he.  “I will make myself a cup of tea while you finish your writing, and then you shall exhibit the day’s catch and hang your nets out to dry.”

I was not long in finishing my notes, for I was in a fever of impatience to hear Thorndyke’s comments on my latest addition to our store of information.  By the time the kettle was boiling my entries were completed, and I proceeded forthwith to retail to my colleague those extracts from my conversation with Juliet that I have just recorded.

He listened, as usual, with deep and critical attention.

“This is very interesting and important,” he said, when I had finished; “really, Jervis, you are a most invaluable coadjutor.  It seems that information, which would be strictly withheld from the forbidding Jorkins, trickles freely and unasked into the ear of the genial Spenlow.  Now, I suppose you regard your hypothesis as having received very substantial confirmation?”

“Certainly, I do.”