Evening came at last.  He stopped until the cracked bell of the chapel had done striking the Angelus, and then put on his overcoat, and went out.  The air was cold and pungent.  The crowded city seemed wakening to some keen enjoyment; even his own weak, deliberate step rang on the icy pavement as if it wished to rejoice with the rest.  I said it was a trading city:  so it was, but the very trade to-day had a jolly Christmas face on; the surly old banks and pawnbrokers’ shops had grown ashamed of their doings, and shut their doors, and covered their windows with frosty trees, and cathedrals, and castles; the shops opened their hearts; some child’s angel had touched them, and they flushed out into a magic splendor of Christmas trees, and lights, and toys; Santa Claus might have made his head-quarters in any one of them.  As for children, you stumbled over them at every step, quite weighed down with the heaviness of their joy, and the money burning their pockets; the acrid old brokers and pettifoggers, that you met with a chill on other days, had turned into jolly fathers of families, and lounged laughing along with half a dozen little hands pulling them into candy-stores or toy-shops:  all the churches whose rules permitted them to show their deep rejoicing in a simple way had covered their cold stone walls with evergreens and wreaths of glowing fire-berries:  the child’s angel had touched them too, perhaps,—­not unwisely.

He passed crowds of thin-clad women looking in through open doors, with red cheeks and hungry eyes, at red-hot stoves within, and a placard, “Christmas dinners for the poor, gratis”; out of every window on the streets came a ruddy light, and a spicy smell; the very sunset sky had caught the reflection of the countless Christmas fires, and flamed up to the zenith, blood-red as cinnabar.

Holmes turned down one of the back streets:  he was going to see Lois, first of all.  I hardly know why:  the child’s angel may have touched him, too; or his heart, full of a yearning pity for the poor cripple, who, he believed now, had given her own life for his, may have plead for indulgence, as men remember their childish prayers, before going into battle.  He came at last, in the quiet lane where she lived, to her little brown frame-shanty, to which you mounted by a flight of wooden steps:  there were two narrow windows at the top, hung with red curtains; he could hear her feeble voice singing within.  As he turned to go up the steps, he caught sight of something crouched underneath them in the dark, hiding from him:  whether a man—­or a dog he could not see.  He touched it.

“What d’ ye want, Mas’r?” said a stifled voice.

He touched it again with his stick.

The man stood upright, back in the shadow:  it was old Yare.

“Had ye any word wi’ me, Mas’r?”

He saw the negro’s face grow gray with fear.

“Come out, Yare,” he said, quietly.  “Any word?  What word is arson, eh?”