In a little while the friends parted.  Lefevre said he had work to do, but he did not anticipate such work as he had to turn to that night.  Though the doctor was a bachelor, he had a professional residence apart from his mother and sister.  They lived in a small house in Curzon Street; he dwelt in Savile Row.  Savile Row was a place of consequence long before Regent Street was thought of, but now they are few who know of its existence.  Fashion ignores it.  It is tenanted by small clubs, learned societies, and doctors.  It slumbers in genteel decorum, with its back to the garish modern thoroughfare.  It is always quiet, but by nine o’clock of a dark evening it is deserted.  When Dr Lefevre, therefore, stepped out of his hired hansom, and prepared to put his latch-key in his own door, he was arrested by a hoarse-voiced hawker of evening news bursting in upon the repose of the Row with a continuous roar of “Special—­Mystery—­Paper—&sh
y;Railway—­Special—­Brighton—­Paper—­Victoria —­Special!” It was with some effort, and only when the man was close at hand, that he interpreted the sounds into these words.

“Paper, sir,” said the man; and he bought it and went in.  He entered his dining-room, and read the following paragraph;—­

     “A Mysterious Case.

“A report has reached us that a young man, about two or four and twenty years of age, whose name is at present unknown, was found yesterday (Sunday) to all appearance dead in a first-class carriage of the 5 P.M. train from Brighton to Victoria.  The discovery was only made at Grosvenor Road Station, where tickets are taken before entering Victoria.  At Victoria the body was searched for purposes of identification, and there was found upon him a card with the following remarkable inscription:—­’I am not dead.  Take me to the St. James’s Hospital.’ To St. James’s Hospital accordingly the young man was conveyed.  It seems probable he is in a condition of trance—­not for the first time—­since he was provided with the card, and knew the hospital with which is associated in all men’s minds the name of Dr Lefevre, who is so famous for his skill in the treatment of nervous disorders.”

In matters of plain duty Dr Lefevre had got into the excellent habit of acting first and thinking afterwards.  He at once rang the bell, and ordered the responsible serving-man who appeared to call a cab.  The man went to the door and sounded his shrill whistle, grateful to the ears of several loitering cabbies.  There was a mad race of growlers and hansoms for the open door.  Dr Lefevre got into the first hansom that drew up, and drove off to the hospital.  By that time he had told himself that the young man must be a former patient of his (though he did not remember any such), and that he ought to see him at once, although it is not for the visiting physician of a hospital to appear, except between fixed hours of certain days.  He made nothing of the mystery which the newspaper wished, after the manner of its kind, to cast about the case, and thought of other things, while he smoked cigarettes, till he reached the hospital.  The house-physician was somewhat surprised by his appearance.