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on which to start. We must hurry up, for I want to go to
Halle's concert to hear Norman Neruda this afternoon."

This conversation had occurred while our cab had been
threading its way through a long succession of dingy streets
and dreary by-ways. In the dingiest and dreariest of them
our driver suddenly came to a stand. "That's Audley Court
in there," he said, pointing to a narrow slit in the line of
dead-coloured brick. "You'll find me here when you come back."

Audley Court was not an attractive locality. The narrow
passage led us into a quadrangle paved with flags and lined
by sordid dwellings. We picked our way among groups of dirty
children, and through lines of discoloured linen, until we
came to Number 46, the door of which was decorated with a
small slip of brass on which the name Rance was engraved.
On enquiry we found that the constable was in bed, and we
were shown into a little front parlour to await his coming.

He appeared presently, looking a little irritable at being
disturbed in his slumbers. "I made my report at the office,"
he said.

Holmes took a half-sovereign from his pocket and played with
it pensively. "We thought that we should like to hear it all
from your own lips," he said.

"I shall be most happy to tell you anything I can," the
constable answered with his eyes upon the little golden disk.

"Just let us hear it all in your own way as it occurred."

Rance sat down on the horsehair sofa, and knitted his brows
as though determined not to omit anything in his narrative.

"I'll tell it ye from the beginning," he said. "My time is
from ten at night to six in the morning. At eleven there was
a fight at the `White Hart'; but bar that all was quiet
enough on the beat. At one o'clock it began to rain, and I
met Harry Murcher -- him who has the Holland Grove beat --
and we stood together at the corner of Henrietta Street a-talkin'.
Presently -- maybe about two or a little after -- I thought
I would take a look round and see that all was right
down the Brixton Road. It was precious dirty and lonely.
Not a soul did I meet all the way down, though a cab or two
went past me. I was a strollin' down, thinkin' between
ourselves how uncommon handy a four of gin hot would be,
when suddenly the glint of a light caught my eye in the window
of that same house. Now, I knew that them two houses in
Lauriston Gardens was empty on account of him that owns them
who won't have the drains seed to, though the very last
tenant what lived in one of them died o' typhoid fever.
I was knocked all in a heap therefore at seeing a light
in the window, and I suspected as something was wrong.
When I got to the door ----"

"You stopped, and then walked back to the garden gate,"
my companion interrupted. "What did you do that for?"

Rance gave a violent jump, and stared at Sherlock Holmes
with the utmost amazement upon his features.

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