person, which again is a trick for the other side. They were

piling up their score all the time and we were at a standstill.

"Only one little gleam of hope did I get -- and yet it amounted

to nothing. I examined the contents of the safe, most of which

had been taken out and left on the table. The papers had been

made up into sealed envelopes, one or two of which had been

opened by the police. They were not, so far as I could judge,

of any great value, nor did the bank-book show that Mr. Oldacre

was in such very affluent circumstances. But it seemed to me

that all the papers were not there. There were allusions to

some deeds -- possibly the more valuable -- which I could not

find. This, of course, if we could definitely prove it, would

turn Lestrade's argument against himself, for who would steal

a thing if he knew that he would shortly inherit it?

"Finally, having drawn every other cover and picked up no scent,

I tried my luck with the housekeeper. Mrs. Lexington is her

name, a little, dark, silent person, with suspicious and

09.07.2007