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Holmes from Aristophanes. But with your kooky talents, you could stalk the culprit in an afternoon.”
    â€œLook, Grant, any other time and I’d play the game. But I told you. I’m in one of my periodic binds. I simply haven’t the time.”
    â€œThen it ends here, Maestro? For God’s sake, man, what are you, a hack? Here I toss a delicious mystery into your lap—”
    â€œAnd I,” said Ellery, firmly placing the notebook in Grant Ames’s lap, “toss it right back to you. I have a suggestion. You rush out, glass in hand, and track down your lady joker.”
    â€œI might at that,” whined the millionaire.
    â€œFine. Let me know.”
    â€œThe manuscript didn’t grip you?”
    â€œOf course it does.” Reluctantly, Ellery picked up the journal and riffled through it.
    â€œThat’s my old buddy!” Ames rose. “Why don’t I leave it here? After all, it is addressed to you. I could report back at intervals—”
    â€œMake it long intervals.”
    â€œMine host. All right, I’ll bother you as little as I can.”
    â€œLess, if possibly. And now will you beat it, Grant? I’m serious.”
    â€œWhat you are, friend, is grim. No fun at all.” Ames turned in the doorway. “Oh, by the way, order some more scotch. You’ve run out.”
    When he was alone again, Ellery stood indecisively. Finally he put the notebook down on the sofa and went to his desk. He stared at the keys. The keys stared back. He shifted in his swivel chair; his bottom was itching. He pulled the chair closer. He pulled his nose again.
    The notebook lay quietly on the sofa.
    Ellery ran a sheet of blank paper into the machine. He raised his hands, flexed his fingers, thought, and began to type.
    He typed rapidly, stopped, and read what he had written:
    â€œ The Lord,” said Nikki, “choves a leerful giver .”
    â€œAll right! ” said Ellery. “Just one more chapter!”
    He jumped up and ran to the sofa and grabbed the notebook and opened it and began to devour Chapter III.

CHAPTER III
    WHITECHAPEL
    â€œBy the way, Holmes, whatever became of Wiggins?” I asked the question late the following morning in the rooms at Baker Street.
    We had had a buffet supper the previous evening at the station after our return from Shires Castle, whereupon Holmes had said, “The young American pianist, Benton, plays at Albert Hall tonight. I recommend him highly, Watson.”
    â€œI was not aware that the States had produced any great pianoforte talents.”
    Holmes had laughed. “Come, come, my dear fellow! Let the Americans go. It has been more than a century now, and they have been doing quite well over there.”
    â€œYou wish me to accompany you? I should be delighted.”
    â€œI was suggesting the concert for your evening. I have a few investigations in mind which are better made at night.”
    â€œIn that case, I prefer the easy-chair by the fire and one of your fascinating books.”
    â€œI recommend one I recently acquired, Uncle Tom’s Cabin , by an American lady named Stowe. A lugubrious work, meant to stir the nation to correct a great injustice. It was, I believe, one of the causes of the War Between the States. Well, I must be off. Perhaps I shall join you in a night-cap later.”
    Holmes, however, returned very late, after I was abed. He did not awaken me, so that our next meeting was at breakfast. I hoped for an account of his night’s work, but none was forthcoming. Nor did he appear to be in haste to get on with things, lounging lazily in his mouse-coloured dressing-gown over his tea and clouding the room with heavy exhalations from his beloved clay pipe.
    Came a sudden clatter upon the stairs, and there rushed into the room a dozen of the dirtiest, most ragged urchins in all London. They were Holmes’s incredible band of street Arabs, whom he called variously “the