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of mud, and that the police constable immediately to your left is a bachelor who owns a terrier. And thus, friend Watson, we finish no better off than we began.” He waved to the constables to proceed about their business.
    “I suppose the points you’ve mentioned can have nothing to do with the crime itself, but how did you deduce them?”
    “What?” His grey eyes were busily scanning the upper stories of the surrounding buildings. “Oh, yes…Old door with new lock near broken window, a costly variety of the jack of spades torn in half near obvious signs of a struggle between square-toed male boots, and Constable Anderson’s truly appalling trouser legs. No, they are not related to our investigation. And yet, we may still find ourselves employment. The angle of that window is ideally positioned for our purposes.”
    I looked up in curiosity. Behind us stood the Brown and Eagle Wool Warehouse and Schneider’s Cap Factory, both constructed with that wholehearted devotion to industry that sullies the word architecture. The window Holmes indicated, belonging to a tenement, was almost immediately above us. My friend lost no time but strode forward and rapped upon the door.
    At first I thought his mysterious intentions would be denied, for there was no answer. Then the detective smiled in his ironic fashion.“Slow footsteps…a woman, I think. Yes, and slightly lame in one foot. Naturally, I cannot yet tell you which foot. My apologies. Ah, here is the lady herself.”
    The door flew open, revealing a wrinkled, forward-thrusting face wreathed with a nimbus of wispy white hair, a face resembling nothing so much as a mole emerging from its burrow. Her spectacles were so dirty that I could hardly see the use of them. She peered at us as if at two scabrous street dogs and tightened her grasp on her cane.
    “What do you want? I don’t let rooms, and if you’ve business with my sons or my husband, they work for a living.”
    “What miserable luck,” Holmes exclaimed. “I was informed that your fellow knew a man with access to a cart.”
    “Yes, sir,” she replied, her eyes narrowing still further, “but my youngest won’t be back until seven.”
    “By Jove! No rest for us today, Miles,” said Holmes with a wry face. “I was prepared to meet nearly any price, the goods being what they are, but we’ll simply have to inquire elsewhere.”
    “Now, wait. You’ve need of a cart today?”
    Holmes bent his aquiline face toward the old woman and replied, “I’ve certain…materials which need transporting. I’m afraid it’s rather a man’s business, Mrs….?”
    “Mrs. Green.”
    “Of course, you’re his mother. And you’re sure Mr. Green will be out for some time? Well, it is a pity. I don’t imagine you’ve any experience with such matters?”
    She pursed her wrinkled mouth and, reaching some private conclusion, beckoned us inside. We were led into a small, dimly lit parlour, which featured not one iota of furnishings more than was necessary, and sat down.
    “I must admit,” Holmes began, “I’ve been set on my guard by recent events.”
    Mrs. Green’s eyes lit like tapers. “Oh, you mean the murder, do you? Begging your pardon, what was your name?”
    “I am Mr. Worthington, and this is my associate Mr. Miles.”
    She nodded sagely, replying, “A nasty business.”
    “But how terrifying! You must have heard something, living so near at hand.”
    “Not I, sir. Though I am, I may tell you, a very light sleeper. I was once awoken by nothing more than my cat leaping onto the downstairs balustrade.”
    “Dear me. But you sleep downstairs, surely, to have heard such a thing?”
    She shook her head proudly. “No, indeed. My daughter and I sleep on the first floor. I am very sensitive, nocturnally speaking, sir.”
    “Then you must certainly have been disturbed! Your window overlooks the very spot.”
    “Would that I had seen something, or heard it, but I slept peacefully through till morning. It’s