My wife was on a visit to her mother's, and for a few days I was a dweller once more in my old quarters at Baker Street.
"Why," said I, glancing up at my companion, "that was surely the bell.

Who could come to-night?
Some friend of yours, perhaps ?" "Except yourself I have none," he answered.

"I do not encourage visitors." "A client, then ?" "If so, it is a serious case.

Nothing less would bring a man out on such a day and at such an hour.

But I take it that it is more likely to be some crony of the landlady's." Sherlock Holmes was wrong in his conjecture, however, for there came a step in the passage and a tapping at the door.