It was from Spaulding, and as he read it all his finespun theories vanished and once more he was adrift on an uncharted sea without a landmark in sight.
"Dear Sir," began the detective, who was always formal on paper.

"I've just got the information required from Holbrook Centre.

We didn't half believe there was such a place, if you remember?
Well there is, and according to the parish register Marie Jeanne Perrin was married to James Delano on July 25th, 1891.

She was there, visiting some French relations--they went back soon after--and he had left there when he was about sixteen and had only come back that once to see his mother, who was dying.

Nothing seems to have been known about him in his home town except a sort of rumor that he was a bad lot and lived somewheres in California.
Can you beat it?
But don't think I'm stumped.