“My morning has not been wasted,” he said to himself.  “I’ve found out that he came in at a time which corresponds to all his movements after one o’clock on Thursday night, and this is the missing glove, which clearly belonged to Whyte.  If I could only get hold of the chloroform bottle I’d be satisfied.”

But the chloroform bottle was not to be found, though he searched most carefully for it.  At last, hearing Mrs. Sampson coming upstairs again, he gave up the search, and came back to the sitting-room.

“Threw it away, I suspect,” he said, as he sat down in his, old place; “but it doesn’t matter.  I think I can form a chain of evidence, from what I have discovered, which will be sufficient to convict him.  Besides, I expect when he is arrested he will confess everything; he seems to feel remorse for what he has done.”

The door opened, and Mrs. Sampson entered the room in a state of indignation.

“One of them Chinese ’awkers,” she explained, “‘e’s bin a-tryin’ to git the better of me over carrots—­as if I didn’t know what carrots was—­and ‘im a-talkin’ about a shillin’ in his gibberish, as if ’e ’adn’t been brought up in a place where they don’t know what a shillin’ is.  But I never could abide furreigners ever since a Frenchman, as taught me ’is language, made orf with my mother’s silver tea-pot, unbeknown to ‘er, it bein’ set out on the sideboard for company.”

Mr. Gorby interrupted these domestic reminiscences of Mrs. Sampson’s by stating that, now she had given him all necessary information, he would take his departure.

“An’ I ’opes,” said Mrs. Sampson, as she opened the door for him, “as I’ll ‘ave the pleasure of seein’ you again should any business on be’alf of Mr. Fitzgerald require it.”

“Oh, I’ll see you again,” said Mr. Gorby, with heavy jocularity, “and in a way you won’t like, as you’ll be called as a witness,” he added, mentally.  “Did I understand you to say, Mrs. Sampson,” he went on, “that Mr. Fitzgerald would be at home this afternoon?”

“Oh, yes, sir, ‘e will,” answered Mrs. Sampson, “a-drinkin’ tea with his young lady, who is Miss Frettlby, and ’as got no end of money, not but what I mightn’t ’ave ’ad the same ’ad I been born in a ’igher spear.”

“You need not tell Mr. Fitzgerald I have been here,” said Gorby, closing the gate; “I’ll probably call and see him myself this afternoon.”

“What a stout person ’e are,” said Mrs. Sampson to herself, as the detective walked away, “just like my late father, who was allays fleshy, bein’ a great eater, and fond of ’is glass, but I took arter my mother’s family, they bein’ thin-like, and proud of keeping ’emselves so, as the vinegar they drank could testify, not that I indulge in it myself.”

She shut the door, and went upstairs to take away the breakfast things, while Gorby was being driven along at a good pace to the police office, to obtain a warrant for Brian’s arrest, on a charge of wilful murder.