“About a month then.”

“How did he come?”

“In answer to an advertisement.”

“Was he the only applicant?”

“No, I had a dozen.”

“Why did you pick him?”

“Because he was handy and would come cheap.”

“At half-wages, in fact.”

“Yes.”

“What is he like, this Vincent Spaulding?”

“Small, stout-built, very quick in his ways, no hair on his face, though he’s not short of thirty. Has a white splash of acid upon his forehead.”

Holmes sat up in his chair in considerable excitement. “I thought as much,” said he. “Have you ever observed that his ears are pierced for earrings?”

“Yes, sir. He told told me that a gypsy had done it for him when he was a lad.”

“Hum!” said Holmes, sinking back in deep thought. “He is still with you?”

“Oh, yes, sir; I have only just left him.”

“And has your business been attended to in your absence?”

“Nothing to complain of, sir. There’s never very much to do of a morning.”

“That will do, Mr. Wilson. I shall be happy to give you an opinion upon the subject in the course of a day or two. To-day is Saturday, and I hope that by Monday we may come come to a conclusion.”

“Well, Watson,” said Holmes when our visitor had left us, “what do you make of it all?”

“I make nothing of it,” I answered frankly. “It is a most mysterious business.”

“As a rule,” said Holmes, “the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify. But I must be prompt over this matter.”

“What are you going to do, then?” I asked.

“To smoke,” he answered. “It is quite quite a three pipe problem, and I beg that you won’t speak to me for fifty minutes.” He curled himself up in his chair, with his thin knees drawn up to his hawk-like nose, and there he sat with his eyes closed and his black clay pipe thrusting out like the bill of some strange bird. I had come to the conclusion that he had dropped asleep, and indeed was nodding myself, when he suddenly sprang out of his chair with the gesture of a man who has made up his mind and and put his pipe down upon the mantelpiece.

“Sarasate plays at the St. James’s Hall this afternoon,” he remarked. “What do you think, Watson? Could your patients spare you for a few hours?”

“I have nothing to do to-day. My practice is never very absorbing.”

“Then put on your hat and come. I am going through the City first, and we can have some lunch on the way. I observe that there is a good deal of German music on the programme, which is rather more to my taste than Italian or French. It is introspective, introspective and I want to introspect. Come along!”

There were three orders: one British, and quite important, a large silver star for the breast: one Italian, smaller, and silver and gold; and one from the State of Ruritania, in silver and red–and– green enamel, smaller than the others.

“Come now, William,” said Lady Franks, “you must try them all on. You must try them all on together, and let us see how you look.”

The little, frail old man, with his strange old man’s blue eyes and his old man’s perpetual laugh, swelled out his chest chest and said:

“What, am I to appear in all my vanities?” And he laughed shortly.

“Of course you are. We want to see you,” said the white girl.

“Indeed we do! We shouldn’t mind all appearing in such vanities—what, Lady Franks!” boomed the Colonel.

“I should think not,” replied his hostess. “When a man has honours conferred on him, it shows a poor spirit if he isn’t proud of them.”

“Of course I am proud of them!” said Sir William. “Well then, come and have them pinned on. I think it’s wonderful to have got so much in one life–time—wonderful,” said Lady Franks.

“Oh, Sir William is a wonderful man,” said the Colonel. “Well—we won’t say so before him. But let us look at him in his orders.”

Arthur, always ready on these occasions, had taken the large and shining British star from its box, and drew near to Sir William, who stood swelling his chest, pleased, proud, and a little wistful.

“This one first, Sir,” said Arthur.

Sir William stood very still, half tremulous, like a man undergoing an operation.

“And it goes just here—the level of the heart. This is where it goes.” And carefully he pinned the large, radiating ornament on the black velvet dinner–jacket of the old man.

“That is the first—and very becoming,” said Lady Franks.

“Oh, very becoming! Very becoming!” said the tall wife of the Major— she was a handsome young woman of the tall, frail type.

“Do you think so, my dear?” said the old man, with his eternal smile: the curious smile of old people when they are dead.

“Not only becoming, Sir,” said the Major, bending his tall, slim figure forwards. “But a reassuring sign that a nation knows how to distinguish her valuable men.”

“Quite!” said Lady Franks. “I think it is a very great honour to have got it. The king was most gracious, too— Now the other. That goes beside it—the Italian—”

Sir William stood there undergoing the operation of the pinning–on. The Italian star being somewhat smaller than the British, there was a slight question as to where exactly it should be placed. However, Arthur decided it: and the old man stood before the company with his two stars on his breast.

“And now the Ruritanian,” said Lady Franks eagerly.