“I sent Jacob there for the purpose of rendering my suspicions certainties. He worked well, his object being to find the cipher and hieroglyphic, which had already been used on the piece of paper found close to the murdered man in the possession of the suspected party. For this purpose he made friends with a woman who kept a small post-office in the village near your home. He also left not a stone unturned to make investigations at the Heights itself. Yesterday morning, madam, a man living on your premises wrote a letter to town in the same cipher and signed it with the same hieroglyphic which was used when your brother was murdered more than six years ago. “This is terrible! it excites me beyond measure. Go on; tell me the rest quickly.” “Jacob Short sent me full particulars,” continued Crossley, “and acting on them I went to see a woman last night whose husband belongs to a celebrated gang or school of burglars, known to us police as the Silver School. The man has not long ago been arrested on a charge of uttering a forged cheque. I thought it possible that the wife might know something about the man who wrote the cipher and who lived at Rowton Heights. I went to her last night and taxed her with her knowledge, believing, as I will explain, that her husband and this man belonged to the same School. Under pressure, she told me what she knew. She described the man who used that cipher and who signed his name with that special hieroglyphic. She described him as I expected her to describe him, but she could not tell me his name, for that had always been hidden from her. I had a photograph in my possession, however, which I showed her, and she identified the photograph with the man. There is no doubt that this man and the woman’s husband had been employed in the same nefarious work.” “You absolutely bewilder me,” said Nance. “Then this ruffian has not only taken human life, but he is also a burglar. And you tell me calmly to my face that this fiend has lived in the house with my husband and myself. Have you arrested him, Mr. Crossley?” Nancy Rowton’s eyes became full of fire—a passion of absolute revenge gave to her face a totally foreign appearance. “Have you arrested the scoundrel?” she repeated. “I cannot arrest him at present,” answered Crossley. “To complete my evidence there is one last link wanting. The man who murdered your young brother not only used the cipher which I have discovered and the hieroglyphic, but he wore on his face a peculiar mark, a mark so uncommon and so impossible to hide that by that alone he might be identified at any time. My man, Short, found the cipher and the hieroglyphic, but it was, as he said, completely outside his province to discover the mark. When we find the man with the mark on his upper lip, we have found, beyond doubt, the murderer of your brother. I regret to say, madam, that no one can give us that last evidence but yourself.”