I knew, of course, that she was intent on her business and on that only, and as soon as she had gone out I set myself to the wearisome task which she had allotted me. My dear lady was evidently working out a problem in her mind, the solution of which she expected to find in a back number of the _West of England Times_. By the time she returned I had the “Personal” column of some three hundred numbers of the paper neatly filed and docketed for her perusal. She thanked me for my promptitude with one of her charming looks, but said little, if anything, all through luncheon. After that meal she set to work. I could see her studying each scrap of paper minutely, comparing one with the other, arranging them in sets in front of her, and making marginal notes on them all the while. With but a brief interval for tea, she sat at her table for close on four hours, at the end of which time she swept all the scraps of paper on one side, with the exception of a few which she kept in her hand. Then she looked up at me, and I sighed with relief. My dear lady was positively beaming. “You have found what you wanted?” I asked eagerly. “What I expected,” she replied. “May I know?” She spread out the bits of paper before me. There were six altogether, and each of these columns had one paragraph specially marked with a cross. “Only look at the paragraphs which I have marked,” she said. I did as I was told. But if in my heart I had vaguely hoped that I should then and there be confronted with the solution of the mystery which surrounded the Somersetshire outrage, I was doomed to disappointment. Each of the marked paragraphs in the “Personal” columns bore the initials H. S. H., and their purport was invariably an assignation at one of the small railway stations on the line between Bristol and Weston. I suppose that my bewilderment must have been supremely comical, for my dear lady’s rippling laugh went echoing through the bare, dull hotel sitting-room. “You don’t see it, Mary?” she asked gaily. “I confess I don’t,” I replied. “It completely baffles me.” “And yet,” she said more gravely, “those few silly paragraphs have given me the clue to the mysterious assault on Jane Turner, which has been puzzling our fellows at the Yard for over three weeks.” “But how? I don’t understand.” “You will, Mary, directly we get back to town. During my morning walk I have learnt all that I want to know, and now these paragraphs have set my mind at rest.” 3 The next day we were back in town. Already, at Bristol, we had bought a London morning paper, which contained in its centre page a short notice under the following startling headlines: THE SOMERSETSHIRE OUTRAGE AMAZING DISCOVERY BY THE POLICE AN UNEXPECTED CLUE The article went on to say: