Of all conceivable happenings, nothing could so irretrievably part Kate and myself for ever as that, whereas could Miss Clara contrive to obtain a medical certificate, to the effect that her brother was of unsound mind, and have him put under restraint, the further committal of crimes by him would effectively be prevented, and Carleton, once out of the way, Kate and I might come together again. That, I believed, was the end for which Miss Clara was working, and as it was an end which would spare Kate from being publicly branded as the daughter of a madman and a murderer, I could not but feel myself in sympathy with it. That John Carleton and the Dumpling were one and the same man, there was no room for doubt. That fact explained everything. That was why Mr. John Carleton had absented himself unexpectedly from his home, and caused thereby some anxiety to his sister and daughter. He had intended no doubt to return thither, after superintending the carrying out of the projected kidnapping operation--instead of which my unexpected appearance, and subsequent escape from the opium den, had compelled him to devote himself to the clearing out of the bombs, chemicals, and other contents of the place, before the arrival of the police. The telegram from Glasgow was, of course, a fake. He might have instructed some accomplice of his to despatch a telegram from that place, or the whole thing, post-mark and all, might have been a forgery. Which of the two suppositions was true I did not greatly care. It was enough for me to know that in discovering the reason for Mr. John Carleton's non-return to his family that night, I had discovered also the reason for several of his subsequent acts. I had discovered, for instance, his reason for watching No. 5, Taunton Square, not, as in my anxiety to form a theory of some sort, I had supposed--because one of the millionaires whom he was scheming to kidnap, and to hold to ransom, lived there, but because that house was his home, and because, before returning to its shelter, he wished to satisfy himself that all was secure, and that no police trap had been set for him. It was because the house was his own that he had taken shelter in the garden after the murder of young Grant. A hiding-place of some sort it was necessary speedily to find, for the police were everywhere on the watch; and once he could obtain entrance to his own house he would be safe. Nor would that entrance be difficult to obtain. None knew better than he that, by the breaking of a certain pane of glass in the conservatory, he would be able to shoot back the bolt on the conservatory door; and but for my accidental presence, he would in all probability have effected undisturbed the purpose at which he aimed.