"By letter this morning. The letter was from Ugo Ucelli, the Syndic of Camajore, with the usual certificate of death. The letter gave the particulars of Mr. Silwood's death. Cholera is epidemic along the Gulf of Genoa, and Mr. Silwood fell a victim to it. The body was buried twenty-four hours after death. Of course, the news affected my father very much--it was totally unexpected." "What was Mr. Silwood doing in Italy?" asked Gale. "He was on a holiday." "Had he been long away from the office, from Lincoln's Inn?" "A week or two only, I think." "You cannot say exactly?" "No, but you will easily find out at the office." "I thought you might know, but, as you say, I can ascertain the date at the office. You see, of course, that it is necessary to get to know Mr. Silwood's movements?" The last sentence was put interrogatively. "This means, I imagine, that you connect Mr. Silwood with the death of Mr. Thornton?" asked Gilbert. "That is the obvious thing," replied the inspector; "but it is so obvious that I distrust it. I always doubt the obvious in these cases. Here, however, it is my duty to neglect nothing. And I must make it my business to find out everything I can about Mr. Silwood, and with regard to that I count with confidence on your father's assistance. Well, to go back, your father, on learning of Mr. Silwood's death, sent for you; what came next?" "He showed me the certificate signed by the Syndic; it was in Italian, a language neither my father nor I understand, but a large part of the certificate was printed, and from our Latin we made out pretty well what it said. The letter, however, we could make nothing of, so I went and got a man to translate it." Gilbert broke off suddenly with a sharp ejaculation. "You have thought of something, Mr. Gilbert?" suggested the inspector, giving him a keen look of inquiry. "Yes, I have, and a very important thing it may prove too. It has been completely driven out of my mind by the dreadful discovery in Stone Buildings. Now I remember it, and I believe it may give us the key to the mystery." "What is it?" asked Gale, as Gilbert paused, his face aglow with excitement. "Before I went out to bring the interpreter something happened," said Gilbert. "Strange that I should have forgotten it so utterly! While my father and I were talking about Mr. Silwood's death, we were interrupted by a man, who had come in answer to the advertisement in the hope of getting the reward of a thousand pounds. The man was as hopeless-looking a waster and vagabond as any I ever saw, but he spoke like a man of education. And he told us that late on the night of the disappearance of Morris Thornton he was in Chancery Lane, and saw a workman coming out of the iron gate at the north-east corner of Lincoln's Inn." "That is just where Mr. Silwood's chambers are, are they not?" asked Gale.