"'E told me to go down to Tait Street and see 'im at eight o'clock, as 'e had a message for you. I went, and when I got there I found 'im lying on the floor of his room stone dead." "You went to the police, of course?" "No, I didn't; I came here to see you instead. I believe the poor bloke's been murdered. 'E was a good un, too--poor Lanky Lane!" "What!" I exclaimed. "Is that man Lane dead?" "It seems so," Jevons responded. "If he is, then there we have further mystery." "If you doubt it, sir, come with me down to Shadwell," the old man said in his cockney drawl. "Nobody knows about it yet. I ought to have told the p'lice, but I know you're better at mysterious affairs than the silly coppers in Leman Street." Jevons' fame as an investigator of crime had spread even to that class known as the submerged tenth. How fashions change! A year or two ago it was the mode in Society to go "slumming." To-day only social reformers and missionaries make excursions to the homes of the lower class in East London. A society woman would not to-day dare admit that she had been further east than Leadenhall Street. "Let's go and see what has really happened," Ambler said to me. "If Lane is dead, then it proves that his enemy is yours." "I can't see that. How?" I asked. "You will see later. For the moment we must occupy ourselves with his death, and ascertain whether it is owing to natural causes or to foul play. He was a heavy drinker, and it may have been that." "No," declared the little old man, "Lanky wasn't drunk to-day--that I'll swear. I saw 'im in Commercial Road at seven, talkin' to a feller wot's in love wiv 'is sister." "Then how do you account for this discovery of yours?" asked my companion. "I can't account for it, guv'nor. I simply found 'im lying on the floor, and it give me a shock, I can tell yer. 'E was as cold as ice." "Let's go and see ourselves," Ambler said: so together we hurried through the Whitechapel High Street, at that hour busy with its costermonger market, and along Commercial Road East, arriving at last in the dirty, insalubrious thoroughfare, a veritable hive of the lowest class of humanity, Tait Street, Shadwell. Up the dark stairs of one of the dirtiest of the dwellings our conductor guided us, lighting our steps with wax vestas, struck upon the wall, and on gaining the third floor of the evil-smelling place he pushed open a door, and we found ourselves in an unlit room. "Don't move, gentlemen," the old man urged. "You may fall over 'im. 'E's right there, just where you're standin'. I'll light the lamp." Then he struck another match, and by its fickle light we saw the body of Lane, the street-hawker, lying full length only a yard from us, just as our conductor had described.