"One of the most interesting cases it has ever been my good fortune to investigate," he said. I had not realised that he had seen me, and I gave such a startled jump that I spilt half a cup of tea on my frock. With a long, bony finger he was pointing to a copy of the _Express Post_, which lay beside his plate, and almost against my will my eyes wandered to the flaring headline: "The Mystery of the Khaki Tunic." Then I looked up inquiringly at my pixy-like interlocutor. It never occurred to me to make a conventional little speech about the lapse of time since last we met; for the moment I had the feeling as if I had seen him the day before. "You are still interested in criminology, then?" I asked. "More than ever," he replied with a bland smile, "and this case has given me some of the most delightful moments I have ever experienced in connection with my studies. I have watched the police committing one blunder after another, and to-day, when they are completely baffled and the public has started to write letters to the papers about another undetected crime and another criminal at large, I am having the time of my life." "Of course, you have made up your mind," I retorted with what I felt was withering sarcasm. "I have arrived at the only possible solution of the mystery," he replied, unperturbed, "and you will do the same when I have put the facts clearly and logically before you. As for the police, let 'em flounder," he went on complacently. "For me it has been an exciting drama to watch from beginning to end. Every one of the characters in it stands out before me like a clear-cut cameo. "There was Miss Mary Clarke, a quiet, middle-aged woman who rented Hardacres from Lord Foremeere. She had taken the place soon after the Armistice, and ran a poultry farm there on a small scale with the occasional assistance of her brother Arthur, an ex-officer in the East Glebeshires, a young man who had an excellent war-record, but who seemed, like so many other young men of his kind, to have fallen into somewhat shiftless and lazy ways since the glorious peace. "No doubt you know the geography of the place. The halfpenny papers have been full of maps and plans of Hardacres. It is rather a lonely house on the road between Langford and Barchester, about three-quarters of a mile from Meere village. Meere Court is another half-mile or so farther on, the house hidden by clumps of stately trees, above which can be perceived the towers of Barchester Cathedral.