'
　　'Surely the gate was open?' ejaculated Phelps.
　　'Yes; but I have a peculiar taste in these matters. I chose the place where the threefir trees stand, and behind their screen I got over without the least chance of anyone inthe house being able to see me. I crouched down among the bushes on the other side,and crawled from one to the other—witness the disreputable state of my trouserknees—until I had reached the clump of rhododendrons just opposite to your bedroomwindow. There I squatted down and awaited developments.
　　'The blind was not down in your room, and I could see Miss Harrison sitting therereading by the table. It was a quarter past ten when she closed her book, fastened theshutters, and retired. I heard her shut the door, and felt quite sure that she had turnedthe key in the lock.'
　　'The key?' ejaculated Phelps.
　　'Yes, I had given Miss Harrison instructions to lock the door on the outside andtake the key with her when she went to bed. She carried out every one of myinjunctions to the letter, and certainly without her co-operation you would not havethat paper in your coat pocket. She departed then, the lights went out, and I was leftsquatting in the rhododendron bush.
　　'The night was fine, but still it was a very weary vigil. Of course, it has the sort ofexcitement about it that the sportsman feels when he lies beside the watercourse andwaits for the big game. It was very long, though—almost as long, Watson, as whenyou and I waited in that deadly room when we looked into the little problem of the
　　Speckled Band.quarters, and I thought more than once that it had stopped. At last, however, about twoin the morning, I suddenly heard the gentle sound of a bolt being pushed back, and thecreaking of a key. A moment later the servants' door was opened and Mr. JosephHarrison stepped out into the moonlight.'
　　'Joseph!' ejaculated Phelps.
　　'He was bare-headed, but he had a black cloak thrown over his shoulder, so that hecould conceal his face in an instant if there were any alarm. He walked on tiptoeunder the shadow of the wall, and when he reached the window, he worked along-bladed knife through the sash and pushed back the catch. Then he flung open thewindow and, putting his knife through the crack in the shutters, he thrust the bar upand swung them open.
　　'From where I lay I had a perfect view of the inside of the room and of every one ofhis movements. He lit the two candles which stand upon the mantelpiece, and then heproceeded to turn back the corner of the carpet in the neighbourhood of the door.Presently he stooped and picked out a square piece of board, such as is usually left toenable plumbers to get at the joints of the gas pipes. This one covered, as a matter offact, the T-joint which gives off the pipe which supplies the kitchen underneath. Outof this hiding-place he drew that little cylinder of paper, pushed down the board,rearranged the carpet, blew out the candles, and walked straight into my arms as Istood waiting for him outside the window.
　　'Well, he has rather more viciousness than I gave him credit for, has Master Joseph.He flew at me with his knife, and I had to grass him twice, and got a cut over theknuckles, before I had the upper hand of him. He looked "murder" out of the only eyehe could see with when we had finished, but he listened to reason and gave up thepapers. Having got them I let my man go, but I wired full particulars to Forbes thismorning. If he is quick enough to catch his bird, well and good! But if, as I shrewdlysuspect, he finds the nest empty before he gets there, why, all the better for theGovernment. I fancy that Lord Holdhurst, for one, and Mr. Percy Phelps, for another,would very much rather that the affair never got so far as a police-court.'
　　'My God!' gasped our client. 'Do you tell me that during these long ten weeks ofagony, the stolen papers were within the very room with me all the time?'
　　'So it was.'
　　'And Joseph! Joseph a villain and a thief!'
　　'Hum! I am afraid Joseph's character is a rather deeper and more dangerous onethan one might judge from his appearance. From what I have heard from him thismorning, I gather that he has lost heavily in dabbling with stocks, and that he is readyto do anything on earth to better his fortunes. Being an absolutely selfish man, when achance presented itself he did not allow either his sister's happiness or your reputationto hold his hand.'
　　Percy Phelps sank back in his chair. 'My head whirls,' said he; 'your words havedazed me.'
　　'The principal difficulty in your case,' remarked Holmes, in his didactic fashion,'lay in the fact of there being too much evidence. What was vital was overlaid andhidden by what was irrelevant. Of all the facts which were presented to us, we had topick just those which we deemed to be essential, and then piece them together in theirorder, so as to reconstruct this very remarkable chain of events. I had already begun tosuspect Joseph, from the fact that you had intended to travel home with him that night,and that therefore it was a likely enough thing that he should call for you—knowingthe Foreign Office well—upon his way. When I heard that someone had been soanxious to get into the bedroom, in which no one but Joseph could have concealedanything—you told us in your narrative how you had turned Joseph out when youarrived with the doctor—my suspicions all changed to certainties, especially as theattempt was made on the first night upon which the nurse was absent, showing thatthe intruder was well acquainted with the ways of the house.'
　　'How blind I have been!'
　　'The facts of the case, as far as I have worked them out, are these: This JosephHarrison entered the office through the Charles Street door, and knowing his way hewalked straight into your room the instant after you left it. Finding no one there hepromptly rang the bell, and at the instant that he did so his eyes caught the paper uponthe table. A glance showed him that chance had put in his way a State document ofimmense value, and in a flash he had thrust it into his pocket and was gone. A fewminutes elapsed, as you remember, before the sleepy commissionaire drew yourattention to the bell, and those were just enough to give the thief time to make hisescape.