Halliday’s Private Hotel about six o’clock this morning.”

 

CHAPTER VII.

 

LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS.

 

The intelligence with which Lestrade greeted us was so momentous and so

unexpected, that we were all three fairly dumfoundered. Gregson sprang out of

his chair and upset the remainder of his whiskey and water. I stared in silence

at Sherlock Holmes, whose lips were compressed and his brows drawn down over his

eyes.

 

“Stangerson too!” he muttered. “The plot thickens.”

 

“It was quite thick enough before,” grumbled Lestrade, taking a chair. “I seem

to have dropped into a sort of council of war.”

 

“Are you—are you sure of this piece of intelligence?” stammered Gregson.

 

“I have just come from his room,” said Lestrade. “I was the first to discover

what had occurred.”

 

“We have been hearing Gregson’s view of the matter,” Holmes observed. “Would you

mind letting us know what you have seen and done?”