Page:The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927).djvu/309

 human nature, Dr. Watson—the black ingratitude of it all! When did I ever refuse one of her requests? Was ever a women so pampered? And that young man—he might have been my own son. He had the run of my house. And yet see how they have treated me! Oh, Dr. Watson, it is a dreadful, dreadful world!’

“That was the burden of his song for an hour or more. He had, it seems, no suspicion of an intrigue. They lived alone save for a woman who comes in by the day and leaves every evening at six. On that particular evening old Amberley, wishing to give his wife a treat, had taken two upper circle seats at the Haymarket Theatre. At the last moment she had complained of a headache and had refused to go. He had gone alone. There seemed to be no doubt about the fact, for he produced the unused ticket which he had taken for his wife.”

“That is remarkable—most remarkable,” said Holmes, whose interest in the case seemed to be rising. ‘‘Pray continue, Watson. I find your narrative most arresting. Did you personally examine this ticket? You did not, perchance, take the number?”

“It so happens that I did,” I answered with some pride. “It chanced to be my old school number, thirty-one, and so it stuck in my head.”

“Excellent, Watson! His seat, then, was either thirty or thirty-two.”

“Quite so,” I answered, with some mystification. “And on B row.”

“That is most satisfactory. What else did he tell you?”

“He showed me his strong-room, as he called it.