“This is the envelope,” he continued. “The postmark is London⁠—eastern division. Within are the very words which were upon my father’s last message: ‘ K.K.K. ’; and then ‘Put the papers on the sundial.’ ”

“What have you done?” asked Holmes.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“To tell the truth”⁠—he sank his face into his thin, white hands⁠—“I have felt helpless. I have felt like one of those poor rabbits when the snake is writhing towards it. I seem to be in the grasp of some resistless, inexorable evil, which no foresight and no precautions can guard against.”

“Tut! tut!” cried Sherlock Holmes. “You must act, man, or you are lost. Nothing but energy can save you. This is no time for despair.”

“I have seen the police.”