“You have rather taken me by surprise,” I remarked. “It seems that you have been working at this Kennington case, and working pretty actively I imagine, whereas I supposed that your entire attention was taken up by the Blackmore affair.”

“It doesn’t do,” he replied, “to allow one’s entire attention to be taken up by any one case. I have half a dozen others⁠—minor cases, mostly⁠—to which I am attending at this moment. Did you think I was proposing to keep you under lock and key indefinitely?”

“Well, no. But I thought the Kennington case would have to wait its turn. And I had no idea that you were in possession of enough facts to enable you to get any farther with it.”

“But you knew all the very striking facts of the case, and you saw the further evidence that we extracted from the empty house.”

“Do you mean those things that we picked out from the rubbish under the grate?”