“Two people?” exclaimed the voice, quickly interested. “Where?”

“In—in a house,” I faltered, for not until that instant did the appalling truth occur to me. I had wandered away from the place, and had no idea of its outward appearance, or in what road it was situated!

“Well, double murders don’t often take place in the street, sonny. But—” and the voice hesitated.

“Why, there’s blood on your clothes, I see! Tell me all about it. Where’s the house?”

“I confess that I’ve been foolishly stupid, for I’ve left it, and I could never find my way back again. I’m blind, you see, and I’ve no idea of its exterior appearance.”

“At any rate you’ve been near enough to the affair to get yourself in a pretty mess,” the rough voice said, somewhat suspiciously. “Surely you have some idea of where the affair took place?”

The situation was certainly the most curious in which any man could be placed, for with only one thought in my mind, namely, to raise the alarm, I had gone forth from the house of mystery and failed to mark it. This negligence of mine might, I reflected, result in the affair being hushed up for ever. London is a big place in which to search for the scene of a murder upon which my eyes had never gazed, and the details of which I only knew by my sense of touch. How many thousands of houses there were in the West End each with its smoke-blackened portico and little piece of area railing.

“No,” I responded to the officer’s inquiry. “I was so bent upon giving information that I forgot to place any mark upon the house by which to know it again.”

“Well, I’ve ’eard a good many funny stories while I’ve been on night-duty in these eighteen years, but your yarn is about the rummest of the lot,” he said bluntly.

“I only know that the house is a large one, very well furnished, and has a portico and railings in front—a double house, with hall in the centre, and rooms on either side.”

“That don’t ’elp us very much, sonny,” the voice observed. “What’s the good o’ running after me with a yarn like this if you can’t take me to the spot? To judge from the state of your clothes, though, you’ve been in some scrap or another. If your coat was not covered with blood as it is, I’d be inclined to put you down as a chap with a screw loose.”

“I’m not demented, 

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