The Cat's Eye by R. Austin Freeman — Read

At two o'clock punctually, on the following afternoon, our visitors made their appearance; and at the very moment when the last of them -- Mr Brodribb -- emerged from Crown Office Row, I observed from the window two taxi-cabs, which had entered successively by the Tudor Street gate, draw up before our door. I hailed their arrival with deep satisfaction, for the strange events of the previous day, together with Thorndyke's rather mysterious observations thereon, had made me impatient to see the end of this intricate case and intensely curious to hear how my inscrutable colleague had managed to fit together the apparently unrelated fragments of this extraordinarily complex puzzle. Throughout the morning -- while Thorndyke was absent, and, as I suspected, arranging details of the afternoon's adventure -- I had turned over the facts again and again, but always with the same result. There were the pieces of the puzzle, and no doubt a complete set; but separate pieces they remained, and obstinately refused to join up into anything resembling an intelligible whole.

'I see, Thorndyke,' said Mr Brodribb as he entered, smiling, rosy, and looking as if he had just come out of a bandbox, 'that I did you an injustice. You have not been sitting on the deeds. The chariots are at the door waiting, I suppose, for the band or the stavebearers. We shall be quite an imposing procession.'