A door suddenly flows open out of what appeared to be solid wall at the end of the corridor, and a little, wizened man darts out of it, like a rabbit out of its burrow.
“Capital!” you say, calmly. “Watson, a bucket of water over the straw. That will do! Lestrade, allow me to present you: Mr. Jonas Oldacre.”
The detective stares at the new-comer with blank amazement. It is an odious face—crafty, vicious, malignant, with shifty, light-grey eyes and white eyelashes.
“What’s this, then?” says Lestrade at last. “What have you been doing all this time, eh?”
Oldacre gives an uneasy laugh, shrinking back from the furious red face of the angry detective.
“I have done no harm.”
“No harm? You have done your best to get an innocent man hanged. If it wasn’t for this gentleman here, I am not sure that you would not have succeeded. Take him down and keep him in the sitting-room until I come. Mr. Holmes,” he continues, “I don’t mind saying that this is the brightest thing that you have done yet, though it is a mystery to me how you did it. You have saved an innocent man’s life.
Just tell me please, how could you've possibly known that?”