"Dr.Jervis and I were just setting out for Scotland Yard on this very business.

Let me present you to my colleague, who is working up the case with me." Our visitor, a tall handsome girl of twenty or thereabouts, returned my bow and remarked with perfect self-possession, "My name is Gibson--Miss Juliet Gibson.

My business is of a very simple character and need not detain you many minutes." She seated herself in the chair that Thorndyke placed for her, and continued in a brisk and business-like manner-- "I must tell you who I am in order to explain my visit to you.

For the last six years I have lived with Mr.and Mrs.Hornby, although I am no relation to them.

I first came to the house as a sort of companion to Mrs.Hornby, though, as I was only fifteen at the time, I need hardly say that my duties were not very onerous; in fact, I think Mrs.Hornby took me because I was an orphan without the proper means of getting a livelihood, and she had no children of her own.
"Three years ago I came into a little fortune which rendered me independent; but I had been so happy with my kind friends that I asked to be allowed to remain with them, and there I have been ever since in the position of an adopted daughter.