It is with the revitalized relish of the professional gourmet � who, having nibbled wearily at the morbid comestibles at his command, suddenly encounters a rare and delicious delicacy � that I record herewith the last case to which that grand old man of the theatre, Mr. Drury Lane, lent his exceptional efforts.

It has been a privilege to serve as the silent stenographer of Mr. Lane�s exploits; and surely no one will question � if differing about the man himself � the remarkable plasticity of thought which he displayed in those investigations which I have entitled The Tragedy of X, The Tragedy of Y, and The Tragedy of Z. But it is more than a privilege, it is a duty, to record this extraordinary man�s last investigation, which I have subtitled The Tragedy of 1599 for reasons which will be apparent on a reading of these pages. I say �duty,� for, if Mr. Lane astounded his contemporaries and his public by the loftiness of his thinking processes in the three explorations into crime already recorded, he positively staggered them by his investigation of the case which terminated his career as self-appointed guardian of the law. And to withhold this amazing adventure from those who have followed Drury Lane�s fortunes so patiently, encouragingly, and, at times, enthusiastically would be a lamentable cruelty.

It is my admittedly biased opinion that for sheer wonder and rarity there is no precedent in criminological history for the case set down between these covers.

��BARNABY ROSS

DR. ALONZO CHOATE, retiring curator of the Britannic Museum.

HAMNET SEDLAR, incoming curator of the Britannic Museum.

MRS. LYDIA SAXON, patronne des arts.

CRABBE, the Saxon librarian.

GORDON ROWE, a young scholar.

DR. ALES, a bibliophile.

MAXWELL, his servant.

DONOGHUE, special guard at the Britannic Museum.

JOE VILLA, a thief.

GEORGE FISHER, an omnibus driver.

BOLLING, Chief of the Tarrytown Police Department.

INSPECTOR THUMM, retired Inspector of Detectives.

PATIENCE THUMM, his daughter.

MR. DRURY LANE, who makes his last bow.

INCIDENTAL CHARACTERS: Samuel Saxon (who is dead); Sir John Humphrey-Bond (who is dead); James Wyeth (who is alive but does not appear); museum employees, police, a district attorney, employees of the Rivoli Bus Company, 17 elderly Indiana schoolteachers, etc., etc.

It was a curious beard, an unorthodox beard, almost a humorous beard. Shaped like a Frenchman�s spade, it fell in the quaintest wave, rippling from his invisible chin to two prim points below his invisible collar. There was something at once girlish and dignified in its series of perfect ringlets, like the majestic statuary brush of Zeus. But it was not its sharply two-pronged beauty nor its rhythmic volutions that caught the goggling eye. The true marvel was its colors.

It was a veritable Joseph�s beard, dappled and pied and streaked like Joseph�s coat, glinting in unexpected blacks and blues and greens. Had it faded under a playful sun? Or had its wearer for some inscrutable purpose of his own deposited his solemn length on a laboratory table and bathed his remarkable beaver in a pool of chemicals? Such an Olympian beard could have had an origin no less fantastic. This was, one felt, historic hair; a beard for a museum, to be preserved for admiring posterity.

Now Inspector Thumm, lately of the New York Police Department, at present retired and soothing his restless spirit with the balm of private detective agency work, was after forty years of policing inured against the surprises of mankind. But even he was first horrified, and then frankly fascinated, by the extraordinary brush on the chin of his Monday visitor this mild May morning. There was no precedent in the Inspector�s experience for that mazing collection of multicolored filaments. He stared and stared as if he could not see enough of it.

Finally he said: �Sit down,� in a feeble voice, glanced at his desk calendar to see if by some alchemy of forgetfulness it might not be All Fool�s Day, and then sank into his own chair to scrape his broad blue jaws and regard his visitor with awed astonishment.

Rainbow-Beard sat down with perfect equanimity.

He was a tall thin man, Inspector Thumm observed � precious little to go on, for the rest of him was clothed in as cryptic a mystery as his chin. He was heavily attired, as if his body were swathed in fold after fold of thick cloth; for the Inspector�s trained eye caught the slenderness of the wrists peeping above the man�s gloved hands and the leanness of his legs � undisguisable indications of thinness. Blue-tinted spectacles concealed the man�s eyes. His nondescript fedora, which he had with charming insouciance failed to remove upon entering the Inspector�s office, effectively disguised the shape of his head and the color of his hair.

And he remained, quite like Zeus, supremely silent.

Thumm coughed. �Yes?� he said encouragingly.

The beard waggled, as if in amusement.

�Yes? What can I do for you?�

Very suddenly the lean legs whipped across each other, and the gloved hands clasped over one bony knee. �You�re really Inspector Thumm, I fancy?� the apparition said in a slightly rusty voice. Thumm twitched nervously. It was like hearing a statue speak.

�That�s me,� said the Inspector faintly. �And you�?�

A hand waved. �Unimportant, Inspector. The fact is � how shall I say it?�� I�ve a rather extraordinary request to make of you.�

It would be extraordinary, thought the Inspector, if you didn�t � with that get-up! Some of his normal shrewdness banished the astonishment in his eyes. His hand moved lightly behind the shelter of his desk and flicked a little lever. An almost inaudible hum developed which the gentleman with the motley beard apparently did not notice.

�People who sit in that chair generally have,� said the Inspector jovially.

A pointed little piece of tongue appeared in the hairy forest about the man�s lips and, as if frightened by the strange hues of the underbrush, retreated hastily. �I may tell you, Inspector, I�ve been looking you up. What appealed to me was the fact that you seem not to be the... ah... usual sort of private detective.�

�We aim to please.�

�Quite so. Quite so... Ah... you�re strictly private? I mean to say, you�ve no connection now with the police, Inspector?� Thumm stared at him. �You see, I must be sure. My business with you must be kept severely confidential.�

�I�m so close-mouthed,� growled Thumm, �that I won�t tell even my best friends. If that�s what�s worrying you. Unless it�s something off-color. I�m death on rats, mister. The Thumm agency doesn�t play around with crooks.�

�Oh, no, no,� said Rainbow-Beard quickly. �Nothing like that, I assure you. It�s just that it�s something � somewhat peculiar, Inspector.�

�If it�s about your wife and the boy-friend,� observed the Inspector, �nothing doin�. I�m not that kind of agency, either.�

�No, no, Inspector, not a domestic entanglement at all. Nothing of that sort. It is... well, in a word,� said Rainbow-Beard, his breath agitating the flora on his chin, �I want you to keep something for me.�

�Oh,� said Thumm; he shifted a little. �Keep what?�

�An envelope.�

�Envelope?� The Inspector scowled. �What�s in it?�

Rainbow-Beard exhibited unexpected firmness. His lips clamped together. �No,� he said. �I won�t tell you that. Surely it doesn�t make any difference?�

The Inspector�s cold grey eyes stared at his remarkable visitor for some seconds. The blue spectacles remained impenetrable. �I see,� said the Inspector, although it was quite evident that he did not. �Just what d�ye mean � keep it for you?�

�Hold it for me safely. Until I call for it. In trust, as it were.�

Thumm yawned. �Hell, I�m not runnin� a safe-deposit vault. Why not got to a bank? It�ll be a damn� sight cheaper, too.�

�I�m afraid you don�t understand, Inspector,� said Rainbow-Beard cautiously. �That wouldn�t do at all, you see. I must have it in safe-keeping with a person, you see, a person of integrity,� and he examined the hard chunky face of the Inspector very closely, as if to reweigh that doughty gentleman�s trustworthiness.

�Heard you,� said Thumm. �Heard you and got you. Well, let�s see the evidence, Mister Anonymous. Let�s see it, let�s see it!�

For some time the visitor did not respond; but when he did it was with swiftness, as if he had made up his mind after due deliberation. His gloved right hand groped within the folds of his swathings and emerged after a moment clutching a large long brown manila envelope. Thumm�s eyes gleamed, and he extended his hand. The envelope dropped into it, reluctantly.

It was an ordinary manila envelope such as may be purchased in any stationer�s shop. Both front and back were innocent of markings. It had been sealed not only by its original adhesive flap; evidently the visitor had taken certain precautions against the frailties of human nature, for six small bits of ordinary cheap white paper cut into odd shapes had been pasted over the flap for additional protection against tampering.

�Neat,� remarked the Inspector, �neat and not gaudy. Hmm.� He fingered the envelope without seeming to do so. His eyes narrowed. The visitor sat quite still. �What�s inside? You can�t expect��

There was presumptive evidence that Rainbow-Beard smiled, for the hairs on the corners of his mouth suddenly twitched in a northerly direction. �I like your persistence, Inspector, like it enormously. It confirms what I�ve heard of you. You�ve a very fine reputation, you know. Your cautious attitude��

�Yes, but what�s in it?� growled Thumm.

The man � if it was a man, for a preposterous suspicion crossed Thumm�s mind suddenly � leaned forward. �Suppose I told you,� he whispered hoarsely, �suppose I told you that inside that very envelope in your hand, Inspector, there�s a clue to a secret, a secret so important, so significant, so tremendous, that I daren�t trust anyone in the world with the whole truth!�

Inspector Thumm blinked. He might have known. The beard, the spectacles, the heavy disguising clothing, the antics of his strange visitor � why, the man was obviously an escaped lunatic! Clue. Secret. Anyone in the world... The poor nut was cracked.

�Uh � take is easy,� he said. �No need to get excited, mister.� He felt hastily for the tiny automatic he carried in his armpit holster. The crazy fool might be armed!

He was startled to hear Rainbow-Beard utter a cavernous chuckle. �You think I�m mad. Can�t say I blame you, Inspector. I suppose it does sound a bit... er... thick. But let me assure you,� and the queer rusty voice became very sanely dry, �that I�ve told you the exact truth without any dramatic coloration. And you needn�t finger your automatic, Inspector; I shan�t bite you.� Thumm snatched his hand out from beneath his coat and glared, red-faced, at his visitor. �That�s better, really. Now please listen carefully, because I�ve very little time, and it is important that you understand clearly. I repeat that the envelope contains the clue to a colossal secret, Inspector. And let me add,� he said in calm tones, �a secret worth millions!�

�Well, if you�re not balmy,� growled Thumm, �then I am. You�ll have to tell me more than that if you expect me to swallow that yarn. What d�ye mean � secret worth millions? In this skinny envelope?�

�Precisely.�

�Political secret?�

�No.�

�Oil strike? Blackmail � love letter? Treasure? Jewels? Come on, mister, come clean. I�m not going to handle anything I�m in the dark about.�

�But I can�t tell you that,� replied Rainbow-Beard with a trace of impatience in his voice. �Don�t be stupid, Inspector. I give you my word of honor there�s nothing nefarious about the contents of that envelope. The secret is quite legitimate. It has nothing to do with the very ordinary things you�ve just mentioned. It concerns something infinitely more interesting and of infinitely greater value. Remember, too, the envelope contains not the secret itself, if I make myself clear; it contains merely a clue to the secret.�

�You�ll have me going nuts in a minute, too,� groaned Thumm. �Why all the mystery? Why do you want me to keep the damned thing?�

�For a very good reason.� Rainbow-Beard pursed his red lips. �I am on the trail of... well, let us say the �original� of the clue in the envelope, the secret I�ve mentioned. You understand, then, that I haven�t found it yet. But the trail is extremely warm, extremely warm indeed! I fully expect to succeed. Now, if anything should... ah... happen to me, Inspector, I want you to open this envelope.�

�Ha,� said the Inspector.

�In the event that something happens to me � and when you open the envelope � you�ll find my little clue. It will lead you by a rather devious route to � me. Or rather to my fate. I�m not providing against this contingency in any spirit of revenge, I�ll have you understand. If anything happens to me I�m not interested so much in being avenged as in having the original of the secret preserved. Do I make myself clear?�

�Hell, no!�

Rainbow-Beard sighed. �The clue in this envelope is just that and nothing more; it tells little of itself. But that�s precisely as I want it! Its very incompleteness will protect me against � no offence meant, my dear Inspector!�� against even your curiosity, or the curiosity of anyone else in whose hands the envelope might fall. If you should open it before I intend you to, I assure you that what the envelope contains will be quite meaningless to you.�

�Oh, cut it out!� cried Thumm, rising. His face was darkly red. �You�re trying to make a fool out of me. Who the hell put you up to this crazy kid�s trick, anyway, damn it all? I can�t waste��

Something buzzed insistently on the Inspector�s desk. The visitor did not stir. Inspector Thumm cut short his explosion of annoyance and snatched up the receiver of his inter-office communicator. A feminine voice snapped in his ear. He listened bitterly for a moment, replaced the receiver, and sat down.

�Go ahead,� he said in a choked voice. �Go on. Give it to me. I�ll bite. I�ll swallow it hook, line, and sinker. What�s next?�

�Dear, dear,� said Rainbow-Beard with a little cluck of concern. �Really, Inspector, I�d no intention... That�s really all.�

�Not on your life, it isn�t,� said the Inspector grimly. �If I�m going to fall for this, I�ll do it proper. Must be somethin� else. Crazy as it is, it can�t be as crazy as you�ve left it.�

The man stroked his extraordinary beard. �I like you better and better,� he murmured. �Yes, there is something more. You must promise that you won�t open this envelope unless�� He paused.

�Unless what?� growled Thumm.

The visitor licked his lips. �Today is the sixth of May. Two weeks from today, on the twentieth, I shall telephone you here. I�m confident that I shall telephone you here on that date. And also on the twentieth of June, and the twentieth of July � on the twentieth of each month until I�ve found � it. My telephoning on a schedule this way will tell you that I am still alive, that I�ve run into no unexpected danger.� A brisk note sprang into his rusty voice. �While that condition continues, you are merely to keep the envelope in your safe until I call for it. On the other hand, if by midnight of any twentieth I have failed to telephone you, you will know that I�m probably beyond calling altogether. Then � and only then � are you to open the envelope, read what it contains, and proceed as your very good judgment, I�m sure, will dictate.�

Thumm sat, hard-bitten and sour, deep in his chair; there was a cynical twist to his smashed pugilist�s nose, a stubborn air about him mingled with a rather bitter curiosity. �You�re going to a hell of a lot of trouble, mister, to make sure of this secret of yours. Somebody else is after it, hey? Somebody you think may bump you for it before or after you get it?�

�No, no,� cried Rainbow-Beard. �You misunderstand. As far as I know, no one else is after the... the secret. But there�s always the possibility that some one is after it, some one whose intentions or identity I�m unaware of. I�m merely taking precautions against that remote contingency, that�s all. It�s so remote that I won�t tell you my name or... or anything! Because if nothing happens � and I don�t expect anything to happen � I don�t want you or anyone else to come into possession of a clear clue to my secret. I�m sure that�s frank enough, Inspector...�

�By God,� groaned the Inspector, �hasn�t this gone far enough? Listen, mister.� He pounded on his desk. �First I thought you were a nut. Then I thought somebody put you up to playin� a joke on me. Now I don�t know what to think except this: I�d be a whole lot happier if you�d get the hell out of here pronto. Scat! Shoo!�

The beard sagged in honest bewilderment just as the communicator buzzed again. Thumm started, flushed like a small boy caught stealing apples, and jammed his fist into his pocket. �All right, all right,� he muttered to the buzzer, and said aloud: �Excuse me. I... I got up this morning with a grouch. Guess I�m not used to your kind of� � he groaned aloud � �case. I�m just a plain �tec., and I s�pose I can�t get used to the idea of becoming wet-nurse to an envelope... All right, I�ll be crazy, too, just to be sociable! When you ring me up on the twentieth, how will I know it�s you?�

The visitor sighed heavily with relief. �I�m so glad� Hmm. Very clever, Inspector, very clever indeed. I hadn�t thought of that.� He chuckled and rubbed his gloved hands together. �Really, this is quite exciting! Like that mad chap Lupin�s adventure!�

�Whose?� demanded Thumm suspiciously.

�The immortal Ars�ne. Hmm. Password. Password, of course! That�s the logical answer, Inspector. Very well, when I call you I shall say � let me see � ha! �This is the man from Nowhere. Millions!� and by that, as Matthew didn�t say, ye shall know me. Ha, ha!�

�Ha, ha,� said the Inspector. ��This is the man from��� He shook his head warily. Then a gleam of hope scurried to the surface of his eyes. �But maybe my fee wouldn�t��

�Ah, your fee,� said Rainbow-Beard. �Yes, yes, I�d almost forgotten that. What would your retainer be, Inspector, to take this odd little case of mine?�

�Just for holdin� this damned envelope in my safe?�

�Quite so.�

�That will cost you,� said the Inspector desperately, �just five hundred smackers.�

�Smackers?� repeated Rainbow-Beard, apparently puzzled.

�Iron men. Simoleons. Bucks. Five hundred of �em!� cried Thumm. He searched his client�s face eagerly for signs of consternation; that jaw with its horrible foliage should drop, and there would be relieved triumph when the visitor beat a precipitate retreat in the face of so preposterous a demand.

�Oh, dollars,� said the visitor with a vague smile. He did not appear unduly alarmed. He fished among his swaddling clothes, took out a fat wallet, extracted a stiff bill, and tossed it on the desk.

It was a crisp new thousand-dollar banknote.

�I think,� said Rainbow-Beard briskly, �that a thousand dollars is more nearly the proper remuneration, Inspector. This is an unusual and... ah... unorthodox assignment, to be sure, and besides it�s worth all of that to me. Peace of mind, a sense of security��

�Uh-huh,� gulped Thumm, touching the bill with dazed fingers.

�That�s settled, then,� continued the visitor, rising. �There are just two conditions more. I must insist upon your observance of them, Inspector. First, you are not to have me � what is the colloquial term?�� shadowed when I leave this office, and unless I fail to telephone on a twentieth you must make no effort to trace me.�

�Sure, sure,� said Thumm in a trembling voice. A thousand dollars! Tears of joy gathered in his stony eyes. These were lean days. A thousand dollars for keeping a skinny envelope in his safe!

�Second,� and the man went swiftly to the door, �if I should fail to call on a twentieth, you must not open the envelope except in the presence of Mr. Drury Lane.�

The inspectorial mouth gaped like the Cavern of Doubt. It was the finishing blow. The rout was complete. Rainbow-Beard smiled deprecatingly, trotted through the doorway, and vanished.

On the twenty-eighth of May, which was a Tuesday, Miss Patience Thumm, whose office hours were elastic, entered the ante-room of the Thumm Detective Agency at a few minutes to ten, smiled cheerily at the sad, moon-eyed Miss Brodie, the agency�s official stenographer, and burst into the inner sanctum to find her father listening intently to the heavy earnest tones of a visitor.

�Ah, Patty,� said the Inspector. �Glad you came so early. This is Mr. George Fisher and he�s got an interesting little story. My daughter, Fisher. Sort of her father�s keeper,� he chuckled. �The brains of this outfit, so you�d better spill it to her.�

The visitor scraped his chair back and rose awkwardly, fumbling with his cap. It was a peaked cap with a soft crown; a small enameled plate above the peak said: �Rivoli Bus Co.� He was a tall, broad, pleasant-looking young man with unholy red hair; a smart uniform of blue-grey fitted his bulky figure snugly; his chest was bisected obliquely by a black strap which met his broad belt at the waist; and his stout calves were encased in leather.

�Pleased to meet you, Miss Thumm,� he mumbled. �Ain�t much of a case��

�Do sit down, Mr. Fisher,� said Patience with the smile she reserved exclusively for good-looking young clients. �What�s the trouble?�

�Well, I was just givin� the Inspector an earful,� said Fisher, his own ears reddening. �Don�t know if it�s anything, y�see. But it might be. This bird Donoghue�s my pal, see, and��

�Whoa,� said the Inspector. �We�d better start at the beginning, Fisher. Fisher drives one of those big sightseeing buses that park around Times Square, Patty. Rivoli Bus Company. He�s worried about a friend of his; and the reason he�s come to see us is because this friend, fellow by the name of Donoghue, often mentioned my name to him. Donoghue�s an ex-cop; I seem to remember him as a nice husky old boy, good record on the force.�

�Is Donoghue employed by your company, too?� Patience asked, inwardly sighing at the prosaic beginning of the story.

�No, ma�am. He retired from the force about five years ago an� took a job as special guard at that museum on Fifth an� Sixty-Fifth � the Britannic.� Patience nodded; the Britannic Museum was a small but highly esteemed institution for the preservation and exhibition of old English manuscripts and books. She had visited it several times in the company of Mr. Drury Lane, who was one of its patrons. �Donoghue an� my old man were together in harness, see, an� I�ve known him all my life, ma�am.�

�And something�s happened to him?�

Fisher fumbled with his cap. �He�s � ma�am, he�s disappeared!�

�Ah,� said Patience. �Well, father, that seems to be more in your line. When a staid and respectable gentleman of past middle age vanishes it�s generally a woman, isn�t it?�

�Oh, no, ma�am,� said the bus-driver, �not Donoghue!�

�Have you notified the Missing Persons Bureau?�

�No, ma�am. I... I didn�t know if I�d ought to. Old Donoghue would be sorer�n a pup if I raised a fuss for no good reason. Y�see, Miss Thumm,� said Fisher earnestly, �it may be nothin�. I don�t know. But it looked damned funny to me.�

�And it is funny,� said the Inspector. �Queer set-up, Pat. Go ahead and tell Miss Thumm what you told me, Fisher.�

Fisher told a strange tale. A party of schoolteachers from Indianapolis, in New York on a combined group vacation and educational tour, had chartered one of the Rivoli Bus Company�s mammoth machines to conduct them about the city on an itinerary arranged in advance of their visit. Fisher had been told off to drive the party about the city on the previous day, Monday. They had embarked promptly at noon from the company�s starting-point, Forty-Fourth Street off Broadway. The last destination on the day�s itinerary had been the Britannic Museum. The museum was not on the bus company�s regular sightseeing route for obvious reasons: it was a distinctly �highbrow joint,� remarked Fisher without rancor, and most sightseers were content with viewing Chinatown, the Empire State Building, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (from its classic exterior), Radio City, the East Side, and Grant�s Tomb. However, the party of visiting schoolteachers was not composed of the usual sightseers; they were teachers of Fine Arts and English in the hinterland and, in Fisher�s unadmiring proletarian phrase, were �a bunch of highbrows.� Inspection of the famous Britannic Museum had long been contemplated by the visiting �sthetes as one of the features of their New York tour. At first it had seemed as if they would be doomed to disappointment; for the museum for several weeks past had been closed pending extensive repairs and alterations of the interior, and indeed was not scheduled to be reopened to the public for at least two months to come. But finally the curator and the Board of Directors of the Britannic had granted special permission for the party to visit the museum during its restricted stay in the city.

�Now here�s the funny part, Miss Thumm,� said Fisher slowly, �I counted �em as they climbed into my bus � didn�t have to, because on a special like this the bus-starter takes care of the arrangements, and all I have to do is drive; but I counted �em out of habit, I guess, and there were nineteen of �em. Nineteen men and women...�

�How many of each?� asked Patience, her blue eyes kindling.

�Can�t say, ma�am. So there were nineteen when we started from our terminal. And what do you think?�

Patience laughed. �I haven�t the faintest of brainstorms, Mr. Fisher. What do you think?�

�Plenty,� said the bus-driver grimly. �When we gets back to the terminal, see, late afternoon � company rule always to start and finish at the Forty-Fourth Street station, ma�am � when we gets back there and my passengers start gettin� out, I counts �em again and by God if there wasn�t only eighteen!�

�I see,� said Patience. �Very odd, to be sure. But what has that to do with the disappearance of your friend Donoghue?�

�His friend Donoghue,� drawled the Inspector, �comes in later. You notice the plot�s thickening. Go on, Fisher.� He stared out of the window at the grey walls of Times Square.

�Who was missing?� asked Patience. �Did you check up with the party?�

�No, ma�am. It all happened so fast. But in thinkin� it over I thought I knew who the bird was that hadn�t come back with me,� replied Fisher, hunching his big torso forward. �I�d noticed him on the trip up because he was a queer-lookin� duck. Sort of middle-aged, and he wore a big bushy grey moustache � the kind you see in the movies. Regular soup-strainer. Tall gent. And he wore a funny hat, too � kind of blue color. He�d kept to himself all day, now that I came to think of it � didn�t pal with the others or talk to �em. And now he was missing � hadn�t been on the return trip with us.�

�Queer, hey?� said the Inspector.

�Very,� said Patience. �And what about Donoghue, Mr. Fisher? I still fail to see the connection.�

�Well, ma�am, it was this way. When we got to the Britannic, I turned my passengers over to Dr. Choate��

�Ah, Dr. Choate,� said Patience brightly. �I�ve met the gentleman. Curator of the museum.�

�That�s right, ma�am. He took �em away and started showin� �em around. My part of the job was done until we were due to go back, so I stopped at the door for a friendly word with Donoghue. Hadn�t seen him for a couple of weeks, so we made a date to go to the fights last night at the Garden��

�The fights, Mr. Fisher?�

Fisher looked puzzled. �Sure, ma�am, the fights, the � the boxin� matches at the Garden. I�m pretty handy with my mitts m�self, see, and I like a good fast bout... Well, anyway, I told Donoghue I�d stop in for him last night after supper. He�s a bachelor, see, an� he lives in a boardin�-house downtown in Chelsea. Well, then I went off after my passengers, followed �em around, and when they were all finished I took them back to the terminal.�

�Was Donoghue at the door when you got your party out of the museum?� asked the Inspector thoughtfully.

�No, sir. At least I didn�t notice. Well, after work last night I had a bite to eat � I�m a bachelor m�self, ma�am,� said Fisher, coloring, �and I called for Donoghue at his roomin� house. But he wasn�t there, and his landlady said he hadn�t come back from work. I thought maybe somethin� kept him overtime, so I hung around there for an hour. No sign of Donoghue, so I rang up a couple of his pals. They hadn�t seen nor heard from him all evenin�. By that time I was gettin� a little scared.�

�A big chap like you,� murmured Patience, watching him keenly. �And��

Fisher gulped in a boyish way. �I buzzed the Britannic. Spoke to the caretaker � night-watchman, ma�am, name o� Burch � an� he told me he�d seen Donoghue beat it out of the museum that afternoon, before my party left an� while I was still there; but Donoghue hadn�t come back. I didn�t know what to do, so I went to the fights alone.�

�Poor boy,� said Patience sympathetically, and Fisher eyed her with suddenly aroused manhood. �And that�s all?�

His big shoulders drooped, and the roosterish look went out of his eyes. �That�s the whole blamed story, ma�am. This mornin� before I came here I went around to his roomin� house again, but he hadn�t been home all night; an� I called the museum an� they told me he hadn�t reported for work yet.�

�But what,� persisted Patience, �has your friend Donoghue�s disappearance to do with the missing passenger, Mr. Fisher? I�m afraid I�m a little dull this morning.�

Fisher�s big jaw hardened. �That�s what I don�t know. But,� he went on in a stubborn tone, �this bird with the blue shap-po disappears, an� Donoghue disappears around the same time, an� I can�t help feelin� there�s a connection somewhere.� Patience nodded thoughtfully. �The reason I come here, like I said before, ma�am,� continued Fisher in a heavy tone, �is that if I went to the police Donoghue might get sore. He�s no trustin� babe, Miss Thumm; he can handle himself. But... well, damn it, I�m worried about him and I thought I�d ask the Inspector sort of for old time�s sake to try an� find out what happened to that thick Irishman.�

�Well, Inspector,� murmured Patience, �and can you resist such an appeal to your vanity?�

�Guess not,� grinned her father. �No dough in it, Fisher, and times are hard, but I s�pose we can scout around a bit.�

Fisher�s boyish face lightened magically, �Swell!� he cried. �That�s real swell of you, Inspector.�

�Well, then,� said Thumm in brisk tones, �let�s get down to cases. Ever seen this man in the blue hat before, Fisher?�

�No, sir. Absolute stranger to me. And what�s more,� said the bus-driver with a frown, �I�m pretty sure Donoghue hadn�t, either.�

�How on earth could you know that?� asked Patience, astonished.

�Well, when I came into the museum with my nineteen chickadees, Donoghue got a good look at the lot, one by one. He didn�t say anything to me about knowin� any of �em, and he would have if he�d recognized one.�

�Doesn�t exactly follow,� remarked the Inspector dryly, �but I imagine it�s true just the same. Suppose you give me a description of Donoghue. I don�t remember him any too well � haven�t seen him for about ten years.�

�Husky build, about a hundred and seventy-five,� replied Fisher rapidly, �stands around five foot ten, sixty years old, strong as a bull, red Irish pan on him with a bullet-scar on his right cheek � you�d remember that, Inspector, I guess; couldn�t ever forget it if you spotted it even once � walks like a slouch, sort of��

�Swaggers?� suggested Patience.

�That�s it! Grey hair now and damn� sharp grey eyes.�

�Good boy,� said the Inspector approvingly. �You�d have made a swell cop, Fisher. I remember now. Does he still smoke that stinkin� old clay pipe of his? That was one of his worst vices, I recall.�

�Sure does,� said Fisher with a grin. �When he�s off duty. I forgot that.�

�Fine.� The Inspector rose abruptly. �You go back to your job, Fisher, and leave this to me. I�ll look into it and if I find anything screwy about it I�ll turn it over to the police. It�s really a police job.�

�Thanks, Inspector, thanks,� said the bus-driver, and bowing jerkily to Patience he pounded out of the office, causing Miss Brodie�s heart as he passed her in the ante-room to beat quite rapidly in maidenly tribute to his muscular bigness.

�Nice lad,� murmured Patience, �if a little on the uncouth side. Did you notice those shoulders, father dear? What a line-bucker he would have made if he�d cut his teeth on a Latin book instead of an emergency brake!�

Inspector Thumm sniffed mightily through his smashed nose, hunched his own wide shoulders, and consulted a telephone directory. He dialed a number. ��Lo! Rivoli Bus Company? This is Thumm speaking, of the Thumm Detective Agency. You the manager?... Oh, you are. What�s the name?... What? Oh, Theofel. Say, listen, Mr. Theofel, have you got a wheel-wrestler on your pay-roll by the name George Fisher?�

�Yes,� said a slightly alarmed voice. �Is anything the matter?�

�No, no,� said the Inspector genially. �I�m just askin�, that�s all. Is he a big lad with red hair and an honest map?�

�Why, yes, yes. One of our best drivers. I�m sure nothing��

�Sure, sure. I just wanted to check up, that�s all. Say, he took out a party of hick schoolteachers yesterday. Can you tell me where they�re stoppin� in the city?�

�Certainly. The Park Hill, off the Plaza. Are you sure there isn�t�?�

�Goo�by,� said the Inspector, and hung up. He rose and reached for his topcoat. �Put some powder on your nose, kid. We�ve got a date with the intell... intell��

�Intelligentsia,� sighed Patience.

The intelligentsia proved to be a group of assorted ladies and gentlemen, none of whom was under forty; they were predominantly female, with an awkward scattering of dry and dusty males; and they sat along a festive breakfast board in the main dining-room of the Park Hill twittering and chirping like a flock of sparrows on the first leafy bough of spring.

It was late morning and except for the teachers� party the dining-room was empty. The ma�tre d�h�tel indicated the ladies and gentlemen with a negligent thumb. Inspector Thumm, unawed, stamped into the salle � manger (the Park Hill had Gallic pretensions in addition to its French cuisine) and plowed his way through the underbrush of gleaming idle tables followed by a faintly giggling Patience.

At the Inspector�s formidable approach the twittering wavered suddenly, peeped a little, and then stopped altogether. A host of startled eyes � the glass-protected mournful eyes of tutorship � swung like a trained battery to observe the intruders. The Inspector�s visage had never been one to inspire sweet trust in the hearts of little children and shy, self-conscious adults; it was big and red and hard and massively bony, and its well-smashed proboscis added a slightly sinister note.

�You the schoolteachers from Indiana?� growled Thumm.

A tremor of apprehension shivered down the board; elderly maiden ladies groped for their bosoms and the men began to lick their dignified lips.

A fat-faced man of fifty, painfully dressed � apparently the Beau Brummel and spokesman of the group � scraped his chair back from the head of the table and half-stood up, twisting about and clutching the back of the chair. He was quite pale.

�Yes?� he quavered.

�I�m Inspector Thumm,� said Thumm in the same savage growl; and for a moment Patience, half-hidden behind her father�s broad back, thought there would be a general swooning of females.

�Police!� gasped the spokesman. �Police! What have we done?�

The Inspector swallowed a grin. If the fat gentleman chose to leap to the conclusion that �Inspector� was synonymous with �police,� so much the better. �That�s what I�m here to find out,� said the Inspector sternly. �You all present and accounted for?�

The man�s eyes wavered down the table dazedly; they returned, round and large, to the Inspector�s forbidding face. �Why � uh, yes, certainly.�

�Nobody missing?�

�Missing?� echoed the spokesman blankly. �Of course not. Why should there be?�

Necks strained back and forth; two ladies with gaunt scarified features uttered horrified little noises.

�Just askin�,� said the Inspector. His cold eyes swept up and down the board, beheading glances like a scythe. �You people took a little joy-ride in a Rivoli bus yesterday afternoon?�

�That�s right, sir. Yes, indeed!�

�You all went along?�

�Oh, yes!�

�You all came back?�

The obese gentleman sank into his chair, as if overwhelmed by the suddenness with which tragedy had struck. �I... I think so,� he whispered piteously. �Mr. F-Frick, didn�t we all come back?� Thus appealed to, a thin little man with a high starched collar and watery brown eyes gripped the cloth with a start, looked all about as if for consolation, and mumbled: �Yes. Yes, Mr. Onderdonk. We did indeed.�

�Now, now,� said the Inspector. �Come, boys, you�re shieldin� somebody. Who�s missing?�

�It�s barely possible,� murmured Patience in the appalled and palpitating silence which instantly fell, �that these good people are telling the truth, father.�

Thumm winked in ferocious prohibition at his daughter, but she smiled sweetly and continued: �You see, father, I�ve been counting them.�

�Well?� he snapped, and ran his eye swiftly down the table.

�There are seventeen.�

The taxicab deposited them precariously in a clutter of monster buses lined up at the curb on the south side of Forty-Fourth Street near Broadway. They were vast gleaming machines decorated whimsically in a motif of pink and blue, like acromegalic infants primped out by a sentimental mother. Their nurses, to a man young stalwarts attired in smart blue-grey uniforms, sleek-calved and military, lounged on the sidewalk outside a little pink-and-blue booth, smoking and talking.

Patience stood waiting on the sidewalk before the booth while the Inspector paid off the taxicab driver, and she was not unconscious of the frank admiration in the eyes of the young men in uniform.

Apparently she pleased one of them considerably, a blond-haired giant, for he tipped his cap forward over his eyes, strolled over, and said pleasantly: ��Lo, babe. Hahzzit?�

�At the moment,� said Patience, smiling, �uncomfortable.�

He stared. A young brute with red hair gaped at her, and then turned angrily upon the blond giant. �Lay off, you,� he growled, �or I�ll clip you one. This lady��

�Why, Mr. Fisher!� exclaimed Patience. �How gallant! I�m sure your friend meant no... er... disrespect. Did you, you big male Venus?� Her eyes twinkled.

The giant�s mouth fell open; after a moment he blushed. �Sure not, ma�am.� And he effaced himself in the group of bus-drivers, who broke into guffaws.

George Fisher removed his cap. �Don�t mind these guys, Miss Thumm. Just a bunch of wisecrackin� gorillas... Hello, Inspector.�

�Hello, yourself,� said the Inspector shortly. His shrewd eyes swept the crowd of young men. �What�s been going on here? Hey, Patty? One of these pups been gettin� fresh?�

The young men became very silent.

�No, no,� said Patience hastily. �How nice to see you again so soon, Mr. Fisher!�

�Yeah,� grinned Fisher. �Waitin� for my call. I uh��

�Hrrmph!� said the Inspector. �Any news, bub?�

�No, sir, not a thing. Been callin� Donoghue�s roomin� house and the museum ever since I left your office. No sign of that thick-headed old Mick, blast him!�

�Seems to me those museum people ought to be getting kind of worried,� muttered the Inspector. �How�d they sound, Fisher?�

Fisher shrugged. �I only talked to the caretaker, Inspector.�

Thumm nodded. He took a cigar from his breast pocket and casually bit off one end. As he did so he permitted his eyes to travel from one face to another before him. The drivers continued to preserve a discreet silence; the blond giant had slunk to the rear of the group. They seemed a rough, honest lot. Thumm spat the snip of tobacco on the sidewalk, looked directly in the open pink-and-blue booth, and met the eyes of the man who stood in there clutching a telephone. The man looked quickly away; he was a white-haired, red-faced customer in the same uniform as the others, but the inscription above the peak of his cap displayed in addition to Rivoli Bus Company the word Starter.

�Well, maybe we�ll find out something,� said the Inspector with sudden geniality. �Keep your shirt on, Fisher. Come along, sis.�

They stepped by the silent group into the doorway of one of the disreputable old structures with which the Times Square section is infested, and mounted a flight of creaking black stairs. At the top they came to a glass door inscribed:

The Inspector knocked, a man called: �Come in!� and they entered a small dusty office illuminated by the rays of the typically feeble New York sun which crept in through a high-barred window.

J. Theofel proved to be an oldish young man with deep lines incised in his face. �Yes?� he said sharply, looking up from a chart. His eyes lingered over Patience, and then turned upon the Inspector.

�Name�s Thumm,� growled the Inspector. �Miss Thumm. I�m the guy called you this morning about Fisher.�

�Oh,� said Theofel slowly, leaning back. �Sit down, Miss Thumm. Just what�s the trouble, Inspector? I�m afraid I didn�t get it straight this morning over the �phone.�

�No trouble. Not even a case.� Thumm stared hard. �How�d you know I�m an Inspector?�

Theofel smiled briefly. �I�m not as young as I look. I remember the time when your picture was in the paper darned near every day.�

�Oh,� said Thumm. �Cigar?� Theofel shook his head. �Well,� continued Thumm, seating himself with an expansive grunt, �we�re just looking into something that smells a little rotten. Tell me, Mr. Theofel. Who arranged for the rental of a bus for that party of schoolteachers from Indiana?�

The manager blinked. �I believe� Here, I�ll make sure.� He rose, rummaged in a bulging file, and picked out a memorandum. �I thought so. Gentleman by the name of Onderdonk. Seemed to be acting as manager of the party. He wrote us a letter a couple of weeks ago and on Friday �phoned me from the Park Hill Hotel.�

�To arrange for yesterday�s tour?� asked Patience, frowning.

�Not exactly, Miss Thumm. That was only part of it. He wanted us to give his party bus service for the entire week they were in town.�

�So they went out Saturday and Sunday, too?� demanded Thumm.

�Oh, yes. And they�ll be going out today and tomorrow and the rest of the week as well. Quite an itinerary. Little unusual, in fact. We gave them a special rate, of course.�

�Hmm. There were seventeen from the beginning, hey?�

�Seventeen? That�s right.�

�No more than seventeen went Saturday or Sunday?�

Theofel stared at him. Then he said grimly: �No more were supposed to go, if that�s what you�re driving at. Wait a minute.� He picked up one of the several telephones at his elbow; apparently it was a private line that did not go through the central exchange, for he said at once: �Barbey. Send Shalleck and Brown up here� He replaced the receiver, slowly

�Barbey,� said the Inspector �The starter, hey?�

�Yes.�

�I see,� said the Inspector, and applied a match to his cigar.

The door opened and two of the stalwarts in uniform marched in.

�Brown,� said Theofel sternly to the first, �you took out that Park Hill schoolteacher crowd on Saturday. Count �em?�

Brown looked startled. �Sure. Seventeen, Mr. Theofel.�

The manager gave him a sharp glance, and then turned to his companion. �You, Shalleck?�

�Seventeen, Chief.�

�You�re positive, now, both of you?�

They nodded confidently.

�All right, men.�

They turned to go. �Just a minute,� said the Inspector pleasantly. �I think you�d better send that starter Barbey up here when you get downstairs, boys.�

The manager nodded at the men�s inquiring looks. �You think�?� he began fretfully when the door had closed upon the two men.

�I know,� grinned the Inspector. �You let me handle him, Mr. Theofel. This is my meat.� He rubbed his hands and looked sideways at Patience, who was frowning. Thumm had never quite conquered the colossal wonder of paternity; for fatherhood had struck home to him late in life when his daughter returned from abroad after an absence which had extended from pigtails to shaven eyebrows. But on this occasion his mute appeal for approval went unheeded; Patience was cogitating upon a multitude of things, and feeding her massive father�s vanity was not among them. The Inspector sighed.

The door opened and the white-haired man of the downstairs booth appeared. His lips were rather tighter than they should have been, and he ignored the presence of the Thumms pointedly.

�Want me, Mr. Theofel?� he said gruffly.

The Inspector said in the calm magisterial tone of the professional policeman: �Spill it, Barbey.�

The man�s head turned unwillingly, and he blinked once at Thumm and then shifted his gaze. �What� I don�t get you, mister.�

�Inspector to you,� said Thumm, hooking his thumbs in the armholes of his vest. �Come on, Barbey. I�ve got you with the goods, so there�s no sense in stalling.�

Barbey looked about quickly, licked his lips, and stammered: �I guess I�m dumb. What goods? What d�ye mean?�

�Bribery,� said the Inspector with a vast unsympathy.

The starter went white in a slow ebbing of facial blood. His big flabby hands twitched feebly. �How � how�d you find out?�

Patience expelled her breath in a slow noiseless stream. A rising anger animated Theofel�s lined face.

The Inspector smiled. �My business to find out. I�ll tell you right now, mister, I�d as soon throw you in the can as not; but Mr. Theofel, now � well, he�s inclined not to press the charge if you�ll come clean.�

�Yes,� said the manager hoarsely. �Well, Barbey, you heard the Inspector! Don�t stand there like a dumb ox! What�s it all about?�

Barbey fumbled with his cap. �I... I got a family. I know it�s against the company rules. But the dough looked sort of � tempting. When this first guy come over I was going to tell him nothing doing��

�Guy with a soup-strainer and a blue hat, eh?� snapped Thumm.

�Yes, sir! I�m going to tell him nothing doing, see, but he shows me the corner of a ten-spot,� faltered Barbey, �and so I says okay. I let him climb in with the rest. Then about a minute later up comes another guy, and he gives me the same proposition as the first one. Wants me to let him go with Fisher�s bus. So, well, I�d let the first one on, so I thought while I was doin� it I might�s well get the benefit of another five-spot. He gives me a fin, see. So this second guy, he climbs in, and that�s all I know.�

�Was Fisher in on this?� asked Theofel harshly.

�No, Mr. Theofel. He didn�t know anything about it.�

�What did the second bird look like?� asked the Inspector.

�Greaseball, Chief. Face like a rat. Black. Eyetalian, I�d say. Dressed sporty, like the bunch that hangs around the Palace. Flashed a funny kind of ring on his left hand � he was a southpaw, Chief, or at least he handed me the fin with his left��

�What d�ye mean funny?�

�It had a little horseshoe where you�d expect a rock to be,� mumbled Barbey. �Looked like platinum or white gold. And it was set with diamond chips.�

�Hmm.� The Inspector rubbed his chin. �Never saw this man before, I suppose?�

�No, sir!�

�Know him again if you saw him?�

�Yes, sir!�

�He came back with the crowd of schoolmarms, didn�t he, but the bird in the blue hat didn�t?�

Barbey�s eyes widened at this omniscience. �Why, that�s right.�

�Swell.� The Inspector heaved to his feet, and stuck his hand out across the desk. �Thanks a lot, Mr. Theofel. And don�t be too hard on this lad.� He winked at the manager, pounded the astonished starter�s shoulder in friendly fashion, tucked Patience�s gloved hand under his arm, and made for the door.

�The moral of which is,� he chuckled as they descended the groaning steps, �always smell trouble when a guy keeps looking at you and then when you look at him looks away. I knew that bird had a finger in this the minute I spotted him in that barber-pole dinky!�

�Oh, father,� laughed Patience, �you�re the most incorrigible exhibitionist. What shall I do with you? And now��

The Inspector�s face fell. �It�s true,� he said gloomily, �we haven�t made any progress towards finding old Donoghue... All right, Patty,� he sighed, �let�s pay a visit to that blasted museum.�

The Britannic Museum was housed in a tall narrow four-story edifice squeezed between two severe apartment buildings on Fifth Avenue near Sixty-Fifth Street. Its high bronze door faced the greenery of Central Park and on north and south lay the prim canopies of the apartments.

The Thumms mounted the single stone step and stared at the bronze door. It was austerely decorated in bas-relief; the dominating decoration on each panel of the double-leafed portal was a heroic head of Shakespeare. It looked severely solid � a most unfriendly door. There was no mistaking its attitude, for an equally unfriendly sign hung from the bronze knob, and it stated without equivocation that the Britannic Museum was �closed for repairs.�

But the Inspector was made of stern stuff. He closed his right hand and with the resulting fist pounded formidably on the bronze.

�Father!� giggled Patience. �You�re walloping Shakespeare!�

The Inspector grinned and redoubled his pounding upon the Bard of Avon�s nose. There was a frantic scraping and squealing of bolts; and an instant later out popped the gargoylish head of a bulb-nosed old man.

�Hey!� snapped this apparition. �Can�t you read English?�

�One side, brother,� said the Inspector cheerfully. �We�re in a hurry.�

The doorman did not budge; his nose continued to protrude from the crack like a shy lily bulb. �What d�ye want?� he asked surlily.

�Want to get in, of course!�

�Well, you can�t. Closed to the public. Repairs.� And the crack began to vanish.

�Hey!� bellowed the Inspector, making a futile effort to prevent its vanishment. �This is� Hey, this is the police!�

There was a ghostly chuckle from behind the head of Shakespeare, and after that silence.

�Well, I�ll be damned!� exclaimed the Inspector wrathfully. �Why, the old fool, I�ll break his damn� door down!�

Patience leaned against the door, doubled up with laughter. �Oh, father!� she gasped. �You�re so funny. That�s retribution for having laid irreverent hands on the proboscis of the Immortal Will... I�ve an idea.�

The Inspector grunted.

�And you needn�t look so skeptical, you old sorehead. We�ve a friend in the enemy�s camp, haven�t we?�

�What d�ye mean?�

�The imperishable Drury! Mr. Lane�s one of the patrons of the Britannic, isn�t he? I�m sure a call from him will be open sesame.�

�By God, that�s right! Patty, you�ve got your old man�s brain. Let�s hunt up a �phone.�

The expressions of acute alarm on the face of the curator and the young man turned instantly to relief.

�Phew!� said Rowe. �Go easy on my heart, Inspector. I thought for a moment something was really wrong. Just an accident we had yesterday, that�s all.�

Patience and the Inspector exchanged very rapid and illuminated glances. �An accident, hey?� said the Inspector. �Well, well. Glad I decided to soak in a little of your culture at that, Doc. What d�ye mean �accident,� Rowe?�

�Oh, I assure you that�s all it was,� smiled the curator. �No significance at all. It�s really Mr. Rowe�s story. He was working in the reading room next door yesterday afternoon and had occasion to come in here to consult one of the Saxon books. It was he who found the glass top of this case shattered.�

�You see,� explained Rowe, �the workmen finished this room only yesterday morning, and I�ve no doubt in coming back for a forgotten tool or something one of them accidentally poked in the glass. Nothing to get excited about.�

�Just when yesterday did you discover this, Mr. Rowe?� asked Patience slowly. And this time there was nothing personal in her glance.

�Oh, I should imagine about five-thirty.�

�And what time did your visiting delegation from Indiana leave, Dr. Choate, did you say?� she continued. She had quite lost her smile.

Dr. Choate seemed nettled. �Oh, I assure you it�s nothing! And I really didn�t say, Miss Thumm. The schoolteachers left at five, I believe.�

�And the glass was crashed in at five-thirty, Mr. Rowe?�

The young man stared at her. �Miss Sherlocka! I really don�t know. Are you a detectress?�

�Cut the comedy, younker,� said the Inspector, coming forward; but he said it without rancor and indeed seemed to have regained his good humor. �How�s that? You must have heard the glass breaking.�

Rowe shook his head sadly. �But I didn�t, Inspector. You see, the door to the Saxon Room from the reading room was closed, and then I�m usually so absorbed in what I�m doing you could set a bomb off under my chair and I wouldn�t blink an eye. So the accident might have happened any time at all yesterday afternoon, you see.�

�Hmm,� said the Inspector. He went over to the shattered case and peered in. �Anything stolen?�

Dr. Choate laughed heartily. �Come now, Inspector, we�re not children, you know. Naturally it occurred to us that some one might have sneaked in here � there�s another door over there, as you can see, which leads into the main corridor, making this room fairly accessible � and made off with one of the three very valuable volumes in the case. But they�re still there, as you can see.�

The Thumms stared down at the broken cabinet. Its bottom was lined with soft black velvet; three oblong depressions had been artfully built into the velvet, and in each depression reposed a single book, large bulky volumes bound in stained and faded rough old calf. The book to the left was covered in a gold-brown calf, the book to the right in a faded scarlet, and the book in the middle in blue.

�There�s a glazier coming in this afternoon to replace the glass lid,� continued the curator. �And now��

�Hold your horses, Doc,� said Thumm abruptly. �You say the workmen got through with this room yesterday morning. Didn�t you have a guard on duty here in the afternoon? I thought these museums were lousy with guards all the time.�

�Why, no, Inspector. We dispensed with our usual staff when the museum was closed for repairs. Donoghue and the caretaker Burch have been enough. Those Indiana people have been the first outsiders permitted here since we shut down. But we didn�t think it necessary��

�Well,� said the Inspector in a rumble, �I think I can tell you what happened, and it�s not so damned innocent as you make it out.�

Patience�s eyes were bright. Gordon Rowe looked puzzled.

�What do you mean?� asked Dr. Choate swiftly.

�I mean,� snapped the Inspector, �that your guess, Doc, that Donoghue saw something screwy about Mr. Blue Hat and followed him was right. Why did he follow Blue Hat? Because I say Blue Hat smashed this case, that�s why, and Donoghue saw him do it!�

�Then why isn�t anything missing?� objected the curator.

�Maybe Donoghue scared him off just before he could take one of these books. You say they�re valuable. Plain enough � attempted robbery.�

Patience thoughtfully sucked her full lower lip and stared into the shattered case.

�And why didn�t Donoghue raise an alarm, Inspector?� murmured Rowe. �And why didn�t some one see this chap with the blue hat running out, if Donoghue was scrambling after him?�

�And most important of all,� said Patience in a low voice,� where is Donoghue? Why hasn�t he returned?�

�I don�t know,� retorted the Inspector savagely, �but I tell you that�s what happened.�

�I�m very much afraid that what happened,� said Patience in a stiff queer tone, �is something rather terrible. And it didn�t happen to the man in the blue hat, father. It happened to poor old Donoghue!�

The men were silent. The Inspector began to patrol the flagged floor.

Patience sighed and bent over the cabinet again. A triangular card was propped behind each of the three books in the case. A larger placard in the foreground bore the printed legend:

�Elizabethan?� asked Patience.

Dr. Choate nodded absently. �Yes. Interesting items here, Miss Thumm. Jaggard was the famous London printer and publisher who did the First Folio of Shakespeare, you know. These things come from Samuel Saxon�s collection � where he got them the Lord alone knows! He was something of a miser.�

�I shouldn�t say that exactly,� remarked Gordon Rowe with a glint in his hazel eyes.

�Oh, purely in the bibliophilic sense,� added Dr. Choate hastily.

�Come on,� said the Inspector in a gruff tone. �I want to find out something.�

But while there was much to find out, literally nothing was found. With Dr. Choate�s assistance Inspector Thumm marshaled all the workmen � decorators, painters, masons, and carpenters � in the Britannic Museum and questioned them exhaustively about the events of the day before. No one among them remembered seeing a man in a blue hat enter or leave the Saxon Room, nor did anyone recall the exact movements of the missing Donoghue.

Patience, who had lingered behind in the Saxon Room and had been seized in conversation by young Mr. Rowe, hurried into the reading room where the Inspector had conducted his fruitless examination of the workmen, her face glowing.

�Father! I think there�s something... Would you mind terribly if I didn�t return to the office with you?�

Forcibly reminded of his fatherhood, the Inspector assumed a stern air, �Where�re you bound?�

�Luncheon,� said Patience gaily, stealing a glance at her profile in her hand-bag mirror.

�Ha,� said the Inspector. �Lunch, hey?� He looked sad.

�With young Rowe, I�ll wager,� chuckled Dr. Choate. �For a student of such a serious subject as literature that lad is the most incorrigible flibberty-gibbet. Ah, here he is,� he said as Rowe marched in with his hat and stick. �Coming back this afternoon, Rowe?�

�If I can tear myself away,� grinned the young man. �Shakespeare has been waiting for over three hundred years, so I suppose he can wait a little longer. You don�t mind, Inspector?�

�Mind? Mind?� snarled Thumm. �Why the devil should I mind?� And he kissed Patience fiercely on the forehead.

The young couple walked briskly out of the room, deep in a conversation which seemed to have begun in antiquity and would probably continue to eternity. There was a little silence.

�Well,� sighed the Inspector, �guess I�ll be trottin� along, too. Just keep an eye peeled, will you? And if you hear anything from or about Donoghue, give me a buzz.� He gave the curator his card, shook hands rather limply, and stumped out of the reading room.

Dr. Choate stared thoughtfully after his broad simian back. Then he tapped the edge of the card against his bearded lips, whistled softly, and turned back to the Saxon Room.

�I always thought,� said Patience over the grape-fruit, �that research students of literature were like research chemists � bowed, thin young men with a fanatical light in their eyes and a total absence of sex appeal. Are you the exception to the rule, or have I been missing something?�

�I�ve been missing something,� asserted Mr. Rowe, swallowing a mouthful of fruit powerfully.

�I notice that that spiritual lack hasn�t affected your appetite!�

�Who said it was spiritual?�

The waiter took away the empty rinds and replaced them with cups of consomm�.

�Lovely day,� said Patience hurriedly, and took a hasty sip of soup. �Tell me something about yourself, young man. Pass the biscuits?... I mean, make it a personal biography.�

�I�d rather make it a cocktail. George here knows me, and even if he doesn�t it won�t make any difference. George, a couple of Martinis. Dry as hell.�

�Shakespeare and Martinis!� murmured Patience, giggling. �How refreshing! I see it all now. That�s why you�re a scholar and still resemble a human being. You sprinkle the dusty page with alcohol, and somehow it burns, doesn�t it?�

�Like the very devil,� grinned young Mr. Rowe. �As a matter of fact, you�re betraying a most becoming ignorance. I�m deathly sick of lunching intelligent women.�

�Well, I like that,� gasped Patience. �Why, you insolent B-Bacchus! I�ve my M.A., I�ll have you know, and I wrote a scintillating paper on The Poetry of Thomas Hardy!�

�Hardy? Hardy?� asked the young man, wrinkling his firm straight nose. �Oh, the versifier!�

�And just what did you mean by that crack? I�m betraying ignorance of precisely what?�

�The essential spirit of old Will. My dear girl, if you had a really deep-seated appreciation of Shakespeare, you would know that his poetry needs no external stimulant. It burns with its own fire.�

�Hear, hear,� murmured Patience. �Thank you, sir. I shall never forget this little lesson in �sthetics.� There were two fiery pink spots in her cheeks, and she tore a biscuit in half.

He threw back his head and roared, startling George, who was approaching with a tray on which stood two frosty amber-filled glasses. �Oh, good Lord!� he gasped. �She can�t take it! I think we�re both a little mad... Ah, George. Set them down, my boy... Down the hatch, Miss Thumm?�

�Miss Thumm?�

�Darling!�

�Patience to you, Mr. Rowe.�

�Very well, Patience it shall be.� They drank gravely; their eyes met over the brims of their glasses and they laughed together, choking over the cocktails. �And now for the autobiography. My name is Gordon Rowe. I shall be twenty-eight come Michaelmas, I am an orphan, I have a pitifully small income, I think the Yankees have a rotten team this year, I see Harvard has bought a swell quarter-back, and if I look at you much longer I shall be tempted to kiss you.�

�You�re a strange young man,� said Patience with a furious blush. �No, no, that doesn�t mean acceptance, so you�d better drop my hand; those two old ladies at the next table are looking at you with disapproval... Heavens, I�m mortified! Blushing like any callow schoolgirl at mere mention of a kiss! Are you always so flippant? I�d rather looked forward to an engrossing discussion about the splitting of the infinitive as split by John Milton, or the domestic problems of the Lepidoptera.�

He stared at her, his grin fading. �You�re horribly nice,� he said, and attacked his chop furiously, and for the moment there was silence. When he looked up they examined each other with searching seriousness, and it was Patience�s eyes which fell. �To tell the truth, Pat � I�m glad you let me call you that � this sort of childish vulgarity is my escape. It�s not very bright, I know, and I�ve never felt myself capable of holding my own in the social sense. I�ve devoted the best years of my young life so far to getting an education, and these last few years to doing something earth-shaking in the line of literary research. I�ve enormous ambition, you know.�

�Ambition never ruined any young man,� said Patience softly.

�Thanks for the kind words, young lady. I�m not the creative type, though. Research fascinates me. I suppose I should have gone in for biochemistry, or astrophysics.�

Patience devoted herself chastely to her salad. She toyed for an instant with a crisp emerald leaf of cress. �I�m really... oh, it�s silly.�

He leaned forward and took her hand. �Please tell me, Pat.�

�Mr. Rowe, they�re looking!� said Patience, but she did not withdraw her hand.

�Gordon, please.�

�Gordon... You�ve hurt me,� said Patience tragically. �Oh, I know it was ragging, and all that, but the fact is, Mr. Rowe � very well, Gordon!�� I despise most women for their doughty minds.�

�I�m sorry,� he said contritely. �It was a poor joke.�

�No, it�s more than that, Gordon. I�ve been making poor jokes, too. I�ve never found anything I really wanted to do, while you�� She smiled. �Of course, it sounds ridiculous. But the only thing that differentiates us from the lower primates is the power of reasoning, and I don�t see why the mere fact that a woman is biologically different from a man should prevent her from cultivating her mind.�

�It�s the fashion to be horrified at the mere notion,� grinned the young man.

�I know it is, and I detest the fashion. I don�t believe the full force of the mind�s possibilities struck home to me until I met Drury Lane. He�s... oh, he tones you up, he makes you want to think, to know. And it doesn�t prevent him from being a very charming old gentleman, either... But we�ve strayed from the point.� She withdrew her hand shyly and regarded him with earnest eyes. �Do tell me about your work, and yourself, Gordon. I�m really interested.�

�There�s so little to tell,� he said with a shrug of his big shoulders. �It�s just work, eat, the gym, and sleep. Work�s the most important part of it, of course. There was something special in Shakespeare that gripped me. There never was such genius. Oh, it goes more deeply with me than admiring the polish of a phrase or the acute philosophy behind a Hamlet or Lear conception. It was the man himself. What made him what he was? What was his secret? From what source did he draw his inspiration, or was it just a fire inside himself? I wanted to know.�

�I�ve been to Stratford,� said Patience softly. �There�s something there. It�s in the old Chapel Lane, the Stratford Church, the air��

�I spent a year and a half in England,� muttered Rowe. �It was hellish work. Following a trail so faint it was half imagination. And, by heaven��

�Yes?� whispered Patience, her eyes glowing.

He cupped his chin in his hands. �The most important part of an artist�s life is his formative years. It�s the period of his intensest passions. His senses are at their fullest vigor... And what do we know about the Maytime in the life of the greatest poet the world has ever produced? Nothing. There�s a blank in the story of Shakespeare which must be filled in if we�re ever to reach a sensitive and intelligent appreciation of the artist.� He paused, and something almost frightened crept into his tired hazel eyes. �Pat,� he said in a slightly unsteady voice, �I think I�m on the right track. I think� �

He stopped and fumbled for his cigarette-case. Patience sat very still.

He put the case back into his vest pocket without opening it. �No,� he muttered. �It�s premature. I don�t really know. Yet.� Then he smiled. �Pat, do let�s talk about something else.�

She sighed with minute care, never taking her eyes from him. Then she smiled back. �Of course, Gordon. Tell me about the Saxons.�

Miss Brodie stumbled into her employer�s sanctum, her vapid young face working. �Oh, Inspector! It�s � it�s Mr. Lane!�

�What�s that?� asked the Inspector blankly. It was Wednesday, and he had quite forgotten having written Lane the day before.

�Now, now, Brodie,� said Patience kindly, �get a grip on yourself. What�s this about Mr. Lane?�

Miss Brodie made Spartan efforts. She gulped, pointed tremblingly at the door, and said: �He�s outside.�

�Well, for the love of Mike!� bellowed the Inspector, springing for the door. �Why didn�t you say so?� He yanked the door open; a tall old man with a mat of pure white hair sat on the bench in the ante-room, smiling at him and Patience by his side. Miss Brodie sucked her thumb nervously in the background. �Lane! It�s good to see you. What the devil brings you into town?�

Mr. Drury Lane rose, tucked his blackthorn under his arm, and gripped the Inspector�s hand very creditably for a septuagenarian. �Your fascinating letter, of course. Patience! Charming as usual. Well, well, Inspector, aren�t you going to ask me in?�

Miss Brodie slipped by, an agitated wraith awed by a higher Presence. Mr. Drury Lane smiled at her in passing, and she gasped faintly. Then the three retired to the Inspector�s office.

The old gentleman looked about him with affectionate eyes. �It�s been some time, hasn�t it? The same stuffy old hole, Inspector. A sort of modern Teach�s brig. How are you both?�

�Physically prime,� said Patience, �but not so healthy mentally � at the moment. But how have you been, Mr. Lane? The last time��

�The last time, my dear,� said the old gentleman solemnly, �I was slipping on an earthslide into my grave. Today � as you see me. I feel better than I�ve felt for years.�

�Sure makes me feel good to see you sittin� here,� growled the Inspector.

Lane spoke with his eyes shifting from the lips of Patience to the lips of Thumm; in a practiced, fluid way they were never still. �The truth is your letter revived me, Inspector. A case! Particularly a case involving my humdrum little Britannic. It seems too good to be true.�

�That�s the difference between you and Father,� said Patience, laughing. �Mysteries irritate him and stimulate you.�

�And what do they do to you, my dear?�

She shrugged. �I�m the Balm of Gilead.�

�The Britannic,� murmured Lane. �Patience, have you met young Gordon Rowe?�

Instantly she blushed, and tears of exasperation came to her eyes. The Inspector muttered bitterly to himself. The old gentleman eyed them with a smile. �Oh � oh, yes, I�ve met him,� said Patience.

�So I gathered,� said Lane dryly. �Smart young chap, eh?�

�Quite, quite.�

The Inspector fidgeted. �Fact of the matter is, Lane, we�re in something crazy. I�m not getting any money out of it, it�s the nuttiest yarn you ever heard, and I�ve got to do something about it for old time�s sake.�

�An unenviable position,� chuckled the old gentleman. �I suggest we go at once to the museum. Something in your description of that shattered cabinet in the Saxon Room, Inspector, makes me want very much to examine it.�

�Oh!� cried Patience. �Something I missed?�

�It�s just a conjecture,� said Mr. Drury Lane thoughtfully. �I dare say it�s nothing. Shall we go? Dromio is downstairs with the car.�

�What�s the row?� demanded a cheerful voice, and young Gordon Rowe sauntered into the Saxon Room from the corridor. He grinned at Patience and went to her side at once, like a scrap of iron filing drawn to a magnet.

�Ah, Rowe,� said the curator hurriedly. �The very man. The most extraordinary thing�s happened!�

�We seem to be attracting marvels like Mr. Barnum�s freak show,� said young Rowe with a wink at Patience. �Mr. Lane! Glad to see you, sir. Lord, what a solemn congregation! And I see you�ve been initiating Dr. Sedlar into our little domestic difficulties, Dr. Choate. �Lo, Inspector. What�s the trouble, Doctor?�

Dr. Choate mutely waved the blue volume in his hand.

Rowe dropped his smile instantly. �Not�?� He looked around and saw grave faces. Then he took the book from the curator and slowly opened it. An expression of the most intense amazement came over his face. He looked around again in blank confusion. �It isn�t� Why, this is a 1606 Jaggard!� he shouted. �I thought there weren�t any��

�Apparently there is,� said the old gentleman dryly. �Beautiful copy, isn�t it, Gordon? There will be shouting in the streets when the news gets out.�

�I know,� muttered Rowe, �but� Where in God�s good name did this come from? Who found it? You didn�t bring it over from London, did you, Dr. Sedlar?�

�Scarcely!� drawled the Englishman.

�You won�t believe it,� said Dr. Choate with a helpless shrug. �But we did have a theft here Monday. Some one left this in the Jaggard case, Rowe, and took away the 1599!�

�Oh,� said the young man. �I�� And he threw back his head and roared with laughter. �Lord, this is rich!� he gasped, wiping his eyes. �Wait until divine Lydia hears this. And Crabbe... Oh, this is too much!� He gulped hard and composed himself. �I beg your pardon. It just struck me... you know. It would be Mrs. Saxon�s luck to have a rare book stolen and an even rarer one left in its place. Crazy, that�s what it is!�

�I think,� said the curator with a nervous tug at his beard, �you�d better get Mrs. Saxon over here at once, Rowe. After all��

�Of course.� The young man caressed the 1606 Jaggard with tenderness, returned it to Dr. Choate, pressed Patience�s arm, and left the room with a jaunty air.

�Frightfully boisterous young man,� remarked Dr. Sedlar. �I�m afraid I can�t share his levity. You know, we can�t accept this � this remarkable volume at its face value, Dr. Choate. It will have to be more thoroughly examined. It may be difficult to establish its authenticity��

The hunter�s glare invaded Dr. Choate�s eye. �Quite. Quite.� And he rubbed his hands. He seemed content to have the stolen volume remain in possession of the thief, so long as the thief did not return and demand the unique volume he had left in the case. �I suggest we get to work at once. We�ll have to proceed carefully, Sedlar. We don�t want a breath of this to get out! We might call in old Gaspari of the Metropolitan, swear him to secrecy...�

Dr. Sedlar was strangely pale. He kept staring at the ravished cabinet as if hypnotized.

�Or Professor Crowninshield of the Folger,� he muttered.

Patience sighed. �We all seem to be assuming that the 1599 Jaggard was stolen by the man in the blue hat. There�s really no proof, you know. Why mightn�t the thief have been that second stranger on the bus, or one of the seventeen schoolteachers?�

Inspector Thumm threw up his hands and scowled. It was evident that the entire affair was too much for him.

�I scarcely think so, Patience,� murmured Drury Lane. �There were nineteen persons on the bus, all of whom apparently entered the museum. Eighteen of them returned to the bus terminal after the visit, the eighteenth being the mysterious second stranger, as you so charmingly have christened him. In other words, our friend, the man in the blue hat, disappeared from the museum. And so did Donoghue. The link is too powerful to have been forged by coincidence. I think it extremely probable that the man in the blue hat stole the 1599 Jaggard, leaving this 1606 in its place, and that Donoghue disappeared in following him.�

�Well, well,� said the curator briskly, �I�ve no doubt it will all be explained in time. Meanwhile, Dr. Sedlar, if you�ll excuse me, I�ll have the museum searched at once.�

�For what?� demanded the Inspector bitterly.

�There�s the remote chance, you know, that that 1599 Jaggard may not have been taken out of the building.�

�Says you,� growled Thumm.

�Excellent notion, Doctor,� said Dr. Sedlar eagerly, �I... I�ll carry on. But when Mrs. Saxon arrives�� Apparently Dr. Sedlar had heard of Mrs. Saxon�s potentialities, and was properly apprehensive.

�I shan�t be a minute,� said Dr. Choate cheerfully. He deposited the blue book carefully in the case and hurried from the room.

The Englishman hovered over the case like a nervous mother stork over her nest. �Too bad,� he muttered. �Too bad. I really should have liked to see that 1599.�

Drury Lane stared at him, and then sought a chair and sat down. He shaded his eyes with a white-veined hand.

�You sound horribly disappointed, Dr. Sedlar,� said Patience.

He started. �Eh? I beg your pardon... Yes, yes, I am.�

�But why? Didn�t you ever see the 1599? I thought that rare books were common property among bibliophiles.�

�Should be,� replied the Englishman with a grim smile, �but this one was not. It belonged to Samuel Saxon, you know. That made it quite inaccessible.�

�I believe Mr. Rowe and Dr. Choate did say something about Mr. Saxon�s... er... secretiveness.�

Dr. Sedlar grew excited, and his monocle trembled and then fell, to dangle by its cord on his breast. �Secretiveness!� he exploded. �The man was a bibliomaniac. He spent half his declining years in England bidding in at auctions and quite taking away all our precious things... Sorry. But there were items which weren�t universally known. The Lord alone knows where he picked them up. This stolen 1599 Jaggard edition of The Passionate Pilgrim was one of the unknowns. Until a short time ago only two copies of this first edition were known to be in existence; then Saxon dug up a third somewhere, but he never permitted scholars so much as a glimpse of it. He stowed it away in his library like so much fodder in a granary.�

�That sure sounds tragic,� said the Inspector disagreeably.

�Oh, yes,� drawled the Englishman. �I assure you it is. I�d really looked forward to examining it... When Mr. Wyeth told me about the acquisition of the Saxon bequest��

�He mentioned that the 1599 Jaggard was included in the benefaction?� murmured Lane.

�Yes, indeed.� Dr. Sedlar sighed and bent over the cabinet again. He readjusted his monocle. �Lovely, Lovely. I can scarcely wait� What�s this?� His thin lips parted with excitement as he seized the third of the three volumes in the case and studied its flyleaf.

�What�s the matter now?� asked Lane swiftly, rising and hurrying to the cabinet.

Dr. Sedlar expelled a long whistling breath. �For a moment I thought � I was wrong. I examined this particular copy of Henry V in London some years ago, before it was purchased by Saxon. It bears the date 1608 � jolly well established as a case of deliberate ante-dating by Jaggard, who printed it for the stationer Thomas Pavier. It was probably printed in 1619. But I recalled that the leather was a deeper scarlet. Apparently it�s faded a bit under the tender ministrations of Saxon.�

�I see,� said the old gentleman. �You had me jumping, Doctor! How about the Sir John Oldcastle?�

The incumbent curator fingered the first volume in the cabinet lovingly. �Oh, that�s quite all right,� he said seriously. �Hasn�t changed hue since I last saw it at Sotheby�s in 1913 when it fetched a pretty price at auction � the same golden brown! Mind you, I�m not accusing Saxon of vandalism, please understand��

Dr. Choate hurried into the room. �I�m afraid I was wrong,� he said brightly. �No sign of the stolen Jaggard. We�ll keep searching, of course.�

No one spoke for a breathless moment. They stared at one another, too overcome by astonishment to utter a word. The strange thief had returned his booty!

�Considering the general air of madness about the entire affair thus far,� murmured Drury Lane, rising and coming forward, �I suspected that something like this might occur.� His cameo face was keen with curiosity. �We�re dealing with an intelligent and humorous antagonist. Odd, very odd! Are you sure that�s the copy that was stolen, Dr. Choate?�

�Not the slightest question,� replied the curator, still dazed. �This is the Saxon Jaggard. Would you care to examine it, gentlemen?�

He placed the blue calf volume, still on its bed of wrapping-paper, upon the glass top of the Jaggard cabinet; and Crabbe examined the book with swift absorption. Patience, pressed against young Rowe, caught a glimpse of Dr. Sedlar�s face as the Englishman watched Crabbe, and almost cried out with surprise. The man had been wearing a polite mask. Now the mask had dropped away. His expression mirrored a peculiar rage, a rage almost of disappointment; his face was very savage, and its savagery was only enhanced by the cold unwinking glass over his right eye. Then the mask slipped back in a twinkling, and he was carefully interested once more... Patience twisted her head and looked into Gordon Rowe�s eyes; their eyes spoke to each other; he had caught the remarkable expression, too, and watched Dr. Sedlar thenceforth with an unwavering intentness.

�That�s the Saxon Jaggard,� said Crabbe in clipped tones.

�Cripes, what a fool I�ve been!� shouted Inspector Thumm suddenly, startling them all; and with no further explanation he dashed out of the Saxon Room. They heard his big feet pounding away down the corridor.

�Your father, Miss Thumm,� remarked Dr. Sedlar with a slight smile, �seems a very precipitate gentleman.�

�My father, Dr. Sedlar,� retorted Patience, �is at times a very acute gentleman. He thinks of practical things, you see. I�ve no doubt he�s gone after the messenger, something none of the rest of us thought of doing.�

Mrs. Saxon stared at Patience as if she were seeing that angry young woman for the first time. Young Rowe chuckled.

�Yes, yes, Patience,� said Drury Lane mildly, �we don�t question the Inspector�s perspicacity, although I dare say this time it�s futile. The point is, gentlemen, that your 1599 Jaggard hasn�t been returned in the status quo ante. Please examine the back.�

His sharp eyes had observed something wrong. Dr. Choate lifted the volume from the wrapping paper and turned it over. They saw immediately what was the matter. A knife had been inserted into the lower edge of the back cover, slitting the leather and the thin leaves of the paper board which made up the body of the cover. The whole lower edge of the binding had been slit in this fashion. Protruding from the slit was the tiny edge of a stiff crisp piece of paper.

Dr. Choate pulled it out cautiously. It was a one-hundred dollar bill. Pinned to it with a common pin was a small scrap of the same kind of brown paper which had been used in wrapping the book. In the same blue ink, identically block-lettered, were five words:

There was no signature.

�The cheek of the fellow!� snarled Mrs. Saxon. �Vandalizing my book and��

Inspector Thumm stamped back, muttering and wiping his brow. �Too late,� he growled. �Messenger�s beat it... What�s this?� He examined the rent in the back cover and read the note with astonishment. Then he shook his head as if to say: �It�s too much for me!� and turned his attention to the wrapping paper and the string. �Cheap manila,� he said. �Ordinary red string. No clue there. Ah, hell! I�m sick of the whole blasted business.�

Crabbe fondled the hundred-dollar bill and chuckled: �There�s a nice thief for you, Choate. Steals a book, returns it with expenses, and throws in a priceless gift to boot!� Then he stopped chortling and looked thoughtful.

�Telephone the papers,� said the Inspector wearily. �Tell �em about this thing. You�ll give the thief an excuse to come back.�

�How do you figure that, Father?�

�Patty, a crook�s a crook even if he�s dotty. He left this damned 1606 or whatever you call it, didn�t he? He�ll come back and claim it.�

�I�m afraid not, Inspector,� smiled Lane. �He�s scarcely as ingenuous as that. No, he has found��

Mrs. Saxon, who was openly mollified by the unexpected return of the 1599 Jaggard, uttered a startled exclamation which sounded like the siren warning of a ferry-boat. �Why, Crabbe! This is really peculiar. It�s just struck me. Do you know, Mr. Lane, we had just such an experience as this not long ago?�

�What�s this, Mrs. Saxon?� asked the old gentleman abruptly. �What sort of experience?�

Her triple chin quivered with excitement. �Somebody stole a book from my library, Mr. Lane, and then sent it back, too!�

Crabbe shot her a queer look. �I remember, too,� he said harshly. And he glanced sidelong at Dr. Sedlar for no apparent reason. �It is odd.�

�Crabbe!� exclaimed Rowe. �God, what idiots we all are! Of course. It must be the same one!�

Mr. Drury Lane grasped the arm of the Saxon librarian, and the Saxon librarian winced. �Come, come, man, tell us what happened � at once! It may be of the gravest importance.�

Crabbe looked slyly about. �In the excitement I forgot... About six weeks ago one night I had occasion to work late in the library. The Saxon library, of course, at Mrs. Saxon�s. It was when I was recataloguing the collection after the benefaction to the Britannic had been sorted out. I heard a peculiar noise from one of the wings and investigated. I surprised a man in the art of rifling one of the shelves.�

�Now we�re getting somewhere,� said the Inspector. �What did he look like?�

Crabbe spread his dry bony hands, as if to warm them. �Qui�n sabe? It was dark, and he was masked and bundled up in a coat. I got no more than a glimpse of him. He heard me and dashed through one of the French windows and escaped.�

�It was dreadful,� said Mrs. Saxon grimly. �I shall never forget how upset we all were.� Then she chuckled. �Mr. Crabbe ran about like a headless old rooster��

�Hmm,� said Crabbe sourly. �And Mrs. Saxon, I recall, came down in a brilliant red peignoir...� They glared at each other. Patience envisioning that mountain of feminine flesh uncorseted, in a loose and floppy wrapper, bit her lip bravely. �Anyway, I raised the alarm and young Rowe here came down in his � he, he!�� B.V.D.�s.�

�Not quite,� said Rowe hurriedly. �Crabbe!�

�Usual thing. Mr. Rowe played the shining knight and chased the thief, and the thief escaped very prettily.�

�They were pajamas,� said Mr. Rowe with dignity, �and besides I never even saw the fellow when I chased him.�

�And you say he stole a book?� asked Drury Lane slowly.

Crabbe blinked in a crafty way. �You won�t believe it.�

�Well?�

�He stole a copy of the 1599 Jaggard.�

There was nothing more to be done at the Britannic Museum. The Inspector, especially, was in a fever of impatience to be off. They made their adieus and left.

Gordon Rowe went with them to the door. He rapped his knuckles on the bronze beard of Shakespeare. �The old boy�s actually smiling. And no wonder! For the first time for centuries something human has happened in a museum, Pat.�

�Something tantalizing,� said Patience fiercely. �Sir, my hand! I have a very jealous father, and he has eyes in the back of his head... Good-by, Gordon.�

�Ah,� said the young man, �that was very nice. When may I see you again?�

�I�ll think about it,� said Patience primly, and turned to follow the Inspector and Lane.

He seized her hand. �Pat! Let me see you now.�

�Now?�

�Let me see you to your father�s office. That�s where you�re going, isn�t it?�

�Y-yes.�

�Mayn�t I come, too?�

�Heavens, you�re a persistent young man!� said Patience, and for the dozenth time hated herself for blushing. �Very well, if Father will have you.�

�Oh, he�ll have me,� said Rowe gaily, and closed the door behind them with a loud bang. He took Patience�s arm and walked her briskly across to the others. Dromio, Lane�s red-haired chauffeur, stood grinning beside a sleek black Lincoln limousine at the curb.

�Inspector,� said the young man anxiously, �do you mind if I come along? Come, now, you don�t mind. I can see it in your eyes!�

Thumm stared icily at him. �Say��

Mr. Drury Lane clicked a soothing syllable. �Now, now, Inspector, I think it�s a splendid idea. I suggest you let me take you all downtown. I�ve my car here, and I do want a few moments� relaxation. Can�t think at all with so many disturbing influences around me. The situation obviously calls for a council of war, and Gordon is a keen lad. Shall we, or are you too busy to be annoyed with us, Inspector?�

�There,� said young Rowe, �is a friend.�

�The way business is these days,� said the Inspector glumly, �I could take a month�s vacation and that dumb typist of mine wouldn�t even know I�d gone.� He glanced sharply at the young man, and then at Patience, who was humming a nervous little tune and trying to appear nonchalant. �All right, younker. Patty, jump in. This is a free ride.�

Dromio cheerfully cursed a traffic officer beneath his breath and swung the black Lincoln off Fifth Avenue into one of the Forties. He picked his way through a labyrinth of traffic and brought the car to rest at the corner of Sixth Avenue, stopped by a red light.

Mr. Drury Lane sat silently in the tonneau of the car, tapping his lips with the sharp edge of a slip of yellow paper. For the dozenth time he glanced at the message typed upon it, and frowned. It was a telegram, its date-line reading: �June 21�12.06 a.m.� The message had been delivered to The Hamlet in Westchester in the early hours of the morning.

�Queer time for Thumm to send me a wire,� thought the old man. �Midnight! He�s never done a thing like that before... Urgent? It isn�t possible that��

Dromio leaned on his klaxon. A car had locked fenders with another at the corner; they were straining at each other like two bulls, and there was an appalling tangle of traffic behind. Lane glanced over his shoulder at the mess extending to Fifth Avenue, and then leaned forward and tapped Dromio�s ear.

�I think I shall walk the rest of the way,� he said. �It�s only a block. Wait for me near Inspector Thumm�s office.�

He got out of the car, still holding the telegram. Then he put it carefully into the breast pocket of his spruce suit and strode off toward Broadway.

He found the Thumm Detective Agency in a strange state of turmoil. The lunar-eyed Miss Brodie in the ante-room seemed to have contracted the general infection: she sat nervously and stared with mournful uneasiness at Patience, who was striding up and down behind the railing like a fuming regimental sergeant-major, biting her lips and hurling passionate glances at the office clock on the wall.

At the sound of the opening door she jumped, and Miss Brodie uttered a gentle scream.

�So you�ve come!� cried Patience, grasping the old gentleman�s arm in a death-grip. �I thought you�d never get here. You�re a precious darling!� and to his astonishment she threw her soft arms about his neck and kissed him vigorously on the cheek.

�My dear child,� protested Lane, �you�re trembling! What on earth has happened? The Inspector�s wire was bursting with suppressed portents, but it told me exactly nothing. I trust he�s well?�

�As well as might be expected,� replied Patience grimly. Then her eyes sparkled and she touched a shining ringlet above her ear and said: �And now let�s attack the � the corpse.�

She pushed open the Inspector�s door and revealed a red-eyed but otherwise pale elderly gentleman who sat stiffly on the edge of his swivel-chair and like a determined boa-constrictor glared at an object on the desk before him.

�Eureka!� he shouted, scrambling to his feet. �Old Faithful, by God. I told you we could depend on the old rascal, Patty! Sit down, Lane, sit down. It�s swell of you to come.�

Lane sank into the leather armchair. �Heavens, what a reception! You make me feel like the returning prodigal. Now tell me what�s happened. I�m perishing of curiosity.�

Thumm grasped the object he had been so painfully studying. �See this?�

�I�ve excellent eyesight, as you know. Yes, I see it.�

The Inspector chuckled. �Well, we�re going to open it.�

Lane stared from Thumm to Patience. �But� Well, do so, by all means. Is this why you wired me to come in, Inspector?�

�We wired you to come in,� said Patience quickly, �because some maniac insisted that you be present at the grand opening. Father, please. I�ll go mad myself if you don�t open it this instant!�

It was the long brown manila envelope which the curious gentleman with the dappled beard and blue glasses had left in the Inspector�s safe keeping almost seven weeks before.

Lane took the envelope from Thumm�s hand and examined it with a swift experimental pressure. His eyes narrowed as he felt the contours of the squarish envelope within. �This mystery calls for an explanation. I should like to know the facts before... No, no, my dear, I�ve told you on several occasions in the past to cultivate � ha, ha � Patience. Proceed, Inspector.�

Thumm tersely related the story of the disguised Englishman�s visit on the sixth of May. With interpolations by Patience, it was a very complete tale, down to a minute description of the visitor. When the Inspector had finished, Lane glanced thoughtfully at the envelope. �But why didn�t you tell me this before? That�s not like you, Inspector.�

�Didn�t think it was necessary. Come on, let�s go!�

�Just a moment. I take it, then, that this being the twenty-first of the month, your mysterious client failed to telephone you yesterday on schedule?�

�He called up on the twentieth of May, though,� said the Inspector glumly.

�We sat here all the livelong day,� snapped Patience, �until midnight yesterday. Not a peep out of him. And now��

�Did you by any chance make a transcript of the man�s conversation?� asked Lane absently. �I know you�ve a detectograph here.�

Thumm jabbed a button. �Miss Brodie. Get that transcript of the envelope case.�

They sat in agony while the old man very deliberately read the word-for-word report of the visitor�s call.

�Hmm,� he said, putting down the report. �Very strange. Quite true, of course, that the creature was disguised. Clumsy, clumsy! No slightest effort, apparently, at realism. The beard...� He shook his head. �Very well, Inspector, I think we may proceed. Do the honors.�

He rose, tossed the envelope on Thumm�s desk, sat down in a chair beside the desk, and leaned forward intently. Patience hurried around the desk to stand behind her father�s chair; she was breathing quickly and her usually serene features were pale and agitated. With shaking fingers Thumm pulled out the sliding leaf on the side of the desk near Lane, placed the envelope upon it, and sank into his swivel-chair. He was perspiring freely. Then he looked up at Lane � they faced each other across the utility board � and grinned feebly.

�Well, here goes,� he jeered. �And I hope it doesn�t jump out at me and say �April Fool� or something.�

Behind him Patience sighed for sheer need of breath.

The Inspector grasped a letter-knife, hesitated, and then plunged the blade beneath the flap of the manila envelope. He cut the flap swiftly, dropped the knife, squeezed the ends of the envelope, and peered inside.

�Well?� cried Patience.

�You were right, Patty,� he muttered. �It�s another envelope.� And he took out a small square envelope, neutral-grey in tone, which was in turn sealed. The face was blank.

�What�s that on the flap?� asked the old gentleman sharply.

The Inspector turned the envelope over. His face went as grey as the paper.

Patience, scanning the flap over his shoulder, gasped.

Thumm licked his lips. �It says,� he said hoarsely, �it says � cripes!�� it says: THE SAXON LIBRARY!�

It was the first indication they had had that the visit of the mysterious man with the Joseph�s beard might have been connected with the strange events at the Britannic Museum.

�The Saxon Library,� murmured Lane. �How curious.�

�So that�s how it is!� cried Thumm. �Good God, what�ve we run into?�

�Apparently,� said the old man with difficulty, �a coincidence, Inspector. It happens sometimes. With sufficient frequency to make one wonder at�� His voice trailed off, but he did not remove his gaze from the Inspector�s lips. Yet they saw nothing, for there was a gloss over them, as if a veil had dropped � a veil to mask the blinding realization that had leaped into them.

�But I can�t understand�� began Patience dazedly.

Lane shivered, and the veil disintegrated. �Open it, Inspector,� he said, leaning forward and cupping his chin in his hands. �Please.�

Thumm picked up the letter-knife again. He inserted the blade behind the flap and slowly exerted pressure. The paper was tough and yielded reluctantly.

Neither Lane nor Patience so much as blinked.

Thumm�s large fingers dipped into the envelope and emerged with a sheet of light grey stationery of the same tint as the envelope, neatly folded. He unfolded it. There was printing at one of the short ends of the sheet. The Inspector turned the sheet around; the legend at the top said simply: THE SAXON LIBRARY, in a darker grey printing ink. He spread the paper flat on the sliding board between him and Lane and stared. They all stared, and there was utter stillness in the office.

And reason for it. For if the disguised Englishman had been a mysterious figure, the message he had deposited in the Inspector�s care was even more mysterious. More than mysterious, it was cryptic. It made no sense at all.

At the top of the sheet there was the imprint of the Saxon Library. The rest of the sheet was as virgin as the day it had rolled off the printer�s press, except for a single inscription, or cryptogram. Roughly in the centre of the sheet below the imprint appeared the following:

And that was all. No intelligible message, no signature, no other pen or pencil mark of any kind.

A fierce suppressed paroxysm seized the aged body of Lane. He crouched in his chair, engulfing the cryptogram with his staring eyes. The Inspector�s fingers suddenly were stricken with palsy; the paper shook as his hand rested upon its lower corner. Patience did not stir. For a long moment none of them stirred. Then the old man tore his eyes slowly from the outspread sheet and looked up at Thumm. There was a queer triumph, almost exultation, in the crystal depths. He opened his mouth to speak.

But the Inspector mumbled: �3HS wM,� in wondering tones, rolling the syllables on his tongue as if to extract their hidden meaning from the mere sounds.

A faint perplexity came over Lane�s face. He glanced swiftly at Patience.

And she said: �3HS wM,� like a child repeating the words of a foreign language.

The old man buried his face in his hands, and sat that way without moving.

�Well!� said the Inspector at last with a long sigh, �I give up. Damn it, I give up. When a guy walks in dressed up like Paddy at the Grand Street Masquerade and leaves a string of crazy damn-fool nonsense after his yarn about a �secret worth millions� � I tell you I give up. It�s a joke. Somebody�s idea of a joke.� And he threw up his hands and snorted in disgust.

Patience came swiftly around her father�s chair and seized the piece of stationery. She concentrated upon the hieroglyphics with fiercely drawn brows. The Inspector scraped his chair back and went to the window, where he brooded out upon Times Square.

Drury Lane suddenly raised his head. �May I see that a moment, Patience?� he asked quietly.

Patience sat back, baffled, and the old man took the sheet from her fingers and studied its enigmatic inscription.

The symbol had been hastily set down with the heavy nib of a pen in almost brush-like strokes, and in the blackest of black inks. The swiftness and sureness of the strokes indicated a complete lack of hesitation. The writer had apparently known exactly what he wanted to write, and had written it with no faltering of his hand.

Lane set down the sheet and picked up the square neutral-grey envelope. He examined it, back and front, for a moment; the inscription THE SAXON LIBRARY on the flap seemed to fascinate him. He fingered the flap; the engraved characters of the three words, a shining black, titillated the tactile nerves of his finger-tips.

He laid the envelope down, closing his eyes and leaning back. �No, Inspector,� he murmured, �not a joke.� And he opened his eyes.

Thumm wheeled. �Then what the devil does it mean? If it�s on the level, it must mean something... Cripes, he said it was just a �clue,� and he was right. Muddiest clue I ever saw. Purposely made it tough, hey? Hmph!� and he turned back to the window.

Patience frowned. �It can�t be so difficult. Cryptic as he might have desired to make it, he would still make it essentially simple enough to be grasped after a reasonable amount of study. Let�s see, now... Of course it might be an original kind of shorthand, mightn�t it? Concealing a message of some sort.�

The Inspector grunted without turning around.

�Or,� continued Patience thoughtfully, �it might be a chemical symbol. H is the symbol of hydrogen, isn�t it?�� and S of sulphur. Hydrogen � hydrogen sulphide. That�s it!�

�No,� said Lane in a low tone. �That would be H₂S, I believe. I don�t think HS is chemically possible. No, not chemistry, Patience.�

�And then, too,� said Patience in despair, �the small w and the capital M... Oh Lord! it�s hopeless. I wish Gordon were here. He knows so many useless things.�

The Inspector swung about slowly. �Hopeless it is,� he said in a strange tone. �For us, Patty. And for your frisky Mr. Rowe, too. But don�t forget this mysterious bird said he wanted Lane in on it. So maybe he figured Lane would know what it meant... hey, Lane?�

Lane in the face of this palpable challenge sat very still. Then the wrinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes. �Suspicions?� he said. �Yet perhaps I do, old Roman, perhaps I do.�

�Well, what the devil does it mean, then?� asked the Inspector flatly, coming forward.

Lane waved a limp white hand. He kept staring at the sheet before him. �The peculiar part of it is,� he murmured, �I believe he thought you would know what it meant, too.�

The Inspector flushed, straightened, and went to the door. �Miss Brodie! Come in here with your book.�

Miss Brodie came in quickly, pencil poised.

�Take a letter to Dr. Leo Schilling. Medical Examiner�s office. �Dear Doc: Get busy on this right away. Under your hat. Does the following string of crazy pothooks mean anything to you, question mark.� Then put this down: �3 capital H capital S space small w capital M.� Got that?�

Miss Brodie looked up dazedly. �Y-yes, sir.�

�Send the same letter to Lieutenant Rupert Schiff, Bureau of Intelligence, Cypher Department, Washington, D.C. Scoot.�

Miss Brodie scooted.

�That,� said the Inspector savagely, �ought to get results.�

He slipped into a chair, lighted a cigar, stretched his columnar legs, and puffed a thoughtful cloud at the ceiling.

�First tack, seems to me,� he said, �is the letterhead angle. This guy breezes in, gives us a cock-and-bull story, and leaves a note with this blarney in it. Didn�t want us to know it had anything to do with the Saxons; that�s why he stuck the small envelope into the manila, which didn�t have an identifying inscription. But if anything happened to him, he wanted us to open the envelope. So he wanted us to read The Saxon Library and work on that angle. Seems clear enough so far.�

Lane nodded. �I thoroughly agree.�

�What he didn�t figure on is that George Fisher would come in here and tell us about Donoghue, and that that would take us to the Britannic Museum and get us mixed up in that funny business of the stolen books. Where that comes in, I�m damned if I know. Maybe it�s just coincidence, this Saxon stationery.�

�No, father,� said Patience wearily, �I�m sure that�s not so. I�m convinced that the man with the false beard and the queer events in the Britannic are connected. And that this symbol written on the Saxon Library stationery is the connecting link. I wonder��

�What?� asked Thumm with a shrewd squint at his daughter.

Patience laughed. �It�s an inane thought. But then the whole thing�s inane... I�m wondering if this chap with the false beard mightn�t � mightn�t have been somebody of the Saxon household dressed in disguise!�

�Not so silly,� murmured the Inspector with exaggerated indifference. �I kind of had the same notion, Patty. Take, now, this Rowe feller��

�Nonsense!� said Patience sharply, and both men looked at her quickly. �It � it couldn�t have been Gordon.� She had the grace to blush.

�Why not?� demanded Thumm. �Seems to me he was almighty anxious to sit in on our confab that day when we left the museum.�

�I assure you,� said Patience stiffly, �that his... er... anxiety had nothing to do with the case. It... it... mightn�t it have been personal? I�m not exactly an old crone, father.�

�Damn� sight rather it wasn�t personal,� snapped Thumm.

�Father! Sometimes you exasperate me to tears. What on earth have you against poor Gordon? He�s a very nice young man, and as frank and honest as a � as a child. And besides he has very strong wrists, and the man who came here May sixth hadn�t.�

�Well, he�s one of these here, now, bibliophiles, isn�t he?� said Thumm belligerently.

Patience bit her lip. �Oh � shoot!�

�Lookin� it over,� continued the Inspector, rubbing the tip of his squashed nose, �it couldn�t have been Mrs. Saxon, though I did have a crazy feeling at one time it might have been a woman. But Mrs. Saxon�s a fat horse, and this bird was skinny. So maybe � mind you, I�m not eliminating Rowe, either!�� maybe it was Crabbe.�

�That�s different,� said Patience, tossing her head. �He certainly fits all the physical qualifications.�

Mr. Drury Lane, who had been a silent and amused listener to this colloquy, held up his hand. �If I may be permitted to interrupt this profound discussion,� he drawled, �may I point out a possible objection to this whole theory? Your visitor maintained, and I see no reason to doubt it, that if he did not telephone on a twentieth it would mean that something drastic had happened to him. If young Gordon Rowe � preposterous, Inspector!�� or Crabbe had been your visitor on May sixth, why hasn�t one of them disappeared, or turned up murdered, or in some other way incapacitated?�

�That�s true, too,� said Patience eagerly. �Of course! There you are, father. I lunched with Gordon yesterday, and this morning I spoke to him on the telephone, and he... he didn�t say a word about any such thing. I�m sure��

�Listen, Patty,� said the Inspector in a thick, alarmed voice. �Listen to your old man for once. Patty, you got a shine on that young squirt? He been makin� love to you? Why, I�ll wring his fool neck��

Patience rose. �Father!� she said furiously.

�Come, come, Inspector,� murmured the old gentleman, �don�t revert to the Middle Ages. Gordon Rowe�s an excellent young man and quite Patience�s intellectual equal, which is saying a good deal.�

�But I tell you I�m not in love with him!� cried Patience. �Father, you�re being beastly. Can�t I be nice to a man��

The Inspector looked tragic.

Mr. Drury Lane rose. �Stop squabbling. Inspector, you�re an infant. Put this sheet of paper and the envelopes very carefully away into your safe. We must visit the Saxon house at once.�

Traffic was heavy, and Dromio chafed under the necessity of crawling the Lincoln up Fifth Avenue. But Mr. Drury Lane seemed in no hurry. He glanced quietly from Thumm to Patience. Once he chuckled.

�You�re a pair of pettish children. Smile!� They smiled feebly. �A remarkable case,� he continued. �I don�t believe either of you realizes quite how remarkable it is.�

�I�ve got a headache,� grumbled the Inspector.

�And you, Patience?�

�I think,� said Patience, gazing steadily at the nape of Dromio�s neck, �that the symbol means more to you than it does to us.�

The old gentleman actually was startled. He sat forward abruptly, studying her smooth young face with penetration. �Perhaps,� he said. �All in good time. Inspector, have there been any developments? So much has happened this morning that I haven�t had a chance to ask.�

�A lot�s happened,� said the Inspector wearily. �Brodie took it all down this morning. I knew you�d want to know.� He handed Lane a typewritten report.

�Is this all, Inspector?� said Lane, returning the sheet; he seemed disappointed. �I thought you had cabled Scotland Yard.�

�Never forget, do you, you old fox?� grinned Thumm. �No, that�s more like an elephant, isn�t it? Yes, I got an answer from Trench at the Yard, and it�s a honey. Came late yesterday. Get an eyeful of this.�

He handed Lane several sheets of cablegram paper, and these the old man clutched to his breast with avidity. They watched his face. It grew sterner as he read.

The cablegram was addressed to the Inspector, and ran:

�What d�ye think of that?� said the Inspector triumphantly.

�Extraordinary,� murmured Lane, returning the cablegram. His forehead was furrowed and his eyes blank.

�It�s clear now that Sedlar landed in New York,� said Patience, �a full week before he claimed. Seven days! What did he do in New York � if he stayed here � during that week? Why did he lie about it in the first place? I don�t like that �upright� gentleman!�

�I�ve passed the word along to Geoghan at H.q.,� said Thumm, �on the quiet, to try and trace his movements between the twenty-second and the twenty-ninth. It�s the same guy, all right � description fits perfectly. But he�s got a screw loose somewhere, and I don�t like him any more than Patty does.�

�Of what, exactly, do you suspect him?� asked Lane.

The Inspector shrugged. �Well, he�s clear on one count. He couldn�t have been the queer duck with the phony beard and the English accent that left the note with me. According to Trench�s information Sedlar didn�t leave England until the seventeenth, and my man visited me in New York on the sixth. But� � and he grinned wolfishly � �he could have been somebody else, by God, and I�d bet dollars to doughnuts he was!�

�Indeed?� said the old gentleman. �And who might that be?�

�This crazy guy in the blue hat throwin� rare books and hundred dollar bills around!� exclaimed Thumm. �That specimen of insanity came out in the open on May twenty-seventh, and that was five days after Sedlar landed on the q.t. in New York!�

�That�s scarcely airtight reasoning, Inspector,� smiled Lane. �By the same token the man in the blue hat might have been one of several million persons whose movements on May twenty-seventh cannot be accounted for.�

The Inspector digested this and apparently, from the expression on his hard-bitten face, did not like its savor. �Yeah, I know, but��

�Oh, good Lord!� cried Patience suddenly, jumping up and striking her head against the roof of the tonneau. �Ouch! I�m a fool. Why didn�t I think of that before?�

�Think of what before?� asked Lane softly.

�The symbol, the symbol! It... oh, how blind I�ve been!�

Lane regarded her steadily. �What about the symbol, my child?�

Patience fumbled for her handkerchief and blew her nose vigorously. �It�s very clear.� She put the kerchief away and sat up, her eyes sparkling. �3HS wM. Don�t you see?�

�I don�t see any more now than I did before,� growled Thumm.

�Oh, father, the HS must stand for Hamnet Sedlar!�

Both men stared, and both men broke into chuckles. Patience tapped indignantly with a slippered toe. �I think that�s extremely poor manners,� she said in an injured tone. �What�s wrong with that theory?�

�But what do the other elements of the symbol stand for, my dear?� asked the old gentleman mildly. �I�m sorry I was rude, but your father�s chuckle is infectious. How do you explain the 3 and the small w and the capital M?�

She stared at Dromio�s solid red neck, offended � and doubtful.

�Oh, Patty, Patty!� choked the Inspector, doubled up. �You�ll be the death of me yet. I�ll tell you what it stands for. Ho, ho, ho! It stands for �three portions of Hamnet Sedlar with Mustard!��

�That�s so funny,� said Patience frigidly. �I believe we�ve arrived.�

A very English butler with wonderful whiskers admitted them superbly to a Louis-Quinze reception-room. No, Mrs. Saxon was not at home. No, he had no idea when Mrs. Saxon would return. No, she had left no message. No, she�

�Listen, you!� snarled Inspector Thumm, that violent foe of flunkeyism, �is Crabbe in?�

�Mr. Crabbe? I�ll see, sir,� replied whiskers stiffly. �Whom shall I say, sir?�

�Say anybody you blasted please, but get him out here!�

An eyebrow rose, whiskers bowed slightly, and sailed away.

Patience sighed. �Father, did anyone ever tell you you�ve atrocious manners? Bellowing at a servant!�

�I don�t like these limeys,� grumbled the Inspector, slightly abashed. �All except Trench. Only human Englishman I ever met. You�d think he�d been born in the Fifth Ward... Well, well, here�s Little Lord Fauntleroy.�

Gordon Rowe, passing through the foyer, book under his arm and hat in hand, started, grinned, and hurried into the reception-room. �Avaunt! What ho, visitors! Charming of you to call. Mr. Lane, Inspector � Pat! You didn�t tell me over the �phone��

�I didn�t know,� said Patience with dignity.

�Divine ignorance.� The young man�s hazel eyes narrowed. �On a trail?� he said in a low voice.

�Gordon,� said Patience abruptly, �what does 3HS wM mean to you?�

�Patty, for God�s sake!� snarled the Inspector. �We don�t want��

�Please, Inspector,� said Drury Lane quietly. �There�s no reason why Gordon shouldn�t know.�

The young man looked from Patience to the two men. �Abracadabra to me,� he said. �What�s it all about?�

Patience told him.

�The Saxon Library,� he muttered. �That�s the funniest thing� This is a problem! I think... Hold it. Here comes Crabbe.�

The ancient librarian shuffled quickly into the reception-room, holding a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles aloft in one hand and peering inquisitively at his callers. He brightened at once and came forward. Patience would have sworn his bones groaned and creaked in the process.

�Ah, Mr. Lane,� said Crabbe with a leathery smile. �And Miss Thumm. And the Inspector. Quite a deputation! Rowe, I thought you were going out? Or perhaps the young lady�s presence�? Mrs. Saxon is indisposed, you know. Colic. With her girth, of course, that�s a major tragedy.� He grinned, an enfant terrible. �And to what�?�

�For one thing,� smiled Lane, before the Inspector could get out what was already growling in the depths of his thick throat, �we should like to see the famous Saxon Library.�

�I see.� Crabbe stood still, one thin shoulder lower than the other, head cocked on a side, squinting with remarkable keenness at his visitors. �Just a friendly visit of exploration, eh?� He cackled, showing decrepit gums, and swung about. �No reason why you shouldn�t,� he said with astonishing amiability. �Although really you�re the first strangers... Eh, Rowe? Break the rule for once?�

�That�s human of you,� grinned young Rowe.

�Oh, I�m not so bad as I�m painted. Follow me, please.�

He led them down several corridors embellished in the grand French style to what was apparently an east wing of the mansion. He unlocked a heavy door and stood aside with what might have been a welcoming smile, but succeeded only in being the villainous grimace of an op�ra bouffe Fagin. They entered a vast room with a lofty ceiling ribbed with square oak beams, the walls bristling with full bookshelves. A huge vault frowned from one corner. At the farther side there was an open door through which they could see another chamber apparently quite as large and similarly lined with books. A large desk and one chair stood in the centre of the room; there was a billowing Persian rug on the floor; and nothing else.

�Sorry I can�t offer you chairs,� said Crabbe in his rustling voice, closing the door and going to the desk. �But no one ever uses the library except old Crabbe these days. Rowe�s quite deserted me. Ah, youth, always flitting after the will-o�-the-wisp!� He cackled again. �I had Mr. Saxon�s desk and chair removed when he died. Now what would you like to��

He broke off, actually startled. The Inspector, who had been hurling surly glances about, had suddenly pounced forward toward the desk as if he meant to demolish it. �Ha!� he cried. �That�s it! That�s it!� and he snatched from the desk a sheet of neutral-grey stationery.

�What on earth�?� began Crabbe in astonishment; and then his pointed face screwed up with rage and he darted toward Thumm with something very like a snarl. �You take your hands off things!� he shrieked. �So that�s it. It was a trick. Spying��

�Lay off, runt,� growled the Inspector, flinging away the librarian�s curving talons. �Keep your shirt on. No one�s stealing anything. We just wanted to take a look at your stationery. And by God, it�s good-looking, too! Have a squint at this, Lane.�

But there was no need for close scrutiny. One glance was sufficient to establish that this was the same stationery as had been employed for the writing of the cryptic symbol by the man with the pied beard.

�No doubt about it, of course,� murmured Lane. �You�ll excuse the Inspector�s rather violent methods, Mr. Crabbe; he�s a trifle high-handed in these matters.�

�Indeed,� sniffed Crabbe, glaring at the Inspector�s back.

�Have you an envelope, please?� continued Lane with a smile.

Crabbe hesitated, scratched his wrinkled cheeks, shrugged, and went to the desk. He produced a small square grey envelope.

�The very same,� breathed Patience. �What can it�?� and then she stopped and glanced very suspiciously at the old librarian.

Young Gordon Rowe seemed much agitated, for him; and he showed it by remaining perfectly still and glaring at the envelope.

�Sit down, my dear,� said Lane softly; obediently she took the lone chair. �Inspector, control yourself. We mustn�t alarm Mr. Crabbe. Now, sir, I�m sure you have no objection to answering a few simple questions?�

A shrewd and faintly baffled glint came into Crabbe�s beady eyes. �Of course not. Old Crabbe�s got nothing to conceal. I haven�t a notion what this is about, but if I can be of any service...�

�Splendid of you,� said the old gentleman heartily. �Now, who exactly uses this stationery with the imprint of The Saxon Library?�

�I do.�

�Naturally. For the usual library correspondence. But who else?�

�No one, Mr. Lane.�

�Ha,� said Thumm; and Lane shook his head at him impatiently.

�This is very important, Mr. Crabbe. You�re positive?�

�No one but myself, I assure you,� replied the librarian with a licking of his thin chops.

�Not even Mrs. Saxon?�

�Oh, Lord, no. Mrs. Saxon has her own stationery � half a dozen kinds. And since she never bothers with the library, you see��

�Quite so. But how about you, Gordon? You�ve been living here for some time. Can you throw a little light on the subject?�

Patience watched the young man anxiously, and the Inspector eyed him with what he fancied was detached coolness.

�I?� Young Rowe seemed startled. �Ask friend Crabbe. He�s cock of this walk.�

�Oh, Mr. Rowe rarely if ever comes here, Mr. Lane,� squeaked Crabbe, his torso curved like a melting candle. �Our young friend has been doing some research in Shakespeare, as I suppose you know, but it�s been a rule of the household � Mr. Saxon�s own rule, you understand � and... when he�s wanted anything, he�s asked me and I�ve given him the requested volumes.�

�I hope,� said Mr. Rowe huffily, �that that answers your question, Mr. Lane.�

The old gentleman smiled. �Down off your horse, Gordon. You know that�s a very infantile attitude. You would say, then, Mr. Crabbe, that apart from yourself no one in this house has access to the Saxon Library stationery?�

�I would say so, yes. It�s kept only here, you know. Of course, if some one really wanted to��

�Yes, yes, Mr. Crabbe, we thoroughly understand that. Gordon, please smile. I take it these rooms have been forbidden territory for years. Now��

�How about the servants?� asked Patience suddenly, avoiding the misery in Rowe�s eyes.

�No, Miss Thumm. That�s been a strict rule. I clean these rooms myself. Mr. Saxon insisted on it.�

�When the books left to the Britannic were packed off,� asked Lane, �were you present, Mr. Crabbe?�

�Certainly.�

�I was, too,� muttered Mr. Rowe morbidly.

�Every moment?�

�Oh, yes,� said Crabbe. �Mr. Rowe fussed about the truckmen, but I had my eyes open, I assure you.� Crabbe snapped his toothless gums together viciously. That he had kept his eyes open, that he would always keep his eyes open, seemed unquestionable.

�Well!� smiled Lane. �All this, Inspector, seems to establish that it�s difficult to get one�s clutches on a sheet of this stationery. Doesn�t seem to wash, does it?�

�You�re tellin� me?� grinned Thumm.

Lane gazed squarely into the old librarian�s eyes. �There is no mystery about this, Mr. Crabbe,� he said quietly. �We have come into possession of a sheet of Saxon Library stationery � and an envelope � the source of which it is necessary for us to trace. You�re innocently making it difficult...� Suddenly a thought struck him, for he smacked his forehead and exclaimed: �How stupid I�ve been! Of course!�

�Piece of my stationery?� said Crabbe, puzzled.

The old gentleman tapped Crabbe�s shoulder. �Do you often have visitors?�

�Visitors? To the Saxon Library? He, he! Tell him, Rowe.�

�This prime sample of fossilized wormwood,� said Mr. Rowe with a shrug, �is the world�s most faithful watchdog.�

�Come, come, you must have some. Please think! Has there been any visitor to this room in recent months whom you have reason to recall?�

Crabbe�s eyes blinked. His scraggly jaw opened a little, and he stared at his inquisitor without seeing him. Then astonishingly he doubled in laughter and slapped his scrawny shanks. �Ho, ho! That�s... that�s one on me!� and he straightened and wiped his rheumy eyes.

�Ah,� said Lane. �I believe we�ve struck oil. Well, sir?�

Crabbe stopped laughing as abruptly as he had begun. He half-turned his reptilian head and rasped his dry palms together. �So that�s it, eh? Well, well. Wonders never cease... Yes, there was one. Yes, indeed. A very interesting gentleman. He called several times before I would see him. Then when I did see him, he begged � very prettily, he, he!�� if I would not permit him just a glimpse of the famous Saxon collection.�

�Yes?� said Lane sharply.

�He was a book fancier, he said, and he�d heard so much� You know. As a matter of fact,� continued Crabbe slyly, �the man knew books. So I let down the bars once � he looked harmless enough � and showed him this room. He was working on something, he said, and was most anxious to consult a certain volume. It would take just a moment, he said...�

�What was the book?� demanded Rowe with a frown. �You never told me about this, Crabbe!�

�Didn�t I, my boy? I must have forgotten,� chuckled Crabbe. �It was the 1599 edition of the Jaggard Passionate Pilgrim!�

Over the luncheon-table in a private dining-room at one of the midtown hotels they tried to collect their scattered thoughts. Crabbe�s ironical and triumphant revelation had left them, for the moment, witless. Hamnet Sedlar the mysterious Dr. Ales! Crabbe had seen them to the door in a perfect ecstasy of lip-licking exultation, and the last glimpse they had of him was his spare angular figure framed in the Ionic doorway of the Saxon house, his hands scratching ceaselessly against each other like the hind-legs of a cricket. Yes, his cocked little head had seemed to say as he watched them speed off, your worthy Dr. Sedlar is also your Dr. Ales; and what do you think of that? Old Crabbe�s no fool, eh? For there was a personal triumph in his entire bearing which baffled them, a cruel and smug satisfaction like the powerful mass pleasure of a mob bent on lynching.

Gordon Rowe, who had despite his preoccupation managed to insinuate himself into the little party, sat very quietly watching the sun on Patience�s hair as it pulsed in through the window of the limousine. But for once he did not seem to see it.

�There�s something remarkably peculiar here,� said Mr. Drury Lane when they had seated themselves at their table. �I confess it�s beyond me. That terrible old creature impressed me � with all his dramatic grimaces � as essentially truthful. He�s the sort who delights in rubbing the truth in, especially if he knows that it will hurt. And yet � Hamnet Sedlar! Of course, it�s impossible.�

�If Crabbe said that his visitor was Sedlar,� remarked young Rowe with a grim muttering, �then you can bet your crusading boots it was Sedlar.�

�No, Gordon,� sighed Patience. �Sedlar couldn�t possibly have been the man who called on Crabbe May sixth. We�ve learned that the directors of the Kensington Museum in London had given a farewell banquet in Dr. Sedlar�s honor on May seventh. Dr. Ales called on Crabbe in New York on May sixth. The man isn�t a spirit. He couldn�t have crossed the Atlantic overnight.�

�Oh! That�s damnably queer. I know Crabbe, and I tell you he wasn�t lying. He always gets that devilishly satisfied air when he�s rubbing the truth in, as Mr. Lane says.�

�Crabbe was so certain,� said Patience, jabbing at her chop in pure exasperation. �He said he�d swear it was Sedlar on a stack of Bibles.�

�What�s all the fuss about?� growled the Inspector, eyeing young Mr. Rowe with disfavor. �The old bird�s lying, that�s all.�

�Hmm,� said Lane. �It�s possible, of course, that he invented the tale out of sheer malice. These old bookworms have a capacity for professional jealousy� Come, come, we�ll never get anywhere this way. The whole thing�s uncommonly mysterious... There�s something I must tell you. About. Dr. Ales.�

�Oh, yes!� cried Patience. �You were going to say when Crabbe interrupted... Then the name isn�t fictitious?�

�Lord, no! That�s what�s so extraordinary about it, my dear. Gordon, you seemed to be hovering on the verge of recollection back at the house. Do you remember now who Dr. Ales is � or was?�

�Sorry, sir. I thought I did. I may have run across his name in connection with my work somewhere.�

�Quite possible. The fact is that I never met Dr. Ales in the flesh, and I know nothing whatever about him personally; but one thing I do know. Unless it�s an astounding coincidence, such a man actually exists, and moreover is a very clever and well-informed student of research literature.� The old gentleman chewed thoughtfully on a sprig of parsley. �Some years ago � oh, eight or ten years � an article appeared in The Stratford Quarterly, a publication devoted to the advancement of book knowledge...�

�Oh, of course!� cried Rowe. �I got it regularly in my undergraduate days.�

�That accounts for the faint recollection. The point is that this article was signed �Dr. Ales.��

�An English magazine?� demanded Thumm.

�Yes. I don�t recall the precise details, but this Dr. Ales was writing on a new development in the fatuous and eternal Baconian controversy, and there were some things he said to which I took violent issue. I wrote a lengthy rebuttal to the Quarterly, which appeared under my name; and Dr. Ales, quite nettled, replied in the correspondence columns of the publication. We wrangled back and forth through the Quarterly for several issues.� He chuckled at the memory. �A sharp pen, my adversary! He called me everything but a doddering old idiot.�

�I remember now,� said Rowe eagerly, thrusting his firm jaw forward. �The fur flew. That�s the chap, all right!�

�Know where he lives?� inquired the Inspector abruptly.

�Unfortunately, no.�

�Well, we can find out through this magazine��

�I�m afraid not, Inspector. Mr. Rowe can undoubtedly tell you that The Stratford Quarterly collapsed five years ago.�

�Damn! Well, I�ll cable Trench again and make another pest of myself. Do you think�?�

�By the way, Gordon,� said the old gentleman, �have you had time to look into those little matters we talked about? About the binding of the 1599 Jaggard, and traces of a possible secret connected with the binding?�

Rowe shrugged. �I haven�t been too successful. I succeeded in tracing the binding back about a hundred and fifty years � it�s been a hellish job. The present binding is at least that old. As for the document hidden in it � blank. Haven�t run across a clue.�

�Hmm.� Lane�s eyes flashed for an instant, and then he lowered them and devoted himself to his salad.

Patience pushed her plate aside. �Oh, I can�t eat,� she said fretfully. �This pernickety case is getting on my nerves. It�s preposterous, of course, this business of Dr. Sedlar being Dr. Ales, but it keeps going round and round in my head in the most frightful fashion. And yet other things are so clear...�

�As for instance?� said the Inspector with a scowl.

�The trail left by Dr. Ales. It was Dr. Ales, you know,� she said suddenly, �who was the bearded man in our office May sixth, father.�

�And how do you arrive at that?� murmured young Rowe.

�He visited the Saxon place early that morning. There he got hold of the Saxon Library stationery. He must have cached his ridiculous disguise somewhere in midtown. Perhaps a hotel washroom. He wrote down the symbol � damn that symbol!�� got into his doohickeys, and hurried up to father�s office. That much is clear.� Her blue-water eyes appealed to Lane.

�It seems probable,� said the old gentleman.

�He didn�t expect to be � to be bumped off,� said Patience, biting her lip. �He thought no one knew his secret, the secret worth millions. Doesn�t it sound silly?... But he�s a canny devil and he wasn�t taking any chances. If he called on the twentieth, if he was all right, there was no harm done; the envelope would remain unopened. If he didn�t call we�d open the envelope, see the Saxon stationery, hunt up Crabbe, find out about this queer Dr. Ales � he must have told Crabbe that impossible story purposely, so that Crabbe would remember it � and be in a very advanced position to pursue the hunt for him. Because by the time we did we would know the name of the man we were looking for, something of his profession...�

�What an appallingly logical analysis!� said young Rowe with a feeble grin.

�That was why he asked you not to open the envelope except in my presence,� said Drury Lane quietly. �He knew I would remember our Quarterly controversy. So I was asked in to supply the confirmation that Dr. Ales is a bibliophile.�

�He must have planned it from the start. If something went wrong, as it apparently has. We�ve got to search now for a Dr. Ales, a bookworm or something, and how we�re to begin��

�Easy,� said the Inspector with an absent look. �That�s my job, Patty. He said if he didn�t call something would have happened to him, didn�t he? That means that besides having a description of him, his name, his business or profession, we also know he�s either disappeared from his regular haunts � he must hang out somewhere!�� or been pipped.�

�Bravo, Inspector,� murmured Lane. �You�ve hit it exactly. You must procure an official report of all murders, kidnappings, and other disappearances from May twentieth, the day he �phoned you, until a few days ago.�

The Inspector scowled. �I know, I know. Realize what a job it is?�

�Not quite so formidable as it seems, Inspector. You�ve very specific information to go on, as Patience has pointed out.�

�All right,� said Thumm gloomily. �I�ll do it, by God, but what I�m getting out of it is beyond me. I�ve got to live, too, don�t I?�� I�ll get Grayson and Geoghan on the job right away... I s�pose you kids are goin� to run off somewhere?�

It was late afternoon when Miss Patience Thumm returned to the Thumm Detective Agency from a modest but highly satisfactory shopping tour to find Miss Brodie in a state mildly bordering upon insanity.

�Oh, Miss Thumm!� she cried, causing Patience to drop all her bundles, �I�ve had the most dreadful time! I�m so glad you�ve come back! I was going almost frantic��

�Brodie, I�ll shake you,� said Patience firmly. �What on earth�s happened? Why the hysterics?�

Miss Brodie, wordless, pointed dramatically at the open door of the Inspector�s sanctum. Patience dashed in. The office was empty, and on the Inspector�s desk lay a yellow envelope.

�Where�s my father?�

�Somebody came in with a case, Miss Thumm. Jewel robbery or something, and the Inspector said to tell you he didn�t know when he�d be back. But the telegram��

�Brodie,� sighed Patience, �you�ve the common bourgeois fear of telegrams. It�s probably an advertisement.� Nevertheless she frowned as she ripped open the envelope. She read Mr. Drury Lane�s laconic message with wide eyes. Miss Brodie hovered in the doorway, wringing her stubby-fingered hands like a professional mourner.

�Stow it, Brodie,� said Patience absently. �You always act like the living figure of Tragedy. Go out and get properly kissed or... or something.� And to herself she said: �I wonder what�s happened now. What could have happened? It�s only hours...�

�Has... has something happened?� asked Miss Brodie fearfully.

�Don�t know. At any rate, it�s nothing to get in a stew about. Relax, child, while I dash off a note to father. Relax, darn you!� and she slapped Miss Brodie vigorously upon a buttery buttock. Miss Brodie blushed and retreated to her desk in the ante-room to relax.

Patience sat down in the Inspector�s chair, seized a sheet of paper, moistened a pencil-point on the tip of her red tongue, and proceeded to engage the muse of creative composition:

She folded the sheet with a flourish, slipped it into an envelope, and tucked the envelope into one of the flaps of the Inspector�s desk blotter. Then, humming, she went to the safe, tinkered with the dials for a moment, pulled the heavy door open, rummaged about, came out with the broken-sealed manila envelope, and shut the safe. Still humming she made sure that the contents of the manila envelope were intact; and then she opened her linen handbag, a large and mysterious receptacle quite crammed with feminine gewgaws, and tucked the envelope safely away inside.

She dialed a number. �Dr. Choate?... Oh, I see. Well, it doesn�t make any difference. I really wanted to speak to Mr. Rowe... Hello, Gordon. Do you mind my bothering you again so soon?�

�Angel! Bother me? I�m... I�m overwhelmed.�

�How�s the work?�

�Progressing.�

�Would you greatly mind slowing the wheels of progress for the rest of the day, sir?�

�Pat! You know what I�d do for you.�

�I�ve got to make a rush trip up to The Hamlet with... with something, Gordon. Could you come along?�

�Please attempt to stop me, lassie.�

�Very well. In front of the Britannic in ten minutes or so.� Patience replaced the receiver, tucked a vagrant curl behind her ear, and went into the ante-room. �Brodie,� she announced, �I�m off.�

�Off, Miss Thumm?� Miss Brodie was alarmed. �Where to?�

�To Mr. Lane�s in Westchester.� Patience examined herself very critically in a mirror behind Miss Brodie�s desk. She powdered her little nose, touched her lips with rouge, and investigated her person thoughtfully from above. �Oh, dear,� she sighed, smoothing her white linen suit, �and I haven�t time to change. Linen gets so wrinkly!�

�Doesn�t it, though,� exclaimed Miss Brodie with a trace of animation. �I know I had a linen suit last year, and I spent more in having it cleaned...� She stopped abruptly. �What shall I tell the Inspector, Miss Thumm?�

Patience adjusted her preposterously small linen turban with its blue polka-dot band on her honeyed curls, fingered her polka-dot tie expertly, and murmured: �I�ve left a note for him on his desk, and the telegram. You�re staying, of course?�

�Oh, yes. The Inspector would be furious��

�It�s very important,� sighed Patience, �this business of holding the fort, Brodie. I�ll pick up my packages tomorrow. Be a good girl!�

Satisfied with her complete inspection, she smiled at Miss Brodie, who waved a limply mournful hand, clutched her linen bag tightly, and left the office.

A silent company left The Hamlet the next morning � which was, Patience thought, incredibly only Saturday � in Mr. Drury Lane�s car. Patience�s roadster was left behind. Young Mr. Rowe, his left arm in a sling, sat sulkily between Lane and Patience, frowning and refusing to talk. Lane was deep in thought, and Patience was near tears.

�My dear child,� said the old gentleman after a while, �don�t blame yourself so bitterly! It wasn�t your fault. I haven�t forgiven myself for causing you to run into danger.�

�But I lost the paper,� wailed Patience.

�It isn�t really cosmic. I fancy we can manage without it.�

�Then why,� said Rowe suddenly, �did you wire for it?�

Lane sighed. �I had a thought,� he said; and lapsed into silence.

Dromio stopped at Dr. Martini�s cottage, and the physician without a word climbed into the tonneau to join them. A quick digital examination of the young man�s wounded arm, and he nodded, sat back, closed his eyes, and proceeded to fall asleep.

When they entered the city limits, Mr. Drury Lane roused himself. �I think we had better take you home first, Gordon.�

�Home!� said Mr. Rowe bitterly.

�Dromio, the Saxon house... Look at Martini. Fast asleep!� The old man chuckled. �That comes of having a pure heart, my boy. If you hadn�t played Romeo to Patience�s Juliet...�

They found the Saxon mansion as usual forbidding and deserted. The butler with the wonderful whiskers was sorry once more; Mrs. Saxon was �out.� His stony eyes widened a trifle at the sight of Rowe�s bandaged arm, and for an instant he looked almost human.

Old Crabbe, however, apparently considered a bullet in a young man�s arm a great jest; for after a long stare he broke into his disagreeable chortle and wheezed: �That�s for meddling! Who broke your arm, you young devil?� and all the while he glanced sideways at Lane�s calm face and the imperturbable countenance of Dr. Martini.

Rowe flushed, and his one good fist tightened.

�We should like to see,� said Mr. Drury Lane hastily, �a sheet of your Saxon Library stationery, Mr. Crabbe.�

�What, again?�

�Please.�

Crabbe shrugged and scurried off, to return shortly with a blank sheet of stationery from the library.

�Yes, that�s precisely like the other,� murmured Lane to Dr. Martini, taking the sheet from Crabbe�s talons. �What do you think?�

The physician fingered the paper thoughtfully. Then he took it to one of the reception-room windows, jerked aside the heavy drapery, and examined the paper with narrowed eyes. Once he held it at arm�s length; once he brought it to within two inches of his eyes... He dropped the drapery and sauntered back, to place the sheet of grey paper on a table. �Yes,� he said quietly, �what you suspected is very likely true.�

�Ah!� said Lane with a curious inflection.

�As I told you, we know very little about � what you brought up. This must be an extremely rare case. I should really like to see him.�

�So should I,� murmured Lane. �So should I, Martini. Well!� He eyed the young couple with a twinkle. �Shall we go? Au revoir, Gordon��

�No,� said Mr. Rowe. �I stick.� His jaw protruded very handsomely.

�I don�t think you should,� said Patience. �A nap�� But she was watching Dr. Martini in a puzzled way.

�Dear, dear,� said Crabbe, rubbing his hands. �The possessive instinct of the female! Beware, Rowe... Would you mind telling me, Mr. Lane, what all this rigmarole means?�

But the old gentleman was gazing fondly at Patience and Rowe, and since his affliction was well known, he merely murmured: �I fancy a call upon the Inspector is in order. Doctor, I shall send you home in my car. Send Dromio back. We�ll taxi downtown, children... Ah, Mr. Crabbe! So kind of you. Good day.�

�Ah,� said the Inspector. �Coburn, let go. He�ll talk now.�

Villa looked about with despairing eyes. Everywhere he met grim faces. He nodded almost wearily.

�Sit down there, Joe, and take it easy,� continued Thumm with a wink at the officer. Coburn pushed the chair against the backs of the man�s legs, and he sat down heavily. The others made a ring about the chair, watchful and unsmiling.

�So you were the nineteenth man in the bus, Joe,� began Thumm in an easy tone. Villa shrugged. �You gave Barbey here a five-spot to let you join the party, hey? Why? What was the game?�

Villa blinked and said carefully: �I was on a tail.�

�Oho,� said the Inspector. �So that�s it! Followin� this bird in the blue hat, hey?�

Villa started. �How the hell�!� His eyes fell. �Yeah.�

�All right, Joe, that�s okay for a starter. Tell us some more. Did you know this bird?�

�Yeah.�

Patience sighed with excitement; Rowe gripped her hand, cautioning her to silence.

�Well, well, Joe! I�m not talkin� for my health.�

Villa croaked: �I know this guy, see. He gives me a C to do a little job about two mont�s ago, see��

�What kind of job?� asked the Inspector quickly.

Villa writhed in the chair. �Just a... a job, �a�s all.�

Thumm gripped the thief�s shoulder; Villa sat very still. �Take it easy, will ya?� he whined. �I�m� You�ll let me off if I come clean?�

�Spill it, Joe.�

Villa dug his pointed chin into the folds of his blazing necktie and mumbled: �House. Fift� Avenoo. He tells me to get in, see, an� swipe a book��

Mr. Drury Lane�s thrilling baritone rang clear over Villa�s averted head. �Whose house, and what book?�

�Saxon�s the handle. An� the book�� Villa jerked a dirty thumb at Rowe. �This bozo said it a while back. Jag... Jag��

�The 1599 Jaggard?�

�Yeah. �A�s it.�

�Then this man,� cried Patience, �must be the one who broke into the Saxon Library and stole the forged Jaggard!�

�Apparently,� muttered Gordon Rowe. �So you�re the scoundrel I chased that night!�

�Let�s get this straight,� said the Inspector. �Joe, this bird in the blue hat � had a bushy moustache, too, hey?�� hired you to break into the Saxon house on Fifth Avenue a couple of months ago and steal a book. What was the title, just to make sure?�

�Well,� said Villa with a dark frown, �it was somepin� �bout a pil-grim. Some kind o�� � he licked his lips � �o� sex book.�

Patience giggled. �The Passionate Pilgrim!�

�Yeah! �A�s it!�

�And that�s all he told you to hook?�

�Yeah. He says: �Git into the lib�ary, see, an� look aroun� for a book in a kind o� blue leather binding, see, an� it�s called The Passionate Pilgrim by this bird Shakespeare, see, an� it says inside it was printed by a bozo called Jag � Jaggard in 1599,� he says.�

�And he gave you a hundred bucks for the job?�

��A�s right, Chief.�

�So you hooked it, hey, and forked it over?�

�Well,� muttered Villa, �maybe I did take a good look at it before, see. A lousy book! This bird was nervous, see, an� I�m wise to him. He didn�t want no lousy book, no, sir! Somepin� in �at book, I says to m�self. So I gives it the old o-o. But there wasn�t nuttin�. He wasn�t foolin� Joe Villa, though. I knew �ere was somepin� about �at book. So �at�s why��

�I see,� drawled the Inspector. �I get it now. You couldn�t find anything in the book, but you figured there was somethin� about it that was ready dough if a man was willing to pay you a hundred bucks to steal it. So that�s why you followed this bird in the blue hat!�

�Figgered if there was cush... I tailed �m aroun�. I says to �mself I�ll lay low, see, an� keep my eyes open, an� maybe I�ll get the lunch-hooks into what this guy�s after. Then �at day when he acts so damn� funny, an� I sees him slip this bus-starter here a green boy, I says to m�self: �Joe,� I says, �here�s somepin� doin�.� So I does the same, see, an� I tails him all the way to this here dump, an� I sees him smash in the glass of one o� the cases in �at room��

�Ah,� said Lane. �The truth at last. What else did you see?�

�He takes a book outa his pocket an� he puts it in the case in place of a blue book he takes out, see. Then I says to m�self: �Joe,� I says, �you�re hot. �At�s the same kind o� book you hooked for this guy before,� I says. So when he finishes I starts to tail him, see, an� I gets mixed up in the mob of highbrows an� I don�t see him for a couple o� minutes, an� �en when I fades outside he�s gone. So I goes back with the mob. �At�s all, Inspector, cross me heart!�

�You haven�t got a heart,� said Thumm genially. �You kept on the tail, Joe. Why lie?�

Villa�s little eyes fell. �Well, maybe I did go back to this bird�s hangout after. I hangs aroun�, see, but I don�t see nuttin�, an� I goes back the next day an� I don�t see nuttin�. So �a�s why I comes back here t�day to see maybe I can find out what the hell it�s all about.�

�You poor sap! What could you expect to find?� It was pathetically apparent that Villa, an unintelligent animal with the lowest variety of cunning, had been plunged into an adventure whose implications were far above his low-browed head. �Now listen to me, Joe. That day when you lost this man, did you notice the special cop on duty here?�

�Yeah. I snuck by. Looked kinda familiar. He didn�t spot me.�

�That was Donoghue, an ex-cop. Didn�t you see Donoghue following your man around?�

Villa gasped. �Cripes! �A�s right! �A�s why I couldn�t tail �m, see? This special dick, he had his eyes open. But then I lost �em both.�

�Have you seen Donoghue since that day?� asked Lane slowly.

�Naw.�

�How did you come to be hired by this man in the blue hat?�

�He... he looks me up downtown, see?�

�Recommended by the fraternity,� said the Inspector with heavy sarcasm. �By God, we�re gettin� somewhere! Joe, where�s he hang out? You delivered the book to him somewhere, so don�t say you don�t know.�

�He met me in town, Chief, honest to Gawd.�

�Yes, but you tailed him that day to the bus. Where�s he live?�

�He�s got a dump of a shack up the line, Inspector. Between Irvington an� Tarrytown.�

�Know his name?�

�Tol� me his handle was Dr. Ales.�

�Dr. Ales, hey?� said Thumm softly. �Lane, we�re in luck. All ties up. Ales set this rat to robbin� the Saxon house, saw the book was a forgery, came here after the real one, evidently got it... Same bird who left that note with me, who visited the Saxon house and swiped the stationery. Swell! Listen, heel,� he said fiercely to Villa, �what�s this Dr. Ales look like? I want a damn� good description of him!�

Villa rose suddenly from the chair. It was as if before this he had been biding his time, as if from the beginning he had expected this question and had been preparing himself with a species of wolfish exultation for it. His lips curled back from his gums in a snarl, disclosing hideous black-flecked yellow teeth. He whirled so quickly that Patience cried out a little, and the Inspector took a swift step forward. But Villa merely shot his dirty finger, on which the horseshoe ring glittered evilly, over his shoulder.

�Describe him?� he shrilled. �Ain�t �at a pleasure! �Ere�s your Dr. Ales! �At wise guy there!�

He was pointing squarely at Dr. Hamnet Sedlar.

Dr. Alonzo Choate�s tufted jaw waggled toward his chest; his eyes opened to their widest dimensions, and he goggled at Joe Villa. Dr. Sedlar blinked a little; then he turned quickly pale, and little bunches of muscle ridged themselves along his lean jawline like the spinal column of a hairless animal.

�I say,� he began harshly, �that�s a bit thick.� He glared at Villa. �You swine,� he snarled, �that�s not true, and you know it!�

Villa�s beady eyes glittered. �Come off that perch, Yer Lordship. You know damn� well you�re the guy hired me to swipe that book!�

For a moment it seemed as if the Englishman contemplated physical assault upon the malignant dark visage of the Italian. No one spoke. To Lane, to Patience, to Rowe, to Inspector Thumm, Villa�s accusation had come only as a mild shock; and they waited quietly, allowing the drama to play itself out. Dr. Choate seemed paralyzed.

Dr. Sedlar sighed at last, the blood returning to his thin cheeks. �This is, of course, utterly preposterous,� he smiled. �The man is either a maniac or a willful liar.� He studied the faces about him, and lost his smile. �Lord,� he cried, �you don�t really believe him?�

Villa snickered; he seemed very sure of himself.

�Pipe down, rat,� said the Inspector softly. �The funny part of it is, Dr. Sedlar, that this isn�t the first time we�ve been told you were a man who used the name of Dr. Ales.�

Sedlar drew himself up. �I am beginning to think that this is a damnable conspiracy. Dr. Choate, what do you know about this?�

The curator passed a trembling hand over his goatee. �Well, really... I don�t know what to think. This is the first I�ve heard��

�And who is this other person who has accused me of being ��the Englishman�s eyes flickered�� Dr. Ales?�

�Crabbe, Mrs. Saxon�s librarian. He says that on May sixth you visited the Saxon house, giving the name of Dr. Ales.�

�May sixth?� said Dr. Sedlar haughtily. �You see what utter rot this is, Inspector. On May sixth, as you may discover by cabling my former associates at the Kensington Museum, I was in London. In fact, on May seventh I attended a farewell banquet there in my honor.�

Beneath the Inspector�s politely inquiring air there was deep bafflement. �Well, I s�pose that lets you out, then. On the Crabbe count.� His bleak eyes flashed suddenly. �But how about the day of the theft in the museum?�

�I tell you that�s the guy!� screamed Villa in a rage.

�Damn you, Joe, shut up,� said Thumm fiercely. �Well, Doctor?�

The Englishman shrugged. �I�m afraid I�m stupid, Inspector. I don�t understand the question. Surely you know that on the day this � this creature invaded the Britannic Museum I was on the high seas?�

�That would be swell if it were true. But it�s not!�

Dr. Choate gasped. Dr. Sedlar blinked for the third time, and his monocle fell to his breast. �What do you mean?� he said slowly.

�This Dr. Ales rifled the Jaggard cabinet on these premises on May twenty-seventh...�

�Bah!� roared Dr. Choate. �I think this has gone far enough. I see no point in badgering Dr. Sedlar further. His boat from England did not make port until midnight of the twenty-eighth and didn�t dock until the morning of the twenty-ninth. So you see it�s impossible, even in theory, for him to have been the man who stole � I beg your pardon, Doctor!�� the 1599 Jaggard.�

Dr. Sedlar said nothing. He acknowledged the curator�s heated defense with a faint smile and looked inquiringly at the Inspector.

Thumm frowned. �That�s the queer part of it, Dr. Choate. If that were true, I�d kick our friend Villa in the slack of the pants and forget the whole thing. But it isn�t. Because Sedlar here wasn�t on that boat!�

�Not on the boat!� gasped the curator. �Dr. Sedlar, what � why�?�

The Englishman�s shoulders sagged and a tired look crept into his eye. But he still said nothing.

�Well, were you, Dr. Sedlar?� asked Thumm quietly.

Dr. Sedlar sighed. �I see now how an innocent man may become entangled in a web of incriminating circumstances... No, Doctor, I was not on that boat, as the Inspector says. Although how he found��

�Checked up on you. You left England on the Carinthia Friday, May seventeenth, which docked in New York Harbor on Wednesday May twenty-second. That means you were in New York a full week earlier than you pretended. That makes you a damned good possibility, I�ll tell you!�

�I see,� murmured the Englishman. �Most distressin�, to be sure. Yes, that�s quite correct, gentlemen. I arrived in New York a week earlier than I publicly announced. But still I fail to see��

�What�s the game? Why�d you lie?�

Dr. Sedlar smiled. �An ugly word, Inspector. I see that I�m on what you Americans so vigorously term �the spot.�� He leaned suddenly against Dr. Choate�s desk and folded his arms. �You�re entitled to an explanation. I know Dr. Choate will forgive the prevarication, but the point is that I wanted a week in New York to myself. Had I announced my arrival, I should have been constrained to get in touch with the Britannic at once, which would have hampered my movements. To avoid the necessity of � ah � rather tedious explanations, I simply said that I�d crossed a week later than I did in actuality.�

�What was this week�s vacation in the city for?�

�That, Inspector,� replied Dr. Sedlar with a courteous smile, �I�m afraid I must refuse to answer. It was purely a personal affair.�

�Oh, yeah?� sneered Thumm. �I thought��

Mr. Drury Lane said gently: �Come, come, Inspector, a man has a right to a certain amount of privacy, you know. I see no purpose in heckling Dr. Sedlar. He has explained away a curious detail��

Joe Villa bounced to his feet, his features writhing with passion. �Sure! I knew it!� he screeched. �Sure you�ll believe him! But I tell you �at�s the guy hired me to pull the Saxon job an� the guy I tailed here that day! Gonna let him get away with it?�

�Sit down, Joe,� said the Inspector wearily. �All right, Doctor; only I�m telling you right now it looks screwy to me.�

Sedlar nodded a little stiffly. �I�m sure you�ll find it all a mistake. At that time I shall of course expect an apology.� He screwed the monocle back under his eyebrow and stared icicles at Thumm.

�If I may ask a question,� said Patience in a charming voice in the silence. �Dr. Sedlar, do you know this man who calls himself Ales?�

�Child�� began Lane.

�Oh, it�s perfectly all right, sir,� said the Englishman with a smile. �Miss Thumm no doubt has the right to ask. No, I can�t say I do. It strikes a faintly reminiscent note��

�He used to write for The Stratford Quarterly,� said Rowe suddenly.

�Ah! No doubt that�s why I thought I had heard it somewhere.�

�And now,� interrupted the curator, coming nervously forward, �I�m sure we�ve had enough of accusations and recriminations. Inspector, I suggest we all forget today�s little unpleasantness. I see no point in pressing a charge against this man Villa��

�No, no,� agreed Dr. Sedlar politely. �No harm done at all.�

�Here, wait a minute,� objected Coburn, the policeman. �I�ve got my duty, gentleman. This man�s got a charge of attempted burglary against him, an� I can�t just let him go. And then he�s just confessed to breakin� into Mrs. Saxon�s mansion...�

�Good heavens,� sighed Patience to her young companion. �We�re getting mixed up again. My head�s spinning.�

�There�s something uncommonly rotten about all this, darling,� muttered the young man. �All right, Pat, not darling! But I feel there�s just one little key to the whole business, a clarifying element��

Joe Villa stood very still, his vulturous head swaying from side to side, his little eyes gleaming darkly.

�Well�� began Thumm doubtfully.

�Inspector,� murmured Lane. Thumm looked up. �One moment, please.� The old gentleman took him aside and for a moment they conferred in low tones. Thumm continued to look doubtful; then he shrugged his shoulders and beckoned to Coburn. The officer reluctantly relinquished his grip on Villa and stalked over to listen with a grim expression to the Inspector�s gruff voice. The others looked on in silence.

Finally Coburn said: �Well, okay, Inspector, but I�ll have to hand in my report just the same.�

�Sure. I�ll make it all right with your lieutenant.�

Coburn saluted and pounded away.

Joe Villa sighed and relaxed against the table. Thumm left the room in search of a telephone, ignoring the instrument on the desk. The curator began an earnest murmur of conversation with Dr. Sedlar. Mr. Drury Lane dreamily regarded a crisp old engraving of the Droeshout portrait on Dr. Choate�s wall. As for Patience and Rowe, they stood shoulder to shoulder without speaking. It was as if they all waited for something to happen.

The Inspector stamped back. �Villa,� he said shortly. The thief snapped to attention. �You�re my baby. Come along.�

�Where... where you takin� me?�

�You�ll find out soon enough.� The scholars had stopped talking and were regarding Thumm with anxious, solemn eyes. �Dr. Sedlar, you remaining here?�

�I beg your pardon?� murmured the Englishman, astonished.

�We�re taking a little jaunt out to this Dr. Ales�s house,� explained the Inspector with a sly smile. �I thought you might like to come along.�

�Hey�� croaked Villa.

Dr. Sedlar frowned. �I�m afraid I don�t quite understand.�

�Dr. Sedlar and I have many things to go over today,� said Dr. Choate frigidly.

�Quite so.� Lane moved suddenly. �Inspector, please. I shudder to think of what Dr. Sedlar will think of our American hospitality after this ghastly affair. By the way, Doctor, where are you stopping in the event we need you in an... ah... emergency?�

�At the Hotel Seneca, Mr. Lane.�

�Thank you. Come along, Inspector. Patience, Gordon, I suppose we can�t shake you off, eh?� The old gentleman chuckled. �Ah, inquisitive youth,� and he shook his head sadly and moved toward the door.

At the sullen direction of the dark Italian, Dromio swung the Lincoln off the main highway between Irvington and Tarrytown into a narrow road, little more than a gravelly lane bordered by overhanging trees. From a humming concrete world they plunged suddenly into a cool wilderness. Birds and insects stirred the leaves above and about them. There was no sign of human life anywhere. The road wound and pirouetted through the green trees like a live thing.

�Sure this is it?� asked Thumm fretfully.

Villa nodded in a wary way. �I oughta know.�

They drove through what seemed an interminable forest, and all were pale and silent. Dr. Ales at last! It did appear as if the perplexities of the past few weeks would be cleared away. Tensely they watched the trees flow by.

Then, without warning, the foliage fell away and they came upon another lane � the first exit they had encountered since turning off the main road a mile behind. This lane was a rough driveway branching snakily off to the left, running through thick dusty underbrush to what appeared to be a house set some fifty yards away. They could see a crumbling, patchwork, gabled roof through the trees.

�Turn off here,� croaked Villa. �This is it. Now can I�?�

�You sit tight,� said the Inspector grimly. �Take it easy, old boy,� he ordered Dromio, who had brought the big car to rest. �We don�t want to scare anybody away. Quiet, everybody.�

Dromio nosed the machine into the narrow side-lane, handling it as if it were a feather. The car crept softly along; the lane widened a trifle; and then it emerged into a small clearing before a weather-beaten wooden house which looked like the grandfather of all neglected old houses. Its paint, once white no doubt, was now a dirty grey-yellow; it hung in curled slivers from the walls, giving the structure the disagreeable appearance of a peeling potato. There was a tiny porch before the house, and the wooden steps leading up to it sagged crazily. All the visible windows were tightly shuttered, and these seemed stout enough. The trees on the sides brushed the walls. On the left side of the house leaned a tired old woodshed. Not ten feet from the shed there was a dilapidated little one-story building, apparently a garage; its double door was closed. Telephone and electric wires stuck out from the house and the garage and plunged mysteriously into the wilderness beyond.

�What a lovely old ruin!� exclaimed Patience.

�Ssh!� said the Inspector vehemently. �All right, Drome. You stick here, you people, while I do a little scoutin� around. A funny business, Joe. If you�re on the level about this, I�ll see you don�t suffer.�

He climbed quickly out of the car, crossed the clearing, and with amazing lightness for a man of his bulk mounted the steps to the porch. The door was a solid one, although it suffered from the same paint disease which afflicted the walls; there was an electric bell-button at one side. He avoided this, creeping about the porch, trying to peer into the window which looked out upon it. But the shutter effectually prevented peeping; and he softly retreated down the steps and disappeared to the left side of the house. After three minutes he appeared from the right, shaking his head.

�Damn� place looks deserted. Well, let�s see.� He boldly mounted to the porch and jabbed at the pushbutton.

Instantly � so quickly that he must have been watching them through some peephole of his own � a man opened the door and stepped out. As the door swung open a bell jangled � an antiquated device at the top of the door coiled on a spring which shivered and tinkled at the least movement of the door. The man was a tall, gaunt old fellow, shrunken within his sombre clothes, with a seamed and pitted face of remarkable pallor. His faded grey eyes rested briefly upon the Inspector, peered out in the bright sun toward the car, and then swung back.

�Yes, sir?� he said in a shrill voice. �What can I do for you?�

�This house occupied by a Dr. Ales?�

The old man bobbed his head eagerly; for an instant he was animated. He smiled and scraped. �Oh, yes, sir! You�ve heard from him, then? I was beginning to get worried��

�Oh,� said the Inspector. �I see. Just a minute.� He stumped to the edge of the porch. �Better come up here, folks,� he called out in bitter tones. �It looks as if we�re in for a long session.�

Old Maxwell shuffled before them into the odorous little hall, turned right a few paces and then left, crossing before the lowest step of a decrepit wooden staircase, badly carpeted, which led apparently to the sleeping quarters upstairs. He descended two stone steps to an alcove and stopped before a massive oak door. The door was closed. He opened it and stood aside. �Dr. Ales used to work in this room.�

It was a spacious study paneled from floor to ceiling in dark oak, and lined with built-in shelves for the most part empty. Only a few of the lower shelves held books, a sparse scattering of odd volumes.

�From the appearance of his library,� remarked Gordon Rowe, �he never did intend this house as anything but a temporary hideout.�

�It would seem so,� murmured Lane.

The ceiling was low and an ancient chandelier of hideous colored glass hung above a battered desk in the centre of the study. On the far wall stood a fireplace with a sturdy oak mantel above it made out of a single thick slab of wood; in the blackish grate there was a residue of charred logs and ashes. On the desk lay an old quill, a bottle of indian ink, a powerful reading glass, and a clutter of odds and ends.

The Inspector and Patience both exclaimed at once and pounced upon the desk.

�What is it?� cried Rowe, darting forward.

There was an ashtray upon the desk, a poor chipped thing of colored porcelain decorated with an impossibly buxom mermaid sporting among several grinning and ugly little dolphins. In the well of the tray lay five greyish-white fragments of clay; two of the largest were concave, and the in-curved surfaces presented a burnt appearance. Clots and scraps of dried dottle made a bed for the clay pieces.

�Looks like the remains of a cheap clay pipe,� said Rowe with a puzzled air. �What�s all the huzza-ing and banzai-ing for?�

�Donoghue,� muttered the Inspector.

Patience�s blue eyes shone. �There�s evidence!� she cried. �Gordon, Donoghue always smoked a clay pipe. We know he must have followed Dr. Ales that day from the museum. This virtually proves he�s been here!�

�Maxwell,� said Thumm harshly, �I thought you said a tough-lookin� Irishman hadn�t been in this house recently. How�d the pipe get here?�

�I don�t know, sir. I�ve not been in this room since the day after Dr. Ales went away. I saw the pieces on the floor in front of the desk that morning before I sent the package off and picked them up and put them in the ashtray with the little pieces of ash and tobacco.�

Lane sighed. �Did you notice the fragments the night before, when Dr. Ales sent you away?�

�They weren�t there when I left, I�m positive.�

�Did Dr. Ales smoke a clay pipe?�

�Dr. Ales didn�t smoke at all. We found the ashtray in some old rubbish in the woodshed when we got here.� Maxwell blinked. �I don�t smoke, either,� he said rather tremulously.

�Then I think, Inspector,� remarked the old gentleman with a note of weariness, �that we can reconstruct events with a certain degree of assurance. After Ales sent Maxwell away the evening of the twenty-seventh, Donoghue, who had followed Ales from the city and was lurking in the bushes outside, entered the house. He was face to face with Ales in this room; of that we may be certain. What happened then is conjectural.�

�That�s a swell word,� said Thumm with a scowl. �Let�s look over the rest of this dump.�

And then, as suddenly as if a blight had fallen upon it, the case died. For over a week it lay supine in death; nothing happened, nothing new was learned, and moreover no one seemed greatly to care.

The Inspector was as good as his word; he definitely threw up the case. His investigation into the jewel robbery he had mentioned � a sensational affair involving a valuable rope of pearls and an assault upon a languorous demi-mondaine nesting in the clouds above Park Avenue � consumed the Inspector�s whole attention; he rarely appeared at his office and when he did it was merely for a snatched glance through his mail. The Thumm Detective Agency, except for an occasional visit by Patience, was left to the tearful mercies of Miss Brodie.

As for Patience, she had suddenly acquired a passion for learning. She haunted the Britannic Museum, to the mute approval of various gentlemen of the trades who were still busy applying architectural and ornamental cosmetics to that sadly battered edifice; and she and young Mr. Rowe applied themselves with all outward signs of diligence to research in Shakespeare. The Bard, it was to be feared, did not yield many of his secrets during this collaboration in literary history. Between discussing the enigmatic Dr. Sedlar and themselves. Patience and Rowe made little progress in Rowe�s labors.

But the least concerned of all, it seemed, was Mr. Drury Lane. He sequestered himself in his conveniently impregnable fortress, The Hamlet, and for nine days preserved a monastic silence.

There were picayune interludes. During the week, for example, two letters arrived at the Inspector�s office which had a direct bearing upon the all-but-abandoned investigation. One was from Dr. Leo Schilling, Chief Medical Examiner of New York County, the medico-criminological terror of Manhattan�s murderers. As a chemical symbol, the worthy physician wrote, the characters 3HS wM were absolutely meaningless. At first he had thought of splitting the symbol into its components. 3HS might mean three parts of hydrogen and sulphur; but unfortunately there was no such chemical compound, since one molecule of hydrogen had from Priestley�s day, and before, stubbornly refused to combine chemically with one molecule of sulphur. As for the small w, it possessed various chemical interpretations, Dr. Schilling continued; such as watt, the electrical term, and wolframite, which was a rare metal. Capital M being the generic sign for �metal,� there might be a connection between the M and the w, if the w stood for wolframite. �In general, however,� the Medical Examiner�s report concluded, �my opinion is that this hodge-podge of number plus small and capital letters is plain nonsense. It has no scientific meaning at all.�

The second letter was from Lieutenant Schiff, cipher expert at the Bureau of Intelligence in Washington. Lieutenant Schiff excused himself for the delay in replying to Inspector Thumm�s curious inquiry; he had been very busy; perhaps he had not given the symbol the proper study; but it was his opinion that �as a cipher or crypt it is so much abracadabra.� He did not believe it could be broken down, if it was intended as a cipher; if anything, it was possibly the kind of cipher for which prearranged secret code-meanings had been assigned to the individual characters. An expert might spend months searching for the key or code and still be unsuccessful.

Patience was near tears; she had secretly spent many sleepless nights puzzling over the odd symbol. Rowe comforted her rather helplessly; he had no better luck.

Other reports trickled in, similarly unenlightening. One was a confidential note from Inspector Geoghan: detectives from headquarters had spent fruitless days endeavoring to pick up Dr. Hamnet Sedlar�s trail in New York City between May twenty-second, the day on which the Cyrinthia had docked, and May 29, when he officially presented himself at the Britannic Museum. Inquiry at the Hotel Seneca, where the Englishman had then taken up residence, merely revealed that a Dr. Sedlar had engaged a room on the morning of May 29 � an obvious development, since it was the natural step to take after the man�s false story of having arrived from England on the twenty-ninth. He had had bulky luggage. He was still living at the Seneca, a quiet middle-aged Englishman who took his meals alone in the Hunting Room and, on those occasions when he happened to be in the hotel afternoons, ordered four o�clock tea which he consumed in the staid seclusion of his room.

The unfortunate Irish guard, Donoghue, was still missing. Not the faintest clue to his fate had turned up.

Dr. Ales also had vanished without a trace.

Italian Mr. Villa had come in for his share of official surveillance. The Inspector explained one afternoon to Gordon Rowe � having apparently amended his opinion of the young man since Rowe�s encounter with the masked man and his subsequent discovery of the false beard � that when Villa had been apprehended in the museum he, sharp old warrior that he was � ahem!�� had excused himself and sought out a telephone. Yes, perhaps it had been at Mr. Drury Lane�s suggestion. At any rate, the purpose of this procedure had been to prepare the hounds to take up the trail of the saturnine Mr. Villa when the Inspector should have finished with him. The particular hound had been one, Gross, an employee of the Thumm Detective Agency; and Gross had quite invisibly followed the entire party from the Britannic to Dr. Ale�s house near Tarrytown, had quietly waited outside until the party emerged, and had then shadowed Villa with his considerable skill, sticking to the Italian�s trail like the shadow of a Comanche. But Gross had nothing to report. The thief had apparently abandoned his attempt to fathom the �secret worth millions.�

Dr. Sedlar came and went at the museum. As did Dr. Choate. Crabbe fondled his books at the Saxon mansion. Mrs. Saxon went about fatly and damply in the late June heat, preparing the exodus of her household to Cannes for the summer season... Everybody performed his normal function. Everybody seemed as innocent as Patience�s blue eyes. As Inspector Thumm remarked to one of his operatives in a moment of relaxation from the rigors of the jewel investigation: �It�s just about the screwiest business I�ve ever had a hand in.�

Maxwell, it was assumed, still held the lonely fort at Dr. Ales� house.

Then the call came.

A battered automobile stood in the garage, which was strewn with rusty bolts, oily rags, wooden cases � a litter of evil-smelling d�bris. An ancient chair stood between the windowed wall and the car, and festoons of ragged rope hung from it. Between the chair and the double door lay the body of Maxwell, black garments streaked with dust; he was lying prone, his legs crumpled beneath him. There was no sign of a wound, although the knot of a bound cloth was visible at the nape of his neck. Two feet from his outstretched right hand there was a paint-smeared taboret on which lay an extension telephone. Its receiver dangled at the end of the cord. Patience dully replaced it on the hook.

Rowe and Lane knelt by the side of the still figure and turned it over. Maxwell�s gaunt face was a creamy white; beneath his chin like a bib there was a thickly folded cloth, apparently a gag which he had managed to work loose after freeing himself from the ropes which had held him tied to the chair beyond. Then, incredibly, his face began to twitch, and he uttered a croaking groan.

�Why, he�s alive!� cried Patience, flying to his side. She went down on her knees, ignoring the grime and the concrete floor, and patted the old man�s cheeks. His eyes flickered open, and closed again. Rowe scrambled to his feet and made for a greenish tap at the rear of the garage; he soaked his handkerchief in water and returned. Patience bathed the white face gently.

�Poor fellow,� said Lane slowly. �I think between us, Gordon, we can manage to get him into the house.�

They lifted the limp sharp-boned body carefully and carried it across the clearing through the shattered front door into the parlor. Patience struggled with an overturned sofa, managing to right it; its upholstery had been slashed to strips. They laid Maxwell upon it and stood silently looking down on him. His eyes fluttered open again, and a faint tinge of color began to suffuse his withered cheeks. There was fear and horror in his eyes; but when he saw the concerned faces above him he sighed and began to lick his lips.

At this moment there was the roar of a motor outside and they quickly went out on to the porch. A thick-set man with a red face, dressed in a blue uniform, was hurrying up the steps, two policemen at his heels.

�I�m Chief Bolling of Tarrytown,� he snapped. �Were you the one that called my office this morning, young lady?... Couldn�t find this damned place and that�s why we�re late. Now tell me what�s happened here.�

There was nothing more to be done on the scene. Maxwell was advised to forget his employer and return to Tarrytown to resume the sadly broken thread of his hitherto peaceful life. Bolling, an energetic if plodding executive, placed the house under guard, leaving his two men to watch both the lane leading to the house and the rear, although the rear was inaccessible unless one plowed through a tangle of underbrush and treacherous leaf-mold. Of one point young Rowe, who had been progressively more silent with the discovery of the secret compartment in the study, made certain: Maxwell had stated that due to his being alone at night in the country he had on the previous night, as always, locked all doors and windows. Rowe then personally toured the house; he found that with the exception of the front door all doors and windows were locked from the inside. As for the cellar, it was not necessary to examine it, since there was no entrance to it except through the staircase near the kitchen inside the house... The bell contrivance on the front door jangled derisively after them as they left the house.

On the old gentleman�s invitation � Boiling took Maxwell into Tarrytown in the police car � Patience and Rowe followed Dromio�s limousine bound for The Hamlet. The young people retired gratefully to rooms assigned them by the Falstaffian little major-domo of the household, scrubbed themselves clean, and came down to a late luncheon refreshed in body if not in spirit. The three ate alone in the more intimate atmosphere of Lane�s private quarters. There was little said during the repast; Patience was fretfully quiet, Rowe thoughtful, and Lane devoted himself to mild conversation and a complete silence on the events of the morning. After luncheon he placed them in the hands of Quacey, excused himself, and retired to his study.

Patience and Rowe wandered idly about the vast acreage of The Hamlet. When they came to a lovely little garden, they flung themselves by tacit consent full length on the grass. Quacey peered at them, chuckling, and then vanished.

Birds sang, and the grass smelled hot and sweet. Neither spoke. Rowe twisted about to study the face of his companion. She was flushed a little with the warmth of the sun and her exertions; her slim body lay outstretched, healthily curved. To Rowe, watching her with a curious eagerness, she seemed at once enticing and remote. For her eyes were closed and there was a faint white line between her straight brows that did not invite either badinage or love-making.

Rowe sighed. �What do you make of it, Pat? For heaven�s sake, don�t frown that way! I like my women vapid.�

�Am I frowning?� she murmured; and she opened her eyes and smiled at him. �You�re such a child, Gordon. I�ve been thinking��

�I supposed I�ll have to get resigned to a brainy wife,� said the young man dryly. �The point is, so have I � so that makes two.�

�Wife? That�s not funny, young man! I�ve been thinking that Dr. Ales�s house last night was invaded not by one person but by two.�

�Ah,� said Rowe; and he lay back suddenly and plucked a blade.

She sat up, her eyes warm. �So you saw it, too, Gordon? One was the wielder of the ax. The condition of the house clearly shows that he was searching for something; he didn�t know where it was and wanted desperately to find it � witness his systematic demolition of furniture and things with the ax. The important point is that the man wasn�t Dr. Ales.�

Rowe yawned. �Naturally not. If he�d been Ales he would have known exactly where to find something that he himself � surely it was Ales who made that little compartment in the wall � had hidden there.� Rowe yawned again. �And the other?�

�Don�t act so disinterested,� laughed Patience. �You know you�re thinking furiously... I don�t know. You�re right about the reason. The hacker is one of our unknowns; Dr. Ales wouldn�t have had to chop the place to kindling wood � he would have known where to find whatever the hacker was looking for. On the other hand, the thing the hacker sought was actually found: witness the secret compartment which we found open, and which therefore was left open by some one.�

�And that makes you think two people were in the house last night? Why couldn�t the hacker � confound that clumsy word!�� have found the compartment himself, after he�d done the dirty work with the ax?�

�Well, smarty,� snapped Patience, �for one thing the compartment as you saw was very cleverly hidden. Only the fact that Bolling knew a compartment was in precisely that spot by seeing the open door led him to find that rosette. With the door closed and the wall a blank, the chances would be a million to one that a searcher would pick the right panel, and then the right rosette, and then would know enough to twist the rosette completely around twice, as Bolling had to do to open the door. In other words, the aperture couldn�t have been found by accident. Had the hacker known the secret of the rosette and the aperture there would have been no necessity for hacking. So I say it wasn�t the hacker who twisted the rosette, opened the compartment, took out what was in it, and left the door open. If it wasn�t the hacker it was some one else, and that makes two people, my man. Q.E.D.�

�A veritable lady-sleuth,� chuckled Rowe. �Pat, you�re a jewel. That�s excellent logic. And there�s another conclusion, too. When did the other man � if it was a man � go to the compartment? That is, did he precede the hacker or follow him?�

�Must have followed, teacher. If the man who rifled the compartment had been first, then the hacker, coming second, would have seen the open door of the compartment and therefore would have known at once where the hiding-place was. Result: he wouldn�t have chopped the house to little bits looking for the hiding-place... Yes, Gordon, the hacker came first, which must mean he was the man who held up Maxwell and left him trussed in the garage. And then a second man came, and what happened then goodness only knows.�

They were silent for a long time. They both lay on the grass and stared up at the wool-flecked sky. Rowe�s brown hand stirred and touched hers. It remained there, and she did not draw her hand away.

After an early dinner the three repaired to Lane�s study, an old English-style room which smelled of leather and books and wood-sparks. Patience sat down in the old gentleman�s armchair and, taking a piece of paper, idly began to scribble. Lane and Rowe seated themselves before the desk, relaxed in the half-light of the lamp on the desk.

�You know,� said Patience suddenly, �before dinner to-night I wrote down a few things that � well, bothered me. They might be called the specific mysteries. Some of them annoy me dreadfully.�

�Indeed?� murmured Lane. �My child, you possess a pertinacity positively amazing in a woman.�

�Sir! That�s my chief virtue. Shall I read my little essay?� She slipped a long sheet of paper out of her bag and unfolded it. And began to read in a clear voice:

�(1) It was Dr. Ales who left the sealed envelope with the symbol in it with us � proof, the beard and glasses found in his closet; proof, he is a �missing bibliophile.� It was Dr. Ales who sent Villa to steal the 1599 Jaggard in the Saxon house. It was Dr. Ales who joined the bus party and rifled the Jaggard cabinet in the Britannic � Villa�s confession brings this out, and it is confirmed by finding the blue hat and the false grey moustache in Ales�s bedroom. BUT who is Dr. Ales? Is he Hamnet Sedlar, as Crabbe and Villa both claim, or some one else entirely? Is there somehow a confusion of identities?

�(2) Who is the man known as Hamnet Sedlar? That a Hamnet Sedlar exists we know from Scotland Yard and the fact that such a person was hired to be the Britannic�s new curator. But is the man who presented himself at the Britannic as Hamnet Sedlar really Hamnet Sedlar, or some one masquerading as Hamnet Sedlar, as father thinks? He is definitely on the shady side; he lied about the true date of his arrival. Is the real Hamnet Sedlar dead? Did this man take his place and his name? What was his motive in lying about the arrival date? What was he really doing between the date of his real arrival and the date of his pretended arrival?�

�Phew!� said young Mr. Rowe. �What a tortuous mentality!� Patience glared at him and continued:

�(3) If Hamnet Sedlar is not Dr. Ales, what�s happened to Dr. Ales? Why did he disappear?

�(4) What really happened to Donoghue?

�(5) Who held Gordon and me up and stole the envelope?

�(6) Who was the hacker? He was not Dr. Ales, but might have been anyone else.

�(7) Who was the person who followed the hacker and actually rifled the secret compartment? It might have been Dr. Ales himself � he knew the secret of his own hiding-place, naturally.�

�One moment, Patience,� said Lane. �How do you know the wielder of the ax was not Dr. Ales, or that there were two persons in the Ales house last night?� Patience explained. Lane eyed her lips fixedly, nodding. �Yes, yes,� he murmured when she had finished. �Extraordinary. Eh, Gordon? And perfectly true... Is that all?�

�No. There�s one more,� said Patience, frowning, �and it�s the most important and puzzling of all.� She continued:

�(8) What are all these confused mysteries revolving about? Undoubtedly the �secret worth millions� Dr. Ales mentioned. But the secret worth millions is tied up with the symbol Ales left in father�s keeping. So everything depends on this last question: What does the symbol mean?�

And she put down the paper and resumed her idle scribbling at the desk. Neither man spoke for some time. Then Rowe, who had been watching absently the gyrations of Patience�s pencil, stiffened and half-rose from his chair. Patience and Lane looked at him curiously.

�What are you writing there?� demanded the young man sharply.

�What?� Patience blinked. �That blankety-blank symbol. 3HS wM.�

�Eureka!� shouted Rowe. He sprang to his feet, eyes shining. �I�ve got it, I�ve got it! How perfectly, childishly simple it is after all!�

Mr. Drury Lane rose and went to the desk. His face leaped out of shadow, and every line was etched in fine black. �So you�ve seen it at last,� he murmured. �I saw it, knew it, the day we sat in your father�s office, Patience, and he unfolded the original sheet of Saxon stationery to disclose what was written on it. Tell her, Gordon.�

�I don�t understand you two,� complained Patience.

�How was I sitting when you just jotted the symbol down?� said Rowe.

�In front of the desk, facing me.�

�Exactly! In other words, I saw the characters of the symbol just as Mr. Lane must have seen them at the time he faced your father across the desk when the Inspector unfolded the original sheet. I saw them upside down.�

Patience uttered a faint cry. She snatched up the sheet and turned it around. The symbol now read:

She repeated slowly: �Wm SHe,� the individual characters, mouthing them as if to extract their essential flavor. �That looks � that looks like a signature of some sort. �W-m... William�� Both men watched her keenly. �William Shakespeare!� she cried, springing to her feet. �William Shakespeare!�

A little later Patience seated herself on the rug at the feet of the old gentleman; his long, white fingers played with her hair. Rowe sat slumped opposite them.

�I�ve gone through that mentally many times since that day,� Lane wearily explained. �It seems clear enough from the analytical standpoint. Dr. Ales was not copying a facsimile of a Shakespearian autograph; a facsimile would have been Elizabethan script with some fantastic notion of making it clearer � the capital letters of this unusual Shakespearian signature. What makes it unusual is the small-sized m and the script e. But why the capital H? Probably a vagary of Ales�s mind. It isn�t important.�

�What is important,� muttered Rowe, �is that this is one variation of the Shakespeare autograph. Queer!�

Lane sighed. �As you know even better than I, Gordon, there are only six fully authenticated signatures of Shakespeare extant.�

�Talk about queer,� remarked the young man. �One of them is written Willm Shak�p�.�

�Yes. But there are a number of the so-called �doubtful� autographs, and among these is one spelled like the Ales symbol � a capital W, a small m aligned with the top of the W, space, then a capital S, capital H, and a small script e also aligned with the top.�

�Like the old English style of writing �ye�?� asked Patience.

�Exactly. This doubtful autograph appears in the Aldine edition of Ovid�s Metamorphoses, now at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.�

�Saw it when I was in England,� snapped the young man.

�I have checked with the Bodleian Library,� continued the old man quietly, �and the Ovid is still there. I had thought, you see, that this entire affair was mixed up perhaps with a theft of that volume. It was ridiculous, of course.� Patience felt his fingers stir on her head. �Let me go into this more deeply. Dr. Ales said the �secret� was worth millions; he left this copy of the autograph of William Shakespeare as the key to the secret; so we must begin from there. Do you see now what the secret must be?�

�Do you mean to say,� asked Patience in an awed voice, �that all this stealing and mystery and everything revolve about the discovery of a seventh genuine Shakespeare signature?�

�Looks like it, doesn�t it?� Rowe laughed bitterly. �Here I�ve squandered my youth � ha, ha!�� messing about old Elizabethan records, and I�ve never even run across a hint of such an extraordinary thing.�

�What else?� murmured Lane. �If the secret is indeed worth millions, then Dr. Ales had reason to believe the signature was authentic. How would it be worth millions? Ah, there�s a fascinating question.�

�In itself,� said the young man softly, �it would be priceless. It would have incalculable historic and literary value.�

�Yes, a newly discovered and fully authenticated seventh Shakespearian autograph would bring even in auction, as I�ve read somewhere, a cool million or more. And I don�t know whether my authority meant dollars or pounds sterling! But no signature exists without purpose. Signatures are generally affixed to some type of document.�

�The paper in the book!� cried Patience.

�Hush, Pat. That�s true, although not always,� said Rowe reflectively. �The six authentic signatures are documented, of course: one is on a legal deposition in a suit in which the old boy was involved; one on the purchase deed of a house he bought about 1612; another on a mortgage deed involving the same house; and the last three on the three sheets of his will. But it might be on the flyleaf of a book, you know.�

�I think not, as Patience has already seen,� said Lane. �Would this seventh signature appear on a document � a deed, a lease � in which event the document itself would have comparatively small historic value? Well, perhaps��

�Not small,� said Rowe defensively. �If it were a deed or a lease it might have tremendous importance. It might show where Shakespeare was at a certain date � clarify all sorts of issues.�

�Yes, yes. I meant small from the human side. But suppose it is on a letter?� Lane leaned forward, and his fingers gripped Patience�s curls so tightly she almost cried out. �Think of the possibilities! A letter signed, written by the immortal Shakespeare!�

�I�m thinking,� muttered Rowe. �It�s almost too much. To whom might it have been addressed? What did it say? Autobiographical data. A genuine Shakespearian holograph��

�Certainly it�s within the realm of possibility,� continued the old gentleman in a queerly choked voice. �If it appears at the bottom of a letter, the letter would be worth almost more than the signature! No wonder respectable old scholars are apparently at each other�s throats. It would be like � like finding, by heaven, one of the original epistles of Paul!�

�That document was in the 1599 Jaggard,� whispered Patience fiercely. �Dr. Ales evidently searched the first two existing copies of the 1599 Jaggard and, finding nothing, made every effort to get hold of the third, which was in the Saxon collection. And he did! Is it � could it be possible...?�

�It looks that way,� grinned Rowe. �He�s found it, lucky dog!�

�And now somebody�s stolen it. Oh, dear! I�ll bet it was in that compartment in Dr. Ales�s study.�

�That�s very probably so,� said Lane. �There�s another thing. I have discovered that this third copy, stolen and then returned, was originally bought by Samuel Saxon from Sir John Humphrey-Bond, the British collector.�

�The man who recommended Hamnet Sedlar to Mr. Wyeth?� cried Patience, aghast.

�The same.� Lane shrugged. �Humphrey-Bond is dead; he died only a few weeks ago. No, no,� he said with a smile as they both started, �don�t be alarmed. It was a perfectly natural death, in the sense that it was caused by no human agency. He was eighty-nine and died of pleural pneumonia. But my correspondent on the other side cabled me also that the Jaggard, bought by Saxon from Humphrey-Bond, the one that�s been causing all this trouble, had been in possession of the Humphrey-Bond family since Elizabethan times. Sir John was the last of his family; had no heir.�

�He couldn�t have known there was such a document hidden in the back cover of the Jaggard,� remarked Rowe, �or he wouldn�t have sold the book in the first place.�

�Naturally not. The chances are that for many generations none of the Humphrey-Bonds even suspected the existence of such a document in one of their books.�

�But why,� demanded Patience, �was the document hidden in the binding at all? And who hid it there?�

�There�s a question,� sighed Lane. �I suppose it�s been nestling there for centuries; it might have been addressed to a contemporary; who knows? But the fact that it was hidden at all points to an extra value or significance connected with the document itself. I believe��

Old Quacey slipped into the study. His ancient face was wrinkled in a thousand places, and each place was the repository of bad news. He tugged at his master�s sleeve. �Man named Bolling,� he complained. �Policeman from Tarrytown, Mr. Drury.�

Lane frowned. �Eternally Caliban! What are you talking about?�

�He �phoned. He said to tell you that an hour ago� � the clock on the study wall showed seven o�clock � �the house of Dr. Ales was destroyed in a mysterious explosion!�

The house was a burning, smoking ruin. Tenuous sheets of thick yellow smoke still clung to the charred trees about, and there was a pervasive sulphurous odor which gripped the throat. The old wooden structure had been razed to its foundation; fragments of wall and roof strewed the road; the house had collapsed over the cellar and now lay, a smoldering heap, in the cindery clearing. State troopers prowled about keeping back a curious crowd. Firemen from Tarrytown were keeping the blaze under control, concentrating their efforts on preventing the flames from spreading to the dry woods. But there were ineffective water facilities, and auxiliary tanks had been rushed from Tarrytown and Irvington. The tanks soon ran dry; and onlookers were pressed into service to fight the flames.

Chief Bolling met Patience, Rowe, and Lane at the edge of the clearing. His red face was speckled with cinders and he was panting. �Devilish damn thing,� he shouted. �My two men were badly injured. Good thing nobody was in the house when it happened. Blew up at six o�clock.�

�Without warning?� muttered Lane; he was strangely agitated. �No possibility of a bomb dropped from aircraft, I suppose?�

�Not a chance. There hasn�t been a �plane near here all day. And my two men both say not a soul came near the place since we left a couple of hours ago.�

�It must have been a bomb planted in the house, then,� said Rowe grimly. �Lord, what a narrow escape!�

�Why, it might have exploded while we�� Patience went white. �It... it�s just a little staggering. A bomb!� and she shuddered.

�Probably planted in the cellar,� remarked Lane absently. �That�s the one place in the house we didn�t search this afternoon. Stupid!�

�The cellar � that�s the way I figure it, too,� grunted Bolling. �Well, I�ve got to see that my two men are carted off to the hospital. Lucky devils! They might have been blown to little pieces. We�ll have a look at the ruins tomorrow, when the fire�s out.�

The sun beamed and the fire was out. The smoke had dissipated overnight. Only the charred embers, the heap of wreckage like a prehistoric mound, and the scorched trees remained to tell of the explosion the evening before. Firemen and police were busy digging about in the ruins. One man, a dark quiet fellow with a sharp eye, was directing operations. He seemed particularly anxious to get the d�bris cleared away so that he could descend into what remained of the cellar.

They looked on from the edge of the trees, a warm early-morning wind blowing their clothes about. Bolling watched the workmen grimly.

�See that bird over there with the eagle eye? He�s a bomb expert. Thought I might as well do this right while I was doing it. I want to know how this damn thing happened.�

�Do you mean to say he�ll find something in that rubbish?� demanded Rowe.

�That�s what he�s here for.�

The workmen made huge progress. In a short time the wreckage had been cleared out of the hole in the ground and passed from hand to hand to make a ragged heap thirty feet away. When the cellar had been sufficiently excavated to permit descent, the quiet man scrambled into the pit and disappeared. He emerged after ten minutes, looked about as if measuring the circumference of the explosion, and vanished again, this time among the trees. When he returned he dived into the cellar again. On his third appearance he wore a look of quiet satisfaction and he carried in his two hands a heterogeneous mess of small iron fragments, rubber, glass, and wire.

�Well?� demanded Bolling.

�Here�s the evidence, Chief,� said the bomb expert casually. He held up a small piece of clock-like apparatus. �Time-bomb.�

�Ah,� said Mr. Drury Lane.

�Crude, home-made. Set by a clock to go off at six. Swell charge of trinitrotoluol � TNT.�

The same question leaped to the lips of Patience, Rowe, and Lane. It was Lane, however, who said sharply: �When was the bomb planted?�

�Six p.m. Sunday, if this went off at six last night. It was a twenty-four hour bomb.�

�Six o�clock Sunday,� repeated Patience slowly. �Then it was planted before Maxwell was assaulted Sunday night!�

�Looks as if you were right, Pat,� murmured Rowe. �If whoever set the bomb knew the document was in the house, then he planted it to destroy the document. That means he knew it was in the house but didn�t know exactly where. It�s hard to take��

�Focal point of the explosion,� said the expert, spitting at a blackened rock, �was the cellar.�

�Ah,� said Lane again.

�The second visitor, the one who got the document out of the little secret compartment,� said Patience with a thoughtful squint at Lane, �couldn�t have been the one who set the bomb. That�s obvious. That second visitor knew where the document was; the bomb-setter didn�t, as you�ve just said, Gordon...�

She was interrupted by a hoarse shout from one of the workmen digging in the ruins of the cellar. They all turned quickly.

�What�s the matter?� cried Bolling, breaking into a run.

Three men were stooping over something, their heads just visible above the lip of the excavation. One of them turned, white and shaking. �There... there�s a body in here, Chief,� he croaked. �And from the � the looks of him he was murdered.�

�The reason we�re up here again � Patty tells me she and this young brute have practically been living here!� said the Inspector genially to Lane the next morning as the two old men and the young couple sat under a spreading oak in one of Lane�s serene gardens, �is that we�ve got some interesting news for you.�

�News?� The old gentleman shrugged; he looked listless and wan and tired. Then he smiled feebly; a bit of the sonorous vigor of old time leaped into his voice. �Ram thou thy fruitful tiding in mine ears, that long time have been barren.� I trust they�re fruitful?�

The Inspector grinned; he was in high good humor. �Judge for yourself.� He dug into his pocket and produced an envelope. �Heard unexpectedly from good old Trench this morning.�

The message said:

�That explains it, don�t you see?� cried Patience. �Being twin brothers Hamnet and William must have been as alike as two peas in a pod. That�s why everybody�s been mixing them up!�

�Yes,� said Lane softly. �This is exceedingly valuable information. It�s clear, then, that Sedlar was Sedlar, and Dr. Ales was William, Sedlar�s brother, the fugitive from French justice.� He placed the tips of his long fingers together. �But the embarras de choix still remains to plague us. Whose body was found � Hamnet�s or William�s?�

�And then there�s this business of William trying to get his hooks into a copy of the 1599 Jaggard in Blaye,� remarked Rowe. �You must have heard of that old Frenchie, Mr. Lane. Pierre Gr�ville. In fact, I visited him last year.� Lane nodded. �He�s the owner of the second copy. Saxon had the third, and the other is Lord knows where. Mutilating the binding, eh? Nonsense. He was looking for that Shakespeare holograph!�

�Figure it out, kids,� chuckled the Inspector. �I�ve washed my hands of this case. But it�s beginning to show improvement, hey?�

�Do you want to know,� said Patience suddenly, smoothing her frock with absent fingers, �who murdered that man in the cellar?� They all started, and Patience laughed. �Oh, I can�t give you any names. It�s like an algebraic problem where you�re dealing with a flock of unknowns. But of one thing I�m sure: the murderer was the wielder of the ax!�

�Oh,� said Rowe, and sank back on the grass.

�We know he was in the study at midnight from the evidence of the grandfather-clock. At twelve-twenty-four he was upstairs in the bedroom, still hacking � evidence of the broken bedroom clock. The murder occurred at twelve-twenty-six � only two minutes later! And the murderer was wielding an ax � evidence of the deep sharp gash on the victim�s wrist-watch and wrist. Which was to be proved.�

�I see,� said Lane, and looked up at the blue sky.

�Isn�t it right?� asked Patience fretfully.

But Lane was not watching her lips; he seemed intent on the frowzy contour of a curiously formed cloud.

�There�s another thing,� said Rowe crisply. �There�s that monocle we found in the hall of the house. That�s pretty good evidence that Sedlar was in the house. Was he the victim or the murderer? Off-hand it would seem he was the victim. The corpse corresponded to his specific description...�

�Unless,� said Patience, �the corpse was Dr. Ales�s.�

�But who set the bomb?� demanded the Inspector.

Quacey came pattering up before a mahogany-faced man in uniform.

�You Inspector Thumm?� demanded the stranger.

�Yeah.�

�I�m from Chief Bolling of Tarrytown.�

�Oh, yes! I called him this morning to tell him I�d come back.�

�Well, he said to tell you people that a man�s been found wandering on the road between Irvington and Tarrytown sort of dazed. Looks nigh starved, too. Bum physical condition. Half-dotty. Won�t tell his name but keeps mumbling something about a blue hat.�

�Blue hat!�

�Yep. They�ve taken him to the hospital in Tarrytown. If you want to see him, the Chief says, hop to it.�

�The first thing we want to settle,� said Inspector Thumm grimly, �is who you are.�

They were congregated about the Englishman�s bed the next morning in the Tarrytown hospital. A call from the House Physician had informed them that the patient was in good enough condition to talk; careful nourishment, sedatives, and a sound night�s sleep had worked wonders with him. He had been shaved, and there was a slight flush on his flat cheeks, and his eyes were remote and intelligent. They had entered the room to find the man propped in bed, a profusion of morning newspapers strewn on the coverlet talking amiably to Donoghue in the next bed.

The Englishman�s sandy brows lifted. �Was there any doubt? I�m afraid I don�t understand.� He looked keenly from one to another of them, as if weighing them in some secret balance of his own. The voice was weak, but had a familiar timbre. �I am Dr. Hamnet Sedlar.�

�Ah,� said Lane. �This will be excellent news for Choate.�

�Choate? Oh, yes, Dr. Choate! He must have been worried,� said the Englishman smoothly. �Horrible time! Your friend Donoghue here thought I was his quarry of the blue hat. Ha, ha! The resemblance is � was startling.� He sobered. �He was my twin brother, y�know.�

�Then you do know he�s dead?� cried Patience. Lane glanced once at the Inspector, and the Inspector grew very red.

�I�ve been besieged by reporters all morning. And then these newspapers� They told me everything. From the Medical Examiner�s description of the corpse, it must have been my brother William. He used the pseudonym Dr. Ales, y�know, in his professional writing.�

�Hmm,� said Thumm. �Look here, Dr. Sedlar. It looks very much as if this case is solved. But what the solution is I�m blamed if I know. We�ve learned, as we told you, some suspicious things about you � and now about your brother � and we want the truth. If your brother�s dead there�s no longer any reason to keep quiet.�

Dr. Sedlar sighed. �I suppose that�s so. Very well, I shall tell you everything.� He closed his eyes; his voice was very feeble. �You and the papers have made a great point about my untruth concerning the date of my arrival in this country. The fact is that I came here in secret before my announced arrival in an attempt to avert a dishonorable act. My brother William�s act.� He stopped; no one spoke. He opened his eyes. �There are too many people here,� he said abruptly.

�Oh, come now, Doctor,� said Rowe. �We�re all in this thing together. And as far as Donoghue is concerned��

�I�m deef, dumb, an� blind,� grinned the Irishman.

The story came out reluctantly. Some years before, when William Sedlar had been actively engaged in England as a representative of book collectors, he had been friendly with Sir John Humphrey-Bond, the famous British bibliophile. William had been instrumental in effecting the deal whereby Samuel Saxon had purchased from Sir John�s library one of the three existing copies of the 1599 Jaggard edition of The Passionate Pilgrim. Some months later William, who had access to Sir John�s enormous library, ran across an old manuscript � not in itself valuable and utterly unknown to the bibliophilic world � which stated that a personal letter written and signed in the hand of William Shakespeare and containing a strange secret had been in existence as late as 1758, the date of the manuscript William found. This Shakespearian letter went on the manuscript, because of its hideous secret, had been hidden in the back-cover binding of a 1599 edition of the Jaggard The Passionate Pilgrim. Excited by his discovery, William ascertained that Sir John had never read the manuscript and, his collector�s cupidity aroused, had purchased it from his patron without revealing its contents. He had taken Hamnet, then curator of the Kensington Museum, into his confidence and had shown him the manuscript. Hamnet had scoffed at it as an old wives� tale. But William, drunk with the extraordinary historic, literary, and monetary value of this long-lost document the manuscript spoke of, had gone on the prowl � despite the fact that he realized that most of the first-edition Jaggards of The Passionate Pilgrim had disappeared in the course of three centuries and that only three were left. He satisfied himself after a three-year search that two of the copies � the second of which was in possession of Pierre Gr�ville, the French collector � did not contain the rumored holograph. Having to flee France with the gendarmerie at his heels, he embarked for the United States almost in despair, but savagely intent on examining the third and last copy, which ironically enough he himself had been instrumental in putting into the hands of Samuel Saxon. He had written his brother Hamnet secretly before leaving Bordeaux.

�He wrote me about his attack on Gr�ville,� said Dr. Sedlar faintly, �and I realized that his pursuit of the document had become an obsession with him. As luck would have it I had agreed to Mr. James Wyeth�s proposal to come to America only a short time before. I saw my opportunity to look William up and try to avert another crime, if I could. Consequently I caught an earlier boat and on my arrival in New York placed an advertisement in the personal columns of the newspapers. William got in touch with me readily enough, meeting me at the cheap hotel where I had taken temporary quarters under an assumed name. He told me he had rented a house in Westchester under his old alias of Dr. Ales; that he was on the track of the Saxon copy, but had had ill luck since the book among others had been left in Saxon�s will to the Britannic Museum and he had not been able to get hold of it. He told me also about having hired a common thief named Villa to break into the Saxon mansion and steal the volume; but Villa had bungled, stealing a worthless and palpable forgery, and William had returned it anonymously. He was in a fever of impatience; the museum, he told me, was closed for repairs; the Jaggard had been delivered among the others in the benefaction; he must get into the museum! I saw he was mad with cupidity and I tried to dissuade him; the situation was desperate; I myself was becoming curator of the museum. But William was adamant and our first conversation got nowhere; he went away.�

�It was you, I suppose,� said Lane slowly, �who visited your brother�s house in secret one night � the muffled visitor your brother�s man told us about?�

�Yes. But it did no good. I was beside myself with consternation and fear. Not a pleasant position for me, y�know.� The Englishman drew a deep breath. �When the Jaggard was stolen, I knew at once that William must have been the man in the blue hat. But I could not talk, obviously. William got in touch with me secretly that same night, telling me gleefully that beyond all hope he had actually discovered the document in the binding of the Saxon Jaggard and was sending the book itself back to the museum, having no further use for it. Because he was after all no petty thief, he had left his own copy of the 1606 Jaggard � I had not even dreamed of its existence and where he got it I do not know � in place of the stolen Jaggard as a salve to his own conscience and because, I suppose, he thought it would delay discovery of the theft. It superficially resembled the 1599.�

�But how about this business of being made prisoner?� growled Thumm. �Where does that come in?�

Dr. Sedlar bit his lip. �I�d never dreamed he would go to such rascally lengths, you know. He caught me quite off guard. My own brother!... On Friday last I received a note in the post at the Hotel Seneca, making a secret appointment near Tarrytown, not at his own house. He was very mysterious about it, and I was not suspicious because...� He stopped and his eyes clouded. �At any rate Saturday morning I went to the rendezvous from the museum, where I�d left Dr. Choate. It�s... it�s a little painful, gentlemen.�

�He attacked you?� said Bolling sharply.

�Yes.� The man�s lips trembled. �Virtually kidnapped me � his own brother! And he stuffed me, bound and gagged, into a filthy hole... You know the rest.�

�But why?� demanded Thumm. �I can�t see the sense in it.�

Sedlar shrugged his thin shoulders. �I suppose he was afraid I�d give him away. I had in desperation threatened to give him up to the police, y�know. I imagine he wanted me out of the way until he could slip out of the country with the document.�

�Your monocle was found in the Ales house after what we know now to have been a murder,� said Thumm sternly. �Explain that.�

�My monocle? Oh, yes.� He waved a weary hand. �The press did have something to say about that. I can�t explain it. William must have taken it from me when� He did say he was returning to the house to get the document, which he had hidden there; and then he meant to skip out. But I suppose he ran afoul of his murderer and in some way the monocle slipped out of his pocket and was crushed during the struggle. Unquestionably he was slain for possession of the document.�

�And it�s now in the hands of your brother�s murderer?�

�What else?�

There was a little silence. Donoghue had frankly gone to sleep, and his snores punctuated the silence like a rattle of musketry. Then Patience and Rowe looked at each other, and both rose and leaned over the bed on opposite sides.

�But the secret, Dr. Sedlar,� pleaded Rowe, his eyes feverish.

�You can�t just let it go at that!� cried Patience.

The man on the bed regarded them with a smile. �So you want to know, too?� he said softly. �Suppose I told you that the secret revolved about... the death of Shakespeare?�

�The death of Shakespeare!�

�Well, well?� said Rowe hoarsely.

�But how can a man write about his own death?� asked Patience.

�A very pertinent question,� chuckled the Englishman. He shifted suddenly in bed, his eyes flaming. �What did Shakespeare die of?�

�No one knows,� muttered Rowe. �But there�s been speculation and some attempt at scientific diagnosis. I remember reading an article in an old copy of the Lancet which ascribed Shakespeare�s death to a fantastic complication of causes � typhus, epilepsy, arterio-sclerosis, chronic alcoholism, Bright�s disease, locomotor ataxia, and the Lord knows what else. I think there were thirteen altogether.�

�Indeed?� murmured Dr. Sedlar. �How interesting. The point is that according to this old manuscript� � he paused � �Shakespeare was murdered.�

A remarkable change had come over Miss Patience Thumm. The Inspector was openly worried. She ate like a bird, slept little, and went from the Thumm apartment to the office day after day like a slender little ghost, pale and thoughtful. Occasionally she complained of headache and retired to her room for hours at a time. When she emerged she invariably looked tired and depressed.

�What�s the matter?� asked the Inspector shrewdly one day. �Had a run-in with the boy-friend?�

�With Gordon? Nonsense, father. We... we�re just very good friends. Besides, he�s busy at the Britannic these days and I don�t see him much.�

The Inspector grunted, but he watched her with anxiety. That afternoon he telephoned the museum and spoke to Gordon Rowe. But the young man sounded characteristically preoccupied. No, he had no idea� The Inspector hung up, a sorely tried father; and for the rest of the day he made Miss Brodie�s life miserable.

About a week after the events at the Tarrytown hospital, Patience appeared at her father�s office dressed in fresh linen and looking more like herself than she had for days. �I�m off for a little jaunt,� she announced pulling on white mesh gloves. �Into the country. Mind, darling?�

�Gawd, no!� said the Inspector hastily. �Have a nice time. Going alone?�

Patience examined her face in her mirror. �Of course. Why shouldn�t I go alone?�

�Well, I thought � this Rowe boy � Patty, he�s been neglectin� you, isn�t that it?�

�Father! No doubt he � he�s very busy. Besides, why should I mind?� And she kissed him lightly on the smashed tip of his nose and sailed out of the office. The Inspector muttered a ferocious curse on the head of the recalcitrant Mr. Rowe and rang for Miss Brodie viciously.

Patience�s airy manner vanished as she climbed into her roadster downstairs and rolled off. The frown that had been perched between her brows for days deepened. She passed the Britannic Museum on Fifth Avenue without a glance; but when she had to stop at the corner of Sixty-Sixth Street for a red light, she could not keep from stealing a peep into her windshield mirror. There was, of course, nothing to be seen; and she sighed and drove on.

It was a long, lonely drive to Tarrytown. She gripped the wheel in her gloved hands, driving with absent skill; her eyes were on the road, but her thoughts were far away.

She stopped before a drug store in the heart of the town, went in, consulted a telephone directory, asked the clerk a question, and went out again. She drove off, turned into a narrow side-street, and coasted slowly along watching the street-numbers. In five minutes she found what she was seeking � a ramshackle one-story frame house with a scratchy garden in front and a staggering fence whose pickets were twined with ivy.

She mounted the porch and rang a bell which sounded hoarsely and faintly through the house. A middle-aged woman with tired eyes opened the screen-door; she wore a wrinkled house-dress and her hands were red and sopping with sudsy water. �Yes?� she said sharply, eyeing Patience with a sort of defeated hostility.

�Is Mr. Maxwell at home?�

�Which one?�

�Are there more than one? I mean the gentleman who until recently took care of Dr. Ales�s house.�

�Oh. My brother-in-law.� The woman sniffed. �Just wait on the porch. I�ll see if he�s around.�

The woman vanished and Patience sat down with a sigh in a dusty rocker. A moment later the tall white-topped figure of old Maxwell appeared; he was pulling a coat on over his sweaty undershirt, and his scraggly throat was bare.

�Miss Thumm!� he said in a cracked voice. His bleary little eyes searched the street as if seeking others. �You want to see me?�

�Hello, Mr. Maxwell,� said Patience cheerfully. �No, I�ve come alone. Sit down, won�t you?� He seated himself in a rickety chair which was peeling like burnt skin and studied her anxiously. �I suppose you�ve heard all about the explosion?�

�Oh, yes, miss! Terrible thing, that was. I was telling my brother and sister-in-law how lucky I was. If you hadn�t come that day and � and made me get out of the house, I�d have been blown to smithereens.� He squirmed nervously. �Have they found out � who did it?�

�I believe not.� Patience eyed him sternly. �Maxwell, I�ve been thinking and thinking about this case. And in particular about your story. I�ve been unable to get over the feeling that you left something out!�

He was startled. �Oh, no! I told the truth. I swear��

�I don�t mean that you deliberately lied. Look out for that bee!... I mean you neglected to mention something that may be important.�

He brushed his skull with shaking fingers. �I... I don�t know.�

�Look here.� Patience sat up briskly. �Everybody but me � has apparently overlooked one thing. The walls of the garage in which the masked man tied you up were quite thin. The garage was only a few feet from the front door of the house. It was night-time in the country and every sound must have been distinctly audible.� She leaned forward and lowered her voice. �Didn�t you hear the bell over the door ring?�

�Judas!� he gasped, staring. �So I did!�

They found the man who called himself Hamnet Sedlar at work with Dr. Choate in the curator�s office. The curator looked faintly startled when they entered; but the Englishman rose quickly and came forward with a smile.

�Quite a delegation,� he said with cheerful inoffensiveness. Then his smile faded as he saw the solemnity of their expressions. �I trust nothing�s wrong?�

�We all do,� growled the Inspector. �Dr. Choate, will you be good enough to let us chin a while with Dr. Sedlar � alone? This is kind of confidential.�

�Confidential?� The curator, who had risen at his desk, stood still and stared from one to another of them. Then he looked down and fumbled with some papers. �Ah � of course.� A slow tide of red rose from the hairs of his goatee. He circled the desk and swiftly left the room. Dr. Sedlar had not moved, and for a moment there was silence. Then Thumm nodded to Lane, and Lane stepped forward. The Inspector�s heavy breathing was the only sound in the room.

�Dr. Sedlar,� said Lane with no expression whatever, �it has become necessary, in the interests of � let us say � science, to put you to a very simple test... Patience, your bag please.�

�Test?� A scowl appeared on the Englishman�s face, and he thrust his hands into his pockets.

Patience quickly handed Lane her bag. He opened it, looked inside, took out a gayly colored kerchief, and snapped the bag shut. �Now, sir,� he said quietly, �please tell me what color this kerchief displays.�

Patience gasped, her eyes widening with a sudden shock of intelligence. The others stared stupidly.

Dr. Sedlar flushed. A remarkable mixture of emotions seemed to be struggling for mastery on his hawkish face. He took a little backward step. �This is the most frightful rubbish, you know,� he said harshly. �May I ask the purpose of this childish demonstration?�

�Surely,� murmured Lane, �there can be no harm in identifying the color of this innocent little hander-chief?�

There was a silence. Then the Englishman said, without turning, in a flat voice: �Blue.�

The handkerchief was green, yellow, and white.

�And Mr. Rowe�s necktie, Dr. Sedlar?� continued Lane, without changing expression.

The Englishman swung slowly about, his eyes tortured. �Brown.�

It was turquoise blue.

�Thank you.� Lane returned the handkerchief and bag to Patience. �Inspector, this gentleman is not Dr. Hamnet Sedlar. He is William Sedlar, sometimes known as Dr. Ales.�

The Inspector was not a subtle man; his emotions were raw and spontaneous, like the leaping juice of a squeezed lemon. He had accepted fatherhood with a mixture of bewilderment, delight, and trepidation. The more he saw of his daughter the more he adored her and the less he understood her. Consequently she kept him in a stew of excitement; the poor man never succeeded, no matter how desperately he tried, either in anticipating her next mood or grasping the mystery of her last one.

In the turbulent depths of his misery he was suddenly glad to turn over to Mr. Gordon Rowe the task of calming the young woman so inexplicably stricken with hysteria. And Mr. Gordon Rowe, who until now had loved only books, realized with a despairing groan what it meant to love a woman.

For Patience remained a puzzle, neither to be grasped nor solved. When her weeping had run its course, she dried her eyes on the young man�s handkerchief, smiled at him, and retired to her room. Neither threats nor pleas moved her. She advised Mr. Gordon Rowe to go away. No, she would not see a physician. Yes, she was perfectly well; just a headache. And not another word out of her in response to the Inspector�s frantic bellowings. Mr. Gordon Rowe and his prospective father-in-law looked gloomily at each other, and then Mr. Rowe went away, already obeying orders.

Patience did not emerge for dinner. She uttered a choked �good night� without opening her door. During the night the Inspector, finding his old heart strangely pounding, rose from his bed and went to her room. He heard a wild sobbing. He raised his hand to knock on her door and then dropped it helplessly. He returned to bed and stared bitterly at the black wall for half the night.

In the morning he peered into her room; she was asleep, traces of tears still on her cheeks, her honey-colored hair tumbled about the pillow. She stirred restlessly, sighing in her sleep; and he retreated in haste to a lonely breakfast and his office.

He moved listlessly through the routine work of the day. Patience failed to make her appearance in the office. At 4.30 he uttered a loud curse, grabbed his hat, dismissed Miss Brodie for the day, and returned to the apartment.

�Pat!� he called anxiously from the foyer.

He heard a movement from her room, and he quickly crossed the living-room. She was standing, pale and strange, before the closed door of her bedroom dressed in a severe suit, a dark little turban over her curls.

�You goin� out?� he rumbled, kissing her.

�Yes, father.�

�Why�ve you got the door closed that way?�

�I�m�� She bit her lip. �Father, I�m packing.�

His huge jaw dropped. �Pat! Darlin�! What�s up? Where you going?�

She opened her door slowly. The Inspector saw through a sudden mist a full suit-case lying on her bed. �I�m going away for a few days,� she said in a quivering voice. �I... it�s very important.�

�But what��

�No, father.� She snapped the case shut and buckled the straps. �Please don�t ask me where or why. Or anything. Please. Just for a few days. I... I want to...�

The Inspector sank into a living-room chair and stared at her. She snatched up the suit-case and ran across the room. Then she dropped the bag with a little choked cry, ran back to him, and flung her arms about his neck and kissed him. Before he could collect his stupefied wits she was gone.

He sat there limply, in the empty apartment, a dead cigar in his mouth and his hat still on his head. The slam of the apartment-door kept thundering in his ears. In his slow deliberate way, as he calmed down, he thought things over. And the longer he thought the more uneasy he became. His lifetime of dealing with criminals and policemen had given him a certain shrewd insight into human nature. When he forgot that Patience was flesh of his flesh he began to appreciate the especial oddity of her conduct. His daughter was a level-headed, grown woman. She was not given to the customary feminine tantrums or emotional storms. The strangeness of her actions... He sat in the darkening room for hours, without moving. At midnight he rose, switched on the light, and made himself a cup of strong coffee. Then he went heavily to bed.

Two days passed with agonizing slowness. Gordon Rowe made his life miserable. The young man telephoned, he dropped into the office at odd hours, he clung to the Inspector with the grim tenacity of a leech. He did not seem even remotely satisfied with Thumm�s grunted explanation that Patience had gone away for a few days �for a rest.�

�Then why didn�t she call me up, or drop me a note, or something?�

The Inspector shrugged. �I don�t want to hurt your feelings, younker, but who the hell are you?�

Rowe flushed. �She loves me, damn it all!�

�Looks like it, doesn�t it?�

But when six days had passed and there was no word, no smallest sign, from Patience, the Inspector caved in. He dropped his tightly casual air and for the first time in his life experienced real terror. He forgot his elaborate pretences at working; he paced his office floor with slow wavering steps; and finally on the sixth day he could bear the agony no longer. He took his hat and left the building. Patience had not taken her roadster; it stood as she had left it in the public garage near the Thumm apartment. The Inspector climbed in wearily and headed its nose toward Westchester.

He found Drury Lane sunning himself in one of the crisp little gardens of The Hamlet; and for an instant the Inspector was shocked out of his own misery at the old gentleman�s appearance. Lane had aged incredibly in less than a week. His skin was waxy yellow and exhibited the appalling texture of crumbling chalk; he sat wrapped in an Indian blanket, despite the hot sun, as if he were cold. His body seemed to have shrunken; and Thumm, recalling the astonishing vigor and youthful vitality of this man only a few years before, himself shivered and sat down with averted eyes.

�Well, well, Inspector,� said Lane in a feeble, almost croaking voice. �It�s good of you to come here... I suppose you�re sickened by my appearance?�

�Uh � no, no,� said the Inspector hastily. �You look fine.�

Lane smiled. �You�re a poor liar, old friend. I look ninety and feel a hundred. It comes over you suddenly. Do you remember Cyrano in that fifth act seated beneath the tree? How many times I�ve played that part, a withered old buckaroo, while underneath my doublet my heart beat with the surging strength of youth! Now...� He closed his eyes for an instant. �Martini is openly worried. These medical men! They won�t recognize the fact that old age is, in Seneca�s phrase, an incurable disease.� He opened his eyes. Then he said sharply: �Thumm, old man! What�s happened? What�s the matter?�

The Inspector buried his face in his hands. When he took them away his eyes were like wet marbles. �It�s... it�s Patty,� he muttered. �She�s gone � Lane, for the love of God, you�ve got to help me find her!�

The old gentleman�s pallor deepened. He said slowly: �She�s � disappeared?�

�Yes. I mean no. She went off by herself.� The story tumbled out. A score of wrinkles appeared about Lane�s unwavering eyes as they watched the Inspector�s lips. �I don�t know what to do. It�s my fault. I see now what must have happened,� cried Thumm. �She got a clue, some damn notion that sent her off on a wild chase. It might be dangerous, Lane. It�s about a week now. Maybe...� He faltered and stopped, unable to phrase the horrible uncertainty in his mind.

�You think, then,� murmured Lane, �that she was perilously close to the truth, somehow. That she�s gone off on the trail of the third man, the murderer. That he has possibly turned on her...�

The Inspector nodded dumbly; his big gnarled fist was pounding the seat of the rustic bench in a steady tattoo.

Both men were silent for a long time. A robin perched on a nearby bough burst into song; from somewhere behind them Thumm heard Quacey�s querulous old voice raised in argument with a gardener. But Lane�s dead ears head nothing; he sat studying the grass at his feet. Finally he sighed and laid his veined hand on Thumm�s, and Thumm looked at him with tortured hope.

�Poor old friend. I can�t tell you how sorry I feel. Patience... Shakespeare once said a remarkable thing. He said:

You�re much too honest and primitively masculine, my friend, to understand what has happened to Patience. Women have an inexhaustible capacity for concocting exquisite tortures for their menfolk, many times in all innocence.� Thumm�s haggard eyes devoured his face. �Have you a pencil and paper about you?�

�Penc� Sure, sure!� The Inspector fumbled in an agony of eagerness in his pockets and produced the requested articles. He watched his friend fiercely. Lane wrote steadily. When he had finished he looked up.

�Insert this in the personal columns of all the New York newspapers, Inspector,� he said quietly. �Perhaps � who knows?�� it may do good.�

Thumm dazedly took the paper.

�And let me know the moment anything happens.�

�Sure, sure.� His voice broke. �Thanks a lot, Lane.�

The queerest spasm of pain twisted the old gentleman�s pale face for an instant. Then his lips curled in a smile that was just as queer. �It�s little enough.� He gave Thumm his hand. �Good-by.�

��By,� muttered Thumm. Their hands clasped. The Inspector strode abruptly off toward his car. Before he started the motor he read the message Lane had scribbled:

He sighed with relief, grinned, sent the engine roaring, waved his hand, and disappeared in a cloud of gravel and dust. Lane had risen and smiled very peculiarly until the car was gone. Then he shivered a little and sat down again, wrapping the blanket more closely about him.