tting the money to pay my creditor. To
my absolute amazement I found a polite note from the lieutenant coldly
thanking me for the notes I had sent him by messenger, and handing me a
formal receipt for L800. At first I regarded it as a hoax. But, with all
his queer ways, Von Gulden was a gentleman. Somebody had paid the debt
for me. And somebody had, though I have never found out to this day."

"All the same, you have your suspicions?" Steel suggested.

"I have a very strong suspicion, but I have never been able to verify it.
All the same, you can imagine what an enormous weight it was off my mind,
and how comparatively cheerful I was as I crossed over to the hotel of
Lord Littimer after breakfast. I found him literally beside himself with
passion. Some thief had got into his room in the night and stolen his
Rembrandt. The frame was intact, but the engraving had been rolled up and
taken away."

"Very like the story of the stolen Gainsborough."

"No doubt the one theft inspired the other. I was sent off on foot to
look for Van Sneck, only to find that he had suddenly left the city. He
had got into trouble with the police, and had fled to avoid being sent to
gaol. And from that day to this nothing has been seen of that picture."

"But I read to-day that it is still in Littimer Castle," said David.

"Another one," Bell observed. "Oblige me by opening yonder parcel. There
you see is the print that I purchased to-day for L5. This, _this_, my
friend, is the print that was stolen from Littimer's lodgings in
Amsterdam. If you look closely at it you will see four dull red spots in
the left-hand corner. They are supposed to be blood-spots from a cut
finger of the artist. I am prepared to swear that this is the very print,
frame and all, that was purchased in Amsterdam from that shady scoundrel
Van Sneck."

"But Littimer is credited with having one in his collection,"
David urged.

"He has one in his collection," Bell said, coolly, "And, moreover, he is
firmly under the impression that he is at present happy in the possession
of his own lost treasure. And up to this very day I was under exactly the
same delusion. Now I know that there must have been two copies of the
plate, and that this knowledge was used to ruin me."

"But," Steel murmured, "I don't exactly see--"

"I am just coming to that. We hunted high and low for the picture, but
nowhere could it be found. The affair created a profound impression in
Amsterdam. A d