at contains an inside pocket. Usually any frock-coat I wear at
an afternoon reception has not an inside pocket, but I had been rather
on the rush all day.

'My father is a manufacturer whose name may be familiar to you, and I
am on the directors' board of his company. On this occasion I took a
cab from the city to the reception I spoke of, and had not time to go
and change at my rooms. The reception was a somewhat bohemian affair,
extremely interesting, of course, but not too particular as to
costume, so I went as I was. In this inside pocket rested a thin
package, composed of two pieces of cardboard, and between them rested
five twenty-pound Bank of England notes, folded lengthwise, held in
place by an elastic rubber band. I had thrown the coat across the
chair-back in such a way that the inside pocket was exposed, leaving
the ends of the notes plainly recognisable.

Over the coffee and cigars one of my guests laughingly called
attention to what he termed my vulgar display of wealth, and Johnson,
in some confusion at having neglected to put away the coat, now picked
it up, and took it to the reception-room where the wraps of my guests
lay about promiscuously. He should, of course, have hung it up in my
wardrobe, but he said afterwards he thought it belonged to the guest
who had spoken. You see, Johnson was in my dressing-room when I threw
my coat on the chair in the corner while making my way thither, and I
suppose he had not noticed the coat in the hurry of arriving guests,
otherwise he would have put it where it belonged. After everybody had
gone Johnson came to me and said the coat was there, but the package
was missing, nor has any trace of it been found since that night.'

'The dinner was fetched in from outside, I suppose?'

'Yes.'

'How many waiters served it?'

'Two. They are men who have often been in my employ on similar
occasions, but, apart from that, they had left my chambers before the
incident of the coat happened.'

'Neither of them went into the reception-room, I take it?'

'No. I am certain that not even suspicion can attach to either of the
waiters.'

'Your man Johnson--?'

'Has been with me for years. He could easily have stolen much more
than the hundred pounds if he had wished to do so, but I have never
known him to take a penny that did not belong to him.'

'Will you favour me with the names of your guests, Mr. Gibbes?'

'Viscount Stern sat at my right hand, and at my left Lord Tem