esult was decisive. The box had
been placed above the door very recently by someone who, unless he stood
on a form or climbed on somebody else's back, must have been more than
six feet high. No one puts matches above doors by accident. Whoever
put it there must have meant it--and more than that, must have opened it
and dropped one out inside the boot-box.

"Now," considered the astute Arthur, "it was pitch dark when Bickers was
collared; lights were out, and the fellows thought they'd have a glim
handy in case of need. They struck one and spilt one, and shoved the
box up there, in case they should want it again. I say! what a clever
chap I am! The tall chap this box belongs to did the job, eh?"

An expert might possibly find a flaw in this clue, but Arthur was a
little proud of himself.

Next he spread out the sack and inspected the cord. There was not much
to help him here, one would suppose, and yet Arthur, being once on a
good tack, thought it worth his while to look closely at these two
relics.

The sack was not the ordinary type of potato-sack which most people
associate with the term, but more like a large canvas pillow-case, such
as some article of furniture might be packed in, or which might be used
to envelop a small bath and its contents on a railway journey. Arthur
perceived that it had been turned inside out, and took the trouble to
reverse it. It was riddled with holes, some of them to admit the
running cords which had closed round the neck and elbows of the
unfortunate Mr Bickers, and some, notably that in the region of the
nose, made hastily, with the motive of giving the captive a little
ventilation.

Arthur could not help thinking, as he turned the sack outside in, that
it would have been nicer for Mr Bickers to have the comparatively clean
side of the canvas next to his face instead of the very grimy and
travel-stained surface which had fallen to his lot.

But these speculations gave place to other emotions as he discovered two
black initials painted on the canvas, and still legible under their
covering of dirt and grease. There was no mistaking them, and Arthur
gave vent to a whistle of consternation as he deciphered an "M.R."

Now, as Arthur and everybody else knows, "M.R." _may_ mean Midland
Railway, but the Midland Railway is not six feet two inches, and does
not carry wax vestas about him, or drop them on the floor of the boot-
box.

Arthur gaped at those initials for fully thr