on, for a
new porter is about to be sent to the station."

Tipps, who was a very simple matter-of-fact man in some ways, looked
puzzled.

"Why, how will the sending of a new porter to the station throw light on
the matter?"

"You shall know in the course of time, Mr Tipps," replied the
superintendent. "We have wonderful ways of finding out things here."

"Indeed you have," said Tipps; "and, by the way, that reminds me that
they have some wonderful ways of finding out things on the Continent as
well as here. I have just heard of a clever thing done by a German
professor. It seems that on one of the lines--I forget which--a large
box full of silver-plate was despatched. It had a long way to go, and
before reaching its destination the plate was stolen, and the box filled
up with sand. On this being discovered, of course every sort of
investigation was set on foot, but without success. At last the thing
came to the ears of a professor of chemistry--or the police went to him,
I don't know which--and it occurred to him that he might get a clue to
the thieves by means of the sand in the box. You see the great
difficulty the police had, was to ascertain at which of the innumerable
stations on the long line, it was likely that the theft had taken place.
The professor ordered samples of the sand at all the stations on the
line to be sent to him. These he analysed and examined with the
microscope, and found that one of the samples was precisely similar in
all respects to the sand in the box. The attention of the police was at
once concentrated on the station from which that sand had been gathered,
and in a short time the guilty parties were discovered and the theft
brought home to them. Now, wasn't that clever?"

"Very good, very good, indeed," said Mr Sharp, approvingly, "and rather
peculiar. I had a somewhat peculiar case myself last week. You know
some time ago there was a quantity of cloth stolen on this line, for
which, by the way, we had to pay full compensation. Well, I could not
get any clue to the thieves, but at last I thought of a plan. I got
some patterns of the cloth from the party that lost it, and sent one of
these to every station on the line where it was likely to have been
stolen. Just the other day I got a telegram from Croon station stating
that a man had been seen going about in a new suit exactly the same as
the pattern. Off I went immediately, pounced on the man, taxed him with
the thef