th. They had a board of survey last winter, and
the orders in the case were only finally issued a few weeks ago just as
he returned from leave. He's got to make it all up out of his pay,--he
has nothing else."

"Isn't that pretty rough on the youngster?"

"Yes, perhaps, but it's business. He won't have such confidence in
human nature again. If that sergeant were back here I could account for
the disappearance of your porte-monnaie by a surer hypothesis than that
you lost it or dropped it. Are you sure you dropped it?"

"Well, no, I can't be sure," said Holmes, knocking the ashes off his
cigar, "but it could have so happened, very easily. I was talking
earnestly all the way home from the store, where we stopped coming back
from stables, you remember, and I'm getting absent-minded at times.
Besides, how else could it have gone, supposing it to have been in the
pocket of the overcoat when I hung it in the hall just before dressing
for dinner? You have had Robert years."

"He has been with me over seven years, and came to me with a high
character from the old First Artillery. I never heard of his being even
suspected of dishonesty."

"He is the only man who has been in the hall to-night. No one could
have come in from the front while we were at dinner."

"No one without our knowledge. The door has a queer sort of latch or
lock. Sometimes in high winds it would let go and blow open, but some
servant who had lived here before we came put Robert up to a way of
catching it that proved very effective. No; nobody was in the hall
except McLean, and of course that is out of the question. Besides, he
had not time. He was only there half a minute or so."

Mr. Holmes bowed without speaking. He remembered perfectly, however,
that it was nearer five minutes that Mr. McLean had to wait there while
the doctor was finishing that confounded story. Nevertheless, as the
doctor said, that was out of the question.

"Oh, no!" he broke in hurriedly, "I cannot think any one here could
have taken it. It will turn up somewhere among my other traps to-night,
or else I've dropped it. Don't think of it, doctor; that distresses me
far worse than the loss. Suppose we turn in now, and I'll look around
my room once more."

Half an hour later the doctor tapped softly at his guest's door.

"Found it?" he asked.

"No, not yet; going to bed," was the answer, accompanied by an
ostentatious yawn. "Good-night, doctor."

Mr. Holmes had indeed found