st difficult crime to track is the one which is
purposeless. Now this is not purposeless. Who is it who profits by it?
There is the French ambassador, there is the Russian, there is whoever
might sell it to either of these, and there is Lord Holdhurst."

"Lord Holdhurst!"

"Well, it is just conceivable that a statesman might find himself in
a position where he was not sorry to have such a document accidentally
destroyed."

"Not a statesman with the honorable record of Lord Holdhurst?"

"It is a possibility and we cannot afford to disregard it. We shall see
the noble lord to-day and find out if he can tell us anything. Meanwhile
I have already set inquiries on foot."

"Already?"

"Yes, I sent wires from Woking station to every evening paper in London.
This advertisement will appear in each of them."

He handed over a sheet torn from a note-book. On it was scribbled in
pencil: "L10 reward. The number of the cab which dropped a fare at or
about the door of the Foreign Office in Charles Street at quarter to ten
in the evening of May 23d. Apply 221 B, Baker Street."

"You are confident that the thief came in a cab?"

"If not, there is no harm done. But if Mr. Phelps is correct in stating
that there is no hiding-place either in the room or the corridors, then
the person must have come from outside. If he came from outside on so
wet a night, and yet left no trace of damp upon the linoleum, which
was examined within a few minutes of his passing, then it is exceeding
probable that he came in a cab. Yes, I think that we may safely deduce a
cab."

"It sounds plausible."

"That is one of the clues of which I spoke. It may lead us to something.
And then, of course, there is the bell--which is the most distinctive
feature of the case. Why should the bell ring? Was it the thief who did
it out of bravado? Or was it some one who was with the thief who did it
in order to prevent the crime? Or was it an accident? Or was it--?" He
sank back into the state of intense and silent thought from which he
had emerged; but it seemed to me, accustomed as I was to his every mood,
that some new possibility had dawned suddenly upon him.

It was twenty past three when we reached our terminus, and after a hasty
luncheon at the buffet we pushed on at once to Scotland Yard. Holmes
had already wired to Forbes, and we found him waiting to receive us--a
small, foxy man with a sharp but by no means amiable expression. He
was decidedly frigid in