the disappearance. The
clergyman and the Oriental laughed silently at one another, and said it
was very extraordinary. As Mrs. Cave seemed disposed to give them the
complete history of her life they made to leave the shop. Thereupon Mrs.
Cave, still clinging to hope, asked for the clergyman's address, so
that, if she could get anything out of Cave, she might communicate it.
The address was duly given, but apparently was afterwards mislaid. Mrs.
Cave can remember nothing about it.

In the evening of that day, the Caves seem to have exhausted their
emotions, and Mr. Cave, who had been out in the afternoon, supped in a
gloomy isolation that contrasted pleasantly with the impassioned
controversy of the previous days. For some time matters were very badly
strained in the Cave household, but neither crystal nor customer
reappeared.

Now, without mincing the matter, we must admit that Mr. Cave was a liar.
He knew perfectly well where the crystal was. It was in the rooms of Mr.
Jacoby Wace, Assistant Demonstrator at St. Catherine's Hospital,
Westbourne Street. It stood on the sideboard partially covered by a
black velvet cloth, and beside a decanter of American whisky. It is from
Mr. Wace, indeed, that the particulars upon which this narrative is
based were derived. Cave had taken off the thing to the hospital hidden
in the dog-fish sack, and there had pressed the young investigator to
keep it for him. Mr. Wace was a little dubious at first. His
relationship to Cave was peculiar. He had a taste for singular
characters, and he had more than once invited the old man to smoke and
drink in his rooms, and to unfold his rather amusing views of life in
general and of his wife in particular. Mr. Wace had encountered Mrs.
Cave, too, on occasions when Mr. Cave was not at home to attend to him.
He knew the constant interference to which Cave was subjected, and
having weighed the story judicially, he decided to give the crystal a
refuge. Mr. Cave promised to explain the reasons for his remarkable
affection for the crystal more fully on a later occasion, but he spoke
distinctly of seeing visions therein. He called on Mr. Wace the same
evening.

He told a complicated story. The crystal he said had come into his
possession with other oddments at the forced sale of another curiosity
dealer's effects, and not knowing what its value might be, he had
ticketed it at ten shillings. It had hung upon his hands at that price
for some months, and