destroy the habit of consecutive mental effort.

"It is most important," he once remarked to me, "habitually to pursue a
definite train of thought, and to pursue it to a finish, instead of
flitting indolently from one uncompleted topic to another, as the
newspaper reader is so apt to do. Still, there is no harm in a daily
paper--so long as you don't read it."

Accordingly, he patronized a morning paper, and his method of dealing
with it was characteristic. The paper was laid on the table after
breakfast, together with a blue pencil and a pair of office shears. A
preliminary glance through the sheets enabled him to mark with the
pencil those paragraphs that were to be read, and these were presently
cut out and looked through, after which they were either thrown away or
set aside to be pasted in an indexed book.

The whole proceeding occupied, on an average, a quarter of an hour.

On the morning of which I am now speaking he was thus engaged. The
pencil had done its work, and the snick of the shears announced the
final stage. Presently he paused with a newly-excised cutting between
his fingers, and, after glancing at it for a moment, he handed it to me.

"Another art robbery," he remarked. "Mysterious affairs, these--as to
motive, I mean. You can't melt down a picture or an ivory carving, and
you can't put them on the market as they stand. The very qualities that
give them their value make them totally unnegotiable."

"Yet I suppose," said I, "the really inveterate collector--the pottery
or stamp maniac, for instance--will buy these contraband goods even
though he dare not show them."

"Probably. No doubt the _cupiditas habendi_, the mere desire to possess,
is the motive force rather than any intelligent purpose--"

The discussion was at this point interrupted by a knock at the door, and
a moment later my colleague admitted two gentlemen. One of these I
recognized as a Mr. Marchmont, a solicitor, for whom we had occasionally
acted; the other was a stranger--a typical Hebrew of the blonde
type--good-looking, faultlessly dressed, carrying a bandbox, and
obviously in a state of the most extreme agitation.

"Good-morning to you, gentlemen," said Mr. Marchmont, shaking hands
cordially. "I have brought a client of mine to see you, and when I tell
you that his name is Solomon Loewe, it will be unnecessary for me to say
what our business is."

"Oddly enough," replied Thorndyke, "we were, at the very moment when you
kn