rg like? I mean--"

"Like?" interrupted the resident. "He's like a blooming Sheeny, with a
carroty beard and gold gig-lamps!" and, having presented this
impressionist sketch, he brought the interview to a definite close by
slamming the door and turning the key.

With a wrathful exclamation, the inspector turned towards the stairs,
down which the sergeant was already clattering in hot haste, and made
his way back to the ground-floor, followed, as before, by Thorndyke and
me. On the doorstep we found the sergeant breathlessly interrogating a
smartly-dressed youth, whom I had seen alight from a hansom as we
entered the house, and who now stood with a notebook tucked under his
arm, sharpening a pencil with deliberate care.

"Mr. James saw him come out, sir," said the sergeant. "He turned up
towards the Square."

"Did he seem to hurry?" asked the inspector.

"Rather," replied the reporter. "As soon as you were inside, he went off
like a lamplighter. You won't catch him now."

"We don't want to catch him," the detective rejoined gruffly; then,
backing out of earshot of the eager pressman, he said in a lower tone:
"That was Mr. Schoenberg, beyond a doubt, and it is clear that he has
some reason for making himself scarce; so I shall consider myself
justified in opening that note."

He suited the action to the word, and, having cut the envelope open with
official neatness, drew out the enclosure.

"My hat!" he exclaimed, as his eye fell upon the contents. "What in
creation is this? It isn't shorthand, but what the deuce is it?"

He handed the document to Thorndyke, who, having held it up to the light
and felt the paper critically, proceeded to examine it with keen
interest. It consisted of a single half-sheet of thin notepaper, both
sides of which were covered with strange, crabbed characters, written
with a brownish-black ink in continuous lines, without any spaces to
indicate the divisions into words; and, but for the modern material
which bore the writing, it might have been a portion of some ancient
manuscript or forgotten codex.

"What do you make of it, Doctor?" inquired the inspector anxiously,
after a pause, during which Thorndyke had scrutinized the strange
writing with knitted brows.

"Not a great deal," replied Thorndyke. "The character is the Moabite or
Phoenician--primitive Semitic, in fact--and reads from right to left.
The language I take to be Hebrew. At any rate, I can find no Greek
words, and I se