off his overcoat and
explaining his reason for entering by the window. "It's--it's----"
His voice broke.

"Perhaps Sir Lyster will tell me, or Lord Beamdale," suggested
Malcolm Sage, looking from one to the other.

Lord Beamdale shook his head.

"Just a bare outline, Sir Lyster," said Malcolm Sage, spreading out
his fingers before him.

Slowly, deliberately, and with perfect self-possession, Sir Lyster
explained what had happened.

"The Prime Minister and Lord Beamdale came down with me on Thursday
night to spend the weekend," he said. "Incidentally we were to
discuss a very important matter connected with this country's er--
foreign policy." The hesitation was only momentary. "Lord Beamdale
brought with him a document of an extremely private nature. This I
had sent to him earlier in the week for consideration and comment.

"If that document were to get to a certain Embassy in London no one
can foretell the calamitous results. It might even result in another
war, if not now certainly later. It was, I should explain, of a
private and confidential nature, and consequently quite frankly
expressed."

"And you must remember----" began Mr. Llewellyn John excitedly.

"One moment, sir," said Malcolm Sage quietly, without looking up
from an absorbed contemplation of a bronze letter-weight fashioned
in the form of a sphinx.

Mr. Llewellyn John sank back into his chair, and Sir Lyster resumed.

"Just over an hour and a half ago, that is to say soon after eleven
o'clock, it was discovered that the document in question was missing,
and in its place had been substituted a number of sheets of blank
paper."

"Unless it's found, Sage," cried Mr. Llewellyn John, jumping up from
his chair in his excitement, "the consequences are too awful to
contemplate."

For a few seconds he strode up and down the room, then returning to
his chair, sank back into its comfortable depths.

"Where was the document kept?" enquired Malcolm Sage, his long,
sensitive fingers stroking the back of the sphinx.

"In the safe," replied Sir Lyster, indicating with a nod a small
safe let into the wall.

"You are in the habit of using it for valuable documents?" queried
Malcolm Sage.

"As a matter of fact very seldom. It is mostly empty," was the reply.

"Why?"

"I have a larger safe in my dressing-room, in which I keep my papers.
During the day I occasionally use this to save going up and down
stairs."

"Where do you keep the key?"

"Wh