ash with
his own. Besides, in the present case, his attention was claimed by what
to him was a matter of far more serious interest. From day to day he was
anxiously waiting for news from the London bookseller who was making
inquiries on his behalf as to the possibility of obtaining a copy of
_The Confessions of Parthenio the Mystic_. Day passed after day till a
fortnight had gone, and still there came no line from the bookseller.

Ducie's impatience could no longer be restrained: he wrote, asking for
news. The third day brought a reply. The bookseller had at last heard of
a copy. It was in the library of a monastery in the Low Countries. The
coffers of the monastery needed replenishing; the abbot was willing to
part with the book, but the price of it would be a sum equivalent to
fifty guineas of English money. Such was the purport of the letter.

To Captain Ducie, just then, fifty guineas were a matter of serious
moment. For a full hour he debated with himself whether or no he should
order the book to be bought.

Supposing it duly purchased; supposing that it really proved to be the
key by which the secret of the Russian's MS. could be mastered; might
not the secret itself prove utterly worthless as far as he, Ducie, was
concerned? Might it not be merely a secret bearing on one of those
confounded political plots in which Platzoff was implicated--a matter of
moment no doubt to the writer, but of no earthly utility to anyone not
inoculated with such March-hare madness?

These were the questions that it behoved him to consider. At the end of
an hour he decided that the game was worth the candle: he would risk his
fifty guineas.

Taking one of Platzoff's horses, he rode without delay to the nearest
telegraph station. His message to the bookseller was as under:

"Buy the book, and send it down to me here by confidential messenger."

The next few day were days of suspense, of burning impatience. The
messenger arrived almost sooner than Ducie expected, bringing the book
with him. Ducie sighed as he signed the cheque for fifty guineas, with
ten pounds for expenses. That shabby calf-bound worm-eaten volume seemed
such a poor exchange for the precious slip of paper that had just left
his fingers. But what was done could not be undone, so he locked the
book away carefully in his desk and locked up his impatience with it
till nightfall.

He could not get away from Platzoff till close upon midnight. When he
got to his own