more than three or
four of such consecutive pages. We were confused, too, by at least a
dozen headed "Chapter I."

"There's another shelf, anyhow," said Jaffery, turning away.

I nodded and went on with my puzzling task of collation. But the more I
examined the more did my brain reel. I could not find the nucleus of a
coherent story. A great shout from Jaffery made me start in my chair.

"Hooray! At last! I've got it! Here it is!"

He came with three thick clumps of manuscript neatly pinned together in
brown paper wrappers and dumped them with a bang in front of me.

"There!" he cried, bringing down his great hand on the top of the pile.

"Thank God!" said I.

He removed his hand. Then, as he told me afterwards, I sprang to my feet
with a screech like a woman's. For there, staring me in the face, on a
white label gummed onto the brown paper, was the hand-written
inscription:

"The Diamond Gate. A Novel--by Thomas Castleton."

"Look!" I cried, pointing; and Jaffery looked. And for a second or two
we both stood stock-still.

The writing was Tom Castleton's; and the writing of the script hastily
flung open by Jaffery was Tom Castleton's--Tom Castleton, the one genius
of our boyish brotherhood, who had died on his voyage to Australia.
There was no mistake. The great square virile hand was only too
familiar--as different from Adrian's precise, academical writing as Tom
Castleton from Adrian.

Then our eyes met and we realized the sin that had been committed.

There was the original manuscript of "The Diamond Gate." "The Diamond
Gate" was the work not of Adrian Boldero, but of Tom Castleton. Adrian
had stolen "The Diamond Gate" from a dead man. Not only from a dead man,
but from the dead friend who had loved and trusted in him.

We stared at each other open-mouthed. At last Jaffery threw up his hands
and, without a word, cleared the lowest shelf of the safe. Quickly we
ran through the mass. We could not trust ourselves to speak. There are
times when words are too idle a medium for interchange of thought. We
found nothing different from the contents of the two upper shelves. The
apparently coherent manuscript we placed with the rest. Again we
examined it. A sickening fear gripped our hearts, and steadily grew into
an awful certainty.

The great epoch-making novel did not exist.

It had never existed. Even if Adrian had lived, it would have had no
possibility of existing.

"What in God's name has he been pla