the duplicate!" he muttered. "I was going to
send it to Von Whele's executors, but it is worth keeping now, as a
curiosity. It will be an attraction to the chaps who come to see me.
I hope it won't get me into trouble. It is so deucedly like the original
that I might be accused of stealing it from the premises of Lamb and
Drummond."

He crossed the studio, knelt down by the couch and pulled the drapery
aside, and drew out the half-dozen of bulging portfolios; they had not
been disturbed since the visit of his French customer, M. Felix
Marchand. He opened the one in which he knew he had seen the Rembrandt
on that occasion, but he failed to find it, though he turned over the
sketches singly. He examined them again, with increasing wonder, and
then went carefully through the other portfolios. The search was
fruitless. The copy of Martin Von Whele's Rembrandt was gone!

"What can it mean?" thought Jack. "I distinctly remember putting the
canvas back in the biggest portfolio--I could swear to that. I have not
touched them since. Yet the picture is gone--missing--stolen. Yes,
stolen! What else? By Jove, it's a queer coincidence that both the
original and the copy should disappear simultaneously!"

He struck a match and looked beneath the couch; there was nothing there.
He ransacked about the studio for a few minutes, and then summoned his
servant.

"Was there a stranger here at any time during the last two weeks?" he
asked; "any person whom you did not know?"

Alphonse shook his head decidedly.

"There was no one, monsieur. I am certain of that."

"And my friends--"

"On such occasions as monsieur's friends called while he was out, I was
in the studio as long as they remained."

"Yes, of course. When did you sweep under this couch?"

"About three weeks ago, monsieur," was the hesitating reply.

"No less than that?"

"No less, monsieur."

Jack was satisfied. There was no room for suspicion, he told himself.
The man's word was to be relied upon. But by what agency, then, had the
canvas disappeared? How could a thief break into the studio without
leaving some trace of his visit, in the shape of a broken window or a
forced lock? There had been plenty of opportunities, it is true--nights
when Alphonse had been at home and Jack in town.

"Has monsieur lost something?"

"Yes, a large painting has been stolen," Jack replied.

He went to the door and examined the lock from the outside, by the aid
of matches, thou