rapidly towards Albert Gate.

"Do you know," said the man from Scotland Yard, breaking in on his
companion's reverie, "you surprised me by what you said just now, Mr.
Brett?"

"I thought you were too old a hand to be surprised at anything," was the
reply.

"Oh, come now, you know well enough what I mean. You said you thought
it would be a comparatively simple matter to find Mr. Talbot, whilst the
other features of the crime are very complex. Now the affair, thus far,
impresses me as being the exact opposite to that statement. The crime is
simple enough. A clever gang of thieves get into the place by working
some particularly cool and daring confidence game. They don't hesitate
at murder to cover up their tracks, and they make away with the plunder
under the very noses of the police. All this may be smart and up-to-date
in its methods, but it is not unusual. The difficult question to my mind
is, what have they done with Mr. Talbot, and how did they succeed in
fooling him so completely as to make him what one might almost call a
party to the transaction?"

The barrister pulled out a cigar-case.

"Try one of these, Winter," he said. "You will find them soothing."

"I never smoke whilst on business," was the testy reply.

"I invariably do." He proceeded to light a cigar, which he smoked with
zest.

"I do not know how it is," went on Mr. Winter, "but whenever I happen to
meet you, Mr. Brett, in the course of an inquiry, I always start by
being very angry with you."

"Why?" There was an amused twinkle in Brett's eyes, which might have
warned the other of a possible pitfall.

"Because you treat me as if I were a precocious youth. You listen to my
theories with a sort of pitying indulgence, yet I have the reputation of
being one of the best men in Scotland Yard, or I should not have been
put on this job. And I am older than you, too."

"I may surely pity you," said Brett, "even if I don't indulge you too
much."

"There you go again," snapped the detective. "Now, what is there silly
about my theory of the crime, I should like to know."

"You shall know, and before you are much older. Bear with me for a
little while, I beg of you. You may be right, and I may be quite wrong,
but I think there is much beneath the surface in the investigations we
are now pursuing. My advice to you is to drop all preconceived theories,
to note every circumstance, however remote it may appear in its bearing
upon events, and in any cas