a silver coin, for which he kissed my hand and, having done
so, said:

'I know a clever man, none like him for such business. I will send him
to your presence in an hour.'

Three hours passed. I had finished luncheon, and was sipping coffee in
the lounge, when a sleek personage in gorgeous robes was brought to
me. He had a trick of looking down his nose at his moustache, the
while he stroked it, with a gentle smirk.

'Your Excellency has been robbed,' he murmured in a secret tone, 'and
you would know the robber? There is nothing simpler. I have
discovered many thieves. I think it likely that I know the very man. I
will disguise myself as an old woman or a begging dervish. There are
many ways. But, first, your Honour must bestow on me an English pound.
That is my fee. It is but little for such services.'

I answered languidly that the affair had ceased to thrill me; I wished
to hear no more about the money or the thief. He stayed a long while,
wheedling and remonstrating, depicting his own subtlety in glowing
terms; but in the end departed with despairing shrugs and backward
glances, hoping that I might relent.

Rashid, who had been out to tend the horses, came presently and asked
if I had seen the great detective. When I described our interview, he
nearly wept.

'The people here think me the thief,' he told me. 'They say nothing,
but I feel it in their bearing towards me. And now you give up seeking
for the culprit! Am I to bear this shame for evermore?'

Here was a new dilemma! No way out of it appeared to me, for even if
we did employ the great detective, our chance of finding the
delinquent seemed exceeding small. I was thinking what could possibly
be done to clear Rashid, when a familiar figure came into the court
and strolled towards us. It was Suleyman! I had imagined him three
hundred miles away, at Gaza, in the south of Palestine. Loud were our
exclamations, but his calm rebuked us. I never knew him show
excitement or surprise.

He heard our story with deliberation, and shook his head at the police
and the detective.

'No use at all,' he scoffed. 'The one man for your purpose is the
Chief of the Thieves. I know him intimately.'

'Ma sh'Allah! Is there then a guild of thieves?'

'There is.'

'The Sheykh of the Thieves must be the greatest rogue. I do not care
to have to do with him.'

'You err,' remarked Suleyman, with dignity. 'Your error has its root
in the conviction that a thief is evil. He