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"Excellent man. Let's come up at once. I ought to be able to lay my hands on it, though I can never be certain. I play a perpetual game with the maid who does my rooms; she always seems to think that documents are more easy to deal with if they're piled up in a great heap, instead of lying scattered about. Every morning I disarrange them, and the next morning, as sure as fate, they are piled up again." They had reached Reeves' room by now. "Let's see; that's the Income Tax, and that's my aunt, and that's that man . . . Ha! what's this? No . . . No . . . this can't be it . . . well, I'm dashed! The thing seems to have gone."

"You're sure you didn't keep it in your pocket?"

"I don't think so . . . No, it's not there. Look here, I'll go through them again . . . You know, it's a very rum thing, because I took another look at that cipher only last night."

"And now it's gone. Anything else missing?"

"Not that I can see. Oh, I say, this is the limit! First of all I got the cipher without the key, and then I get the key without the cipher."

"How like life," suggested Gordon.

"What's this? 'Hold it and thoughts with the ' . . . oh, splendid! Look here, I worked the cipher out all wrong in this beastly Formation of Character book. But when I did that, I turned down all the pages I wanted, and underlined the significant words. So old Watson will come in useful after all. Hang on one moment—yes, here it is. Now, ready? The