On our return to the first-floor, we found Mr. Barton sulkily awaiting us, handcuffed to one of the constables, and watched by Polton with pensive disapproval.

“I needn’t trouble you to-night, Doctor,” said the sergeant, as he marshalled his little troop of captors and captives.  “You’ll hear from us in the morning.  Good-night, sir.”

The melancholy procession moved off down the stairs, and we retired into our chambers with Anstey to smoke a last pipe.

“A capable man, that Barton,” observed Thorndyke—­“ready, plausible, and ingenious, but spoilt by prolonged contact with fools.  I wonder if the police will perceive the significance of this little affair.”

“They will be more acute than I am if they do,” said I.

“Naturally,” interposed Anstey, who loved to “cheek” his revered senior, “because there isn’t any.  It’s only Thorndyke’s bounce.  He is really in a deuce of a fog himself.”

However this may have been, the police were a good deal puzzled by the incident, for, on the following morning, we received a visit from no less a person than Superintendent Miller, of Scotland Yard.

“This is a queer business,” said he, coming to the point at once—­“this burglary, I mean.  Why should they want to crack your place, right here in the Temple, too?  You’ve got nothing of value here, have you?  No ‘hard stuff,’ as they call it, for instance?”

“Not so much as a silver teaspoon,” replied Thorndyke, who had a conscientious objection to plate of all kinds.

“It’s odd,” said the superintendent, “deuced odd.  When we got your note, we thought these anarchist idiots had mixed you up with the case—­you saw the papers, I suppose—­and wanted to go through your rooms for some reason.  We thought we had our hands on the gang, instead of which we find a party of common crooks that we’re sick of the sight of.  I tell you, sir, it’s annoying when you think you’ve hooked a salmon, to bring up a blooming eel.”

“It must be a great disappointment,” Thorndyke agreed, suppressing a smile.

“It is,” said the detective.  “Not but what we’re glad enough to get these beggars, especially Halkett, or Barton, as he calls himself—­a mighty slippery customer is Halkett, and mischievous, too—­but we’re not wanting any disappointments just now.  There was that big jewel job in Piccadilly, Taplin and Horne’s; I don’t mind telling you that we’ve not got the ghost of a clue.  Then there’s this anarchist affair.  We’re all in the dark there, too.”

“But what about the cipher?” asked Thorndyke.

“Oh, hang the cipher!” exclaimed the detective irritably.  “This Professor Poppelbaum may be a very learned man, but he doesn’t help us much.  He says the document is in Hebrew, and he has translated it into Double Dutch.  Just listen to this!” He dragged out of his pocket a bundle of papers, and, dabbing down a photograph of the document before Thorndyke, commenced to read the Professor’s