quite possible, you
see, that the other set, if it existed, had not yet been developed.

"Mirsky changed his tune. After a little more banging and shouting I could
hear him kneel down and try the key-hole. I had left the key there, so
that he could see nothing. But he began talking softly and rapidly through
the hole in a foreign language. I did not know it in the least, but I
believe it was Russian. What had led him to believe I understood Russian I
could not at the time imagine, though I have a notion now. I went on
ruining his stock of plates. I found several boxes, apparently of new
plates, but, as there was no means of telling whether they were really
unused or Avere merely undeveloped, but with the chemical impress of your
drawings on them, I dragged every one ruthlessly from its hiding-place and
laid it out in the full glare of the sunlight--destroying it thereby, of
course, whether it was unused or not.

"Mirsky left off talking, and I heard him quietly sneaking off. Perhaps
his conscience was not sufficiently clear to warrant an appeal to the
police, but it seemed to me rather probable at the time that that was what
he was going for. So I hurried on with my work. I found three dark
slides--the parts that carried the plates in the back of the camera, you
know--one of them fixed in the camera itself. These I opened, and exposed
the plates to ruination as before. I suppose nobody ever did so much
devastation in a photographic studio in ten minutes as I managed.

"I had spoiled every plate I could find, and had the developed negatives
safely in my pocket, when I happened to glance at a porcelain washing-well
under the sink. There was one negative in that, and I took it up. It was
_not_ a negative of a drawing of yours, but of a Russian twenty-ruble
note!"

This _was_ a discovery. The only possible reason any man could have for
photographing a bank-note was the manufacture of an etched plate for the
production of forged copies. I was almost as pleased as I had been at the
discovery of _your_ negatives. He might bring the police now as soon as he
liked; I could turn the tables on him completely. I began to hunt about
for anything else relating to this negative.

"I found an inking-roller, some old pieces of blanket (used in printing
from plates), and in a corner on the floor, heaped over with newspapers
and rubbish, a small copying-press. There was also a dish of acid, but not
an etched plate or a printed note t