nd his features at this moment were small and inclined to
be aquiline. He had closely set ears that lay well back against his head,
and his hands were slim and exceedingly well-kept. Of his age--well that,
like himself, was an enigma. To-day he might have been anything between
thirty-five and forty--to-morrow probably he would be looking nineteen.
That was part of the peculiar birthright of the man, that and a mobility
of feature which enabled him to alter his face completely in the passing
of a second, a gift which at least one notorious criminal of history also
possessed.

He sat now, playing with the silver-topped cane between his knees, his
head slightly to one side, his whole manner one of polite and tolerant
interest. But Mr. Narkom knew that this same manner marked an intensity
of concentration which was positively unique. Without more ado he plunged
into the details of his story.

"It happened in this wise, Cleek," he said, tapping his fountain-pen
against his blotter until little spouts of ink fell out like jet beads.
"This is at least the ninth case of the kind we've had reported to us
within the space of the last fortnight. The first robbery was at a tiny
branch bank in Purley, and the bag amounted to a matter of a couple of
hundred or so sovereigns; the second was at Peckham--on the outskirts,
you understand; the third at Harrow; the fourth somewhere near Forest
Hill, and the fifth in Croydon. Other places on the South East side of
London have come in for their share, too, as for instance Anerley and
Sutton. This last affair took place at Hendon, during the evening of
Saturday last--the sixteenth, wasn't it? No one observed anything
untoward in the least, that is except one witness who relates how he saw
a motor car standing outside the bank's premises at half past nine at
night. He gave no thought to this, as he probably imagined, if he thought
of the coincidence at all, that the manager had called there for
something he had forgotten in his office."

"And where, then, does the manager live, if not over the bank itself?"
put in Cleek at this juncture.

"With his wife and family, in a house some distance away. A couple of old
bank people--a porter and his wife who are both thoroughly trustworthy in
every way, so Mr. Barker tells me--act as caretakers. But they positively
assert that they heard no one in the place that night, and no untoward
happening occurred to their knowledge."

"And yet the bank was