He took each up in turn and looked them over and over. But he only shook
his head.

"I don't see anything to guide us," he said.

"Don't you?" I cried. "Why, they tell me more than I have learnt from
anything else I've seen. Look at the two ends of this. They're seized!"

I looked triumphantly at him, but he only stared at me in surprise, and
said, "What do you mean by 'seized'?"

"Why, I mean that the ends are bound up in this way--look for yourself.
Now not one landsman in a hundred _seizes_ a rope's end. This line was
taken from some ship in the harbour, and----By Jove! here's another
discovery!"

"What now?" he cried, being by this time almost as excited as I was
myself.

"Why, look here," I said, holding the middle of the rope up to the
light, so that we could get a better view of it. "Not very many hours
ago this rope was running through a block, and that block was an
uncommon one."

"How do you know that it was an uncommon one?"

"Because it has been newly painted, and what's funnier still, painted
green, of all other colours. Look at this streak of paint along the
line; see how it's smudged. Now, let's review the case as we walk
along."

So saying, with the Marquis between us, we set off down the street,
hoping to be able to pick up a cab.

"First and foremost," I said, "remember old Draper's talk of the South
Seas--remember the collection of curios he possessed. Probably he owns a
schooner, and it's more than probable that this line and this bit of
canvas came from it."

"I see what you're driving at," said the Inspector. "It's worth
considering. Directly I get to the office I will set men to work to try
and find this mysterious gentleman. You would know him again, my lord?"

"I should know him anywhere," was Beckenham's immediate reply.

"And have you any idea at all where this house, to which he conducted
you, is located?"

"None at all. I only know that it was about half-way down a street of
which all the houses, save the one at the corner--which was a grocer's
shop--were one-storied villas."

"Nothing a little more definite, I suppose?"

"Stay! I remember that there was an empty house with broken windows
almost opposite, and that on either side of the steps leading up to the
front door were two stone eagles with out-stretched wings. The head of
one of the eagles--the left, I think--was missing."

The Inspector noted these things in his pocket-book, and just as he had
finished we pick