a mistake."

We entered the shop. Mr. Bruff and the proprietor exchanged a few words
in private. The lawyer joined me again, with a very crestfallen face.

"It's greatly to our credit," he said, as he took my arm, and led me
out--"that's one comfort!"

"What is to our credit?" I asked.

"Mr. Blake! you and I are the two worst amateur detectives that ever
tried their hands at the trade. The man in the grey suit has been thirty
years in the chemist's service. He was sent to the bank to pay money
to his master's account--and he knows no more of the Moonstone than the
babe unborn."

I asked what was to be done next.

"Come back to my office," said Mr. Bruff. "Gooseberry, and my second
man, have evidently followed somebody else. Let us hope that THEY had
their eyes about them at any rate!"

When we reached Gray's Inn Square, the second man had arrived there
before us. He had been waiting for more than a quarter of an hour.

"Well!" asked Mr. Bruff. "What's your news?"

"I am sorry to say, sir," replied the man, "that I have made a mistake.
I could have taken my oath that I saw Mr. Luker pass something to an
elderly gentleman, in a light-coloured paletot. The elderly gentleman
turns out, sir, to be a most respectable master iron-monger in
Eastcheap."

"Where is Gooseberry?" asked Mr. Bruff resignedly.

The man stared. "I don't know, sir. I have seen nothing of him since I
left the bank."

Mr. Bruff dismissed the man. "One of two things," he said to me. "Either
Gooseberry has run away, or he is hunting on his own account. What do
you say to dining here, on the chance that the boy may come back in an
hour or two? I have got some good wine in the cellar, and we can get a
chop from the coffee-house."

We dined at Mr. Bruff's chambers. Before the cloth was removed, "a
person" was announced as wanting to speak to the lawyer. Was the person
Gooseberry? No: only the man who had been employed to follow Mr. Luker
when he left the bank.

The report, in this case, presented no feature of the slightest
interest. Mr. Luker had gone back to his own house, and had there
dismissed his guard. He had not gone out again afterwards. Towards dusk,
the shutters had been put up, and the doors had been bolted. The street
before the house, and the alley behind the house, had been carefully
watched. No signs of the Indians had been visible. No person whatever
had been seen loitering about the premises. Having stated these facts,
the