and set me to work ferreting out some crime
that has never been committed? My feeling was that this would happen, and
I pulled out my watch to see if it were not nearly time for him to arrive.
The robbery had taken place at a state ball at the Buckingham Palace.
'H'm!' I mused. 'He has had an hour and forty minutes to get here. It is
now twelve twenty. He should be here by twelve forty-five. I will wait.'
And hastily swallowing a cocaine tablet to nerve myself up for the
meeting, I sat down and began to read my Schopenhauer. Hardly had I
perused a page when there came a tap upon my door. I rose with a smile,
for I thought I knew what was to happen, opened the door, and there stood,
much to my surprise, the husband of the lady whose tiara was missing. It
was the Duke of Brokedale himself. It is true he was disguised. His beard
was powdered until it looked like snow, and he wore a wig and a pair of
green goggles; but I recognized him at once by his lack of manners, which
is an unmistakable sign of nobility. As I opened the door, he began:

"'You are Mr.--'

"'I am,' I replied. 'Come in. You have come to see me about your stolen
watch. It is a gold hunting-case watch with a Swiss movement; loses five
minutes a day; stem-winder; and the back cover, which does not bear any
inscription, has upon it the indentations made by the molars of your son
Willie when that interesting youth was cutting his teeth upon it.'"

"Wonderful!" cried Johnson.

"May I ask how you knew all that?" asked Solomon, deeply impressed. "Such
penetration strikes me as marvellous."

"I didn't know it," replied the stranger, with a smile. "What I said was
intended to be jocular, and to put Brokedale at his ease. The Americans
present, with their usual astuteness, would term it bluff. It was. I
merely rattled on. I simply did not wish to offend the gentleman by
letting him know that I had penetrated his disguise. Imagine my surprise,
however, when his eye brightened as I spoke, and he entered my room with
such alacrity that half the powder which he thought disguised his beard
was shaken off on to the floor. Sitting down in the chair I had just
vacated, he quietly remarked:

"'You are a wonderful man, sir. How did you know that I had lost my
watch?'

"For a moment I was nonplussed; more than that, I was completely
staggered. I had expected him to say at once that he had not lost his
watch, but had come to see me about the tiara; and to have him take m