t of all his unusual experiences, Robert could find nothing to
correspond to this inexplicable phenomenon; and it was with a sort of
superstitious distraction that he beheld his uncle discard his transient
hesitation and proceed with ghostly purpose to the opening of the bin.

Advancing, Raikes placed the candle upon the bed of coals and began to
unfasten the cord which secured the mouth of the bag which he carried.

Robert had never beheld anything so ghastly as his uncle's eyes, intent
but unseeing; nor so frightful as his motions, direct but
unintelligent, like those of a midnight marionette controlled by
invisible strings.

In a few moments his efforts were successful, and the incredulous Robert
beheld his uncle invert his precious burden and send a clinking,
intrinsic shower of coin to the floor.

Apparently this familiar sound had penetrated in some degree to his
inner consciousness.

An expression of vague uneasiness, of troubled irresolution, clouded his
eyes, but this semi-intellection and its transient phasis subsided to
his original apathy as, with a sigh of helpless impersonality, he began
to collect, with a silly, childish selection, as if to balance, by the
size of the individual coals, the proportion of the discharged gold,
handfuls of these dusky diamonds and substitute the sordid heaps in the
bag.

This weird absurdity concluded, Raikes, repossessing himself of the
candle, turned wearily and retraced the path of his ghostly journey.

In a little while his shuffling footfalls had concluded with the doorway
at the top of the cellar stairs, the latch was heard to click into
place, and all was still.

"Now," whispered Gratz with concentrated emphasis, "not a word--not a
sound from this moment. We have seen the accessory, now for the
principal."

In reply Robert pressed his hand upon the arm of the detective to
indicate that his instructions were understood and would be obeyed, and
in a silence through which he felt that his heart-throbs must certainly
be audible, the watchers awaited developments.

The obscurity and silence which prevailed, and the vault-like chill and
dampness, harmonized so fully with the unnatural spectacle which he had
just witnessed, and the grim expectation of something untoward still to
come, that Robert was prepared to reconsider his views of the earlier
portion of the evening as to his fitness for secret investigation and
criminal analysis.

He no longer felt the exul