mething up your sleeve," he roared. "I know you have, I
know you have!"

Inspector Wessex looked at me significantly, but I could only shrug my
shoulders in reply; for in these moods Harley was as inscrutable as the
Sphinx.

However, he had his way, and Sir Howard hurriedly putting a car in
commission, we raced for the local station and just succeeded in picking
up the express at Claybury.

Wessex was rather silent throughout the journey, often glancing in my
friend's direction, but Harley made no further reference to the case
beyond outlining the interview with Bramber, until, as we were parting
at the London terminus, Wessex to report to Scotland Yard and I to go to
Harley's rooms:

"How long do you think it will take you to find that photographer,
Wessex?" he asked. "Piccadilly is a sufficient clue."

"Well," replied the Inspector, "nothing can be done to-night, of course,
but I should think by mid-day tomorrow the matter should be settled."

"Right," said Harley shortly. "May I ask you to report the result to me,
Wessex?"

"I will report without fail."

III

ALI OF CAIRO

It was not until the evening of the following day that Harley rang me
up, and:

"I want you to come round at once," he said urgently. "The Deepbrow case
is developing along lines which I confess I had anticipated, but which
are dramatic nevertheless."

Knowing that Harley did not lightly make such an assertion, I put aside
the work upon which I was engaged and hurried around to Chancery Lane.
I found my friend, pipe in mouth, walking up and down his smoke-laden
study in a state which I knew to betoken suppressed excitement, and:

"Did Wessex find your photographer?" I asked on entering.

"Yes," he replied. "A first-class man, as I had anticipated. As I had
further anticipated he did a number of copies of the picture for the
foreign gentleman--about fifty, in fact!"

"Fifty!"

"Yes! Does the significance of that fact strike you?" asked Harley, a
queer smile stealing across his tanned, clean-shaven face.

"It is an extraordinary thing for even an ardent admirer to have so many
reproductions done of the same picture!"

"It is! I will show you now what I found trodden into one of the
footprints where the struggle took place beside the car."

Harley produced a piece of thick silk twine.

"What is it?"

"It is a link, Knox--a link to seek which I really went down to
Deepbrow." He stared at me quizzically, but my ans