ecover the articles before their identity could be obliterated, I
could see the rare intellectual skill with which he gave the necessary
matter and held back all else, though without seeming to do so.
"Truly," thought I, "this man has learned the lesson of the Eastern
bazaars; and with Western intellect has improved upon his masters!" He
quite conveyed his idea to the Detective, who, after thinking the
matter over for a few moments, said:

"Pot or scale? that is the question."

"What does that mean?" asked the other, keenly alert.

"An old thieves phrase from Birmingham. I thought that in these days
of slang everyone knew that. In old times at Brum, which had a lot of
small metal industries, the gold- and silver-smiths used to buy metal
from almost anyone who came along. And as metal in small quantities
could generally be had cheap when they didn't ask where it came from,
it got to be a custom to ask only one thing--whether the customer
wanted the goods melted, in which case the buyer made the price, and
the melting-pot was always on the fire. If it was to be preserved in
its present state at the buyer's option, it went into the scale and
fetched standard price for old metal.

"There is a good deal of such work done still, and in other places than
Brum. When we're looking for stolen watches we often come across the
works, and it's not possible to identify wheels and springs out of a
heap; but it's not often that we come across cases that are wanted.
Now, in the present instance much will depend on whether the thief is a
good man--that's what they call a man who knows his work. A
first-class crook will know whether a thing is of more value than
merely the metal in it; and in such case he would put it with someone
who could place it later on--in America or France, perhaps. By the
way, do you think anyone but yourself could identify your lamps?"

"No one but myself!"

"Are there others like them?"

"Not that I know of," answered Mr. Corbeck; "though there may be others
that resemble them in many particulars." The Detective paused before
asking again: "Would any other skilled person--at the British Museum,
for instance, or a dealer, or a collector like Mr. Trelawny, know the
value--the artistic value--of the lamps?"

"Certainly! Anyone with a head on his shoulders would see at a glance
that the things were valuable."

The Detective's face brightened. "Then there is a chance. If your
door was locked and