ht to watch them! When I
have looked them over with a magnifying-glass, hour after hour, till my
eyes ached; till every tiny blotch, and chip, and dinge became as
familiar to me as his chart to a captain; as familiar as they doubtless
have been all the time to every thick-headed area-prowler within the
bounds of mortality. See here, young man, look at these!" He ranged
the lamps in a row on the top of the cabinet. "Did you ever see a set
of lamps of these shapes--of any one of these shapes? Look at these
dominant figures on them! Did you ever see so complete a set--even in
Scotland Yard; even in Bow Street? Look! one on each, the seven forms
of Hathor. Look at that figure of the Ka of a Princess of the Two
Egypts, standing between Ra and Osiris in the Boat of the Dead, with
the Eye of Sleep, supported on legs, bending before her; and Harmochis
rising in the north. Will you find that in the British Museum--or Bow
Street? Or perhaps your studies in the Gizeh Museum, or the
Fitzwilliam, or Paris, or Leyden, or Berlin, have shown you that the
episode is common in hieroglyphics; and that this is only a copy.
Perhaps you can tell me what that figure of Ptah-Seker-Ausar holding
the Tet wrapped in the Sceptre of Papyrus means? Did you ever see it
before; even in the British Museum, or Gizeh, or Scotland Yard?"

He broke off suddenly; and then went on in quite a different way:

"Look here! it seems to me that the thick-headed idiot is myself! I
beg your pardon, old fellow, for my rudeness. I quite lost my temper
at the suggestion that I do not know these lamps. You don't mind, do
you?" The Detective answered heartily:

"Lord, sir, not I. I like to see folks angry when I am dealing with
them, whether they are on my side or the other. It is when people are
angry that you learn the truth from them. I keep cool; that is my
trade! Do you know, you have told me more about those lamps in the
past two minutes than when you filled me up with details of how to
identify them."

Mr. Corbeck grunted; he was not pleased at having given himself away.
All at once he turned to me and said in his natural way:

"Now tell me how you got them back?" I was so surprised that I said
without thinking:

"We didn't get them back!" The traveller laughed openly.

"What on earth do you mean?" he asked. "You didn't get them back!
Why, there they are before your eyes! We found you looking at them
when we came in." By this time I