"
We furnished him with an empty suit-case, and, from the window, watched
him making for Mitre Court at a smart double.
"I wonder if he will find the booty," said Thorndyke. "It just depends
on whether the hiding-place was known to more than one of the gang.
Well, it has been a quaint case, and instructive, too. I suspect our
friend Barton and the evasive Schoenberg were the collaborators who
produced that curiosity of literature."
"May I ask how you deciphered the thing?" I said. "It didn't appear to
take long."
"It didn't. It was merely a matter of testing a hypothesis; and you
ought not to have to ask that question," he added, with mock severity,
"seeing that you had what turn out to have been all the necessary facts,
two days ago. But I will prepare a document and demonstrate to you
to-morrow morning."
* * * * *
"So Miller was successful in his quest," said Thorndyke, as we smoked
our morning pipes after breakfast. "The 'entire swag,' as he calls it,
was 'up the chimbly,' undisturbed."
He handed me a note which had been left, with the empty suit-case, by a
messenger, shortly before, and I was about to read it when an agitated
knock was heard at our door.
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