bank people--a porter and his wife who are both thoroughly trustworthy in
every way, so Mr. Barker tells me--act as caretakers. But they positively
assert that they heard no one in the place that night, and no untoward
happening occurred to their knowledge."

"And yet the bank was broken into, and the gold taken," supplemented
Cleek quietly. "And what then, Mr. Narkom? How was the deed done?"

"Oh, the usual methods. The skeleton keys of a master crook obviously
opened the door to the premises themselves, and soup was used to crack
the safe. Everything was left perfectly neat and tidy and only the bags
of gold--amounting to seven hundred and fifty pounds--were gone. And not
a trace of a clue to give one a notion of who did the confounded thing,
or where they came from!"

"Hmm. Any finger-prints?"

Mr. Narkom shook his head.

"None. The thief or thieves used rubber gloves to handle the thing. And
that was the only leg given us to stand upon, so to speak. For rubber
gloves, when they are new, particularly, possess a very strong smell,
and this still clung to the door-knob of the safe, and to several
objects near it. That was how we deduced the rubber-glove theory of
no finger-prints at all, Cleek."

"And a very worthy deduction too, my friend," responded that gentleman,
with something of tolerance in his smile. "And so you have absolutely
nothing to go by. Poor Mr. Narkom! The path of Law and Justice is by no
means an easy one to tread, is it? Of course you can count upon me to