Close, wherein, day in and day out, amidst priceless volumes
and manuscripts, huge folios and weighty quartos, old prints,
and relics of the mediaeval ages, Ambrose Campany, the
librarian, was pretty nearly always to be found, ready to
show his treasures to the visitors and tourists who came
from all parts of the world to see a collection well known
to bibliophiles. And Ambrose Campany, a cheery-faced,
middle-aged man, with booklover and antiquary written all over
him, shockheaded, blue-spectacled, was there now, talking to
an old man whom Bryce knew as a neighbour of his in Friary
Lane--one Simpson Barker, a quiet, meditative old fellow,
believed to be a retired tradesman who spent his time in
gentle pottering about the city. Bryce, as he entered, caught
what Campany was just then saying.

"The most important thing I've heard about it," said Campany,
"is--that book they found in the man's suit-case at the Mitre.
I'm not a detective--but there's a clue!"




CHAPTER VI

BY MISADVENTURE


Old Simpson Harker, who sat near the librarian's table, his
hands folded on the crook of his stout walking stick, glanced
out of a pair of unusually shrewd and bright eyes at Bryce as