Once it was safely transferred from the railway truck to the deck, Carne was accosted by a tall, swarthy individual, who, from his importance, seemed to be both the owner and the skipper of the vessel. They went down into the saloon together, and a few moments later an observer, had one been there, might have seen a cheque for a considerable sum of money change hands. An hour later the _Jessie Branker_ was steaming out to sea, and a military-looking individual, not at all to be compared with the industrious mechanic who had shipped the furniture van on board the vessel bound for Spain, stood on the platform of the station waiting for the express train to London. On reaching the metropolis he discovered it surging beneath the weight of a great excitement. The streets re-echoed with the raucous cries of the newsvenders: "The Derby favorite stolen--Vulcanite missing from his stable!" Next morning an advertisement appeared in every paper of consequence, offering "A reward of Five Hundred Pounds for any information that might lead to the conviction of the person or persons who on the morning of May 28th had stolen, or caused to be stolen, from the Pitman Training Stables, the Derby favorite, Vulcanite, the property of the Right Honorable the Earl of Calingforth." The week following, Knight of Malta, owned by Simon Carne, Esq., of Dorchester House, Park Lane, won the Derby by a neck in a scene of intense excitement, the Mandarin being second, and The Filibuster third. It is a strange fact that to this day not a member of the racing world has been able to solve the mystery surrounding the disappearance of one of the greatest horses that ever set foot on an English race-course. To-day, if Simon Carne thinks of that momentous occasion when, amid the shouting crowd of Epsom, he led his horse back a winner, he smiles softly to himself and murmurs beneath his breath: "Valued at twenty thousand pounds, and beaten in the Derby by a furniture van." *CHAPTER V.* *A SERVICE TO THE STATE.* It was the day following that upon which Simon Carne, presented by the Earl of Amberley, had made his bow before the Heir Apparent at the second levee of the season, that Klimo entered upon one of the most interesting cases which had so far come into his experience. The clock in his consulting-room had just struck one when his elderly housekeeper entered and handed him a card, bearing the name of Mrs. George Jeffreys, 14 Bellamer Street, Bloomsbury. The detective immediately bade his servant admit the visitor, and, almost before he had given the order, the lady in question stood before him.