"The result?" he answered. "Why, the old Johnnie, when he saw the paraphernalia, stood dumbfounded, and when he put it together and commenced experimenting seemed speechless in amazement. The discovery, he declared, was among the greatest and most important of those made within the last twenty years. He sent messengers for a dozen other scientific men, who, when they saw the arrangement, examined it with great care and were equally amazed with old Braithwaite. All were extremely anxious as to the identity of the discoverer of this mode of liquefying almost the last of the refractory gases, but I, of course, held my tongue for a most excellent reason--I did not myself know. I merely explained that the apparatus had fallen into my hands accidentally and I wished to ascertain its use." "Then quite a flutter has been caused among these dry-as-dust old fossils," I observed, laughing. "A flutter!" Dick echoed. "Why, the whole of the scientific world will be in a state of highest excitement to-morrow when the truth becomes known. Old Braithwaite declared that the discoverer deserves an immediate knighthood." "Let's be off," Boyd said. He took no interest in the discovery. Like myself, his only object was to solve the mystery. "Then I'm not to go?" Dick said inquiringly. "No," the detective replied. "I'm sorry, but a crowd of us will queer the thing. You shall have all the details later. Patterson has promised that you shall publish first news of the affair." Dick was sorely disappointed, I saw it in his face; nevertheless, with a light laugh he wished us goodbye when we emerged into Fleet Street, and hurried away back to the offices of the _Comet_, while Boyd and myself jumped into a hansom outside St. Dunstan's Church, and drove along Pall Mall as far as St. James's Palace, where we alighted and entered the park. The detective explained his tactics during the drive. They were that we should separate immediately on entering the park, and that he should go alone to the spot indicated by the mysterious voice, while I idled in the vicinity. I was to act just as I pleased, but we were not to recognise one another either by look or sign.