"Good! We will have the particulars at that time. And now about this Englishman's case; put what your 'tracker' has done into a report--or do you intend to work in the dark, like Stanhope?" "Ah, what is Stanhope about?" "I don't know. He took his time; has not been seen or heard of here for four weeks." Vernet tapped the desk beside him, and looked thoughtfully at his _vis-a-vis_. "Stanhope's a queer fish," he said abstractedly; "a queer fish." Then, rising, he added: "I will send my report to-morrow." "Very good." "And I shall not follow Stanhope's example. Once I am fairly entered into the case, I shall send my reports regularly." "I'm glad of that," said his Chief, rising and following him to the door. "Under the circumstances, I'm glad of that." CHAPTER LII. THE VERDICT OF AN EXPERT. Late in the afternoon of the day following that on which Carnegie the Expert had received his commission from the Chief of the detectives, he appeared again in the presence of that personage. He carried his "documents" in a small packet, which he laid upon the desk, and he turned upon the Chief a face as cheerful and as full of suppressed activity as usual. "Well?" queried the Chief, glancing down at the packet, "have you done?" "Yes;" beginning to open the packet with quick, nervous fingers. "And you found--" He paused and looked up at the Expert. Carnegie took from the packet the letter addressed to Alan Warburton, and written in the scrawling, unreadable hand. This he spread open upon the desk. Then he took another letter, written in an elegant hand, and with various vigorous ornamental flourishes. This he laid beside the first, pushing the remaining letters carelessly aside as if they were of no importance. "I find--" he said, looking hard at the Chief, and putting one forefinger upon the elegant bit of penmanship, the other upon the unreadable scrawl;--"I find that these two were written by the same hand." The Chief leaned forward; he had not been able to see the writing from the place in which he sat. He leaned closer and fixed his eyes upon the two signatures. The one he had seen before; the other was signed--_Vernet_. Slowly he withdrew his eyes from the signature, and turned them upon the face of the Expert. "Carnegie," he asked, "do you ever make a mistake?" "_I?_" Carnegie's look said the rest. "Because," went on the Chief, scarcely noticing Carnegie's indignant exclamation, "if you _ever_ made a mistake, I should say, I should wish to believe, that this was one." "It's no mistake," replied the Expert grimly. "I never saw a clearer case." [Illustration: "Carnegie, do you ever make a mistake?"--page 376.] The Chief passed his hand across his brow, and seemed to meditate, while the Expert gathered up the heap of letters and arranged them once more into a neat packet. "If you are still in doubt," he said tartly, "you might try--somebody else."