Michael met them at the station and noticed the constraint of the party. He understood the reason when a bedraggled Moya and a young man, whose face was criss-crossed with scratches and whose clothes were in threads, made their appearance. There was no explanation possible and Michael wisely asked for none. He handed over Lord Flanborough and his friend to the care of the city detective officer in charge of the case and when they had gone he turned to Moya. “Have you two people been fighting?” he asked. “Father’s horribly angry with me,” she said, “because I am going to marry Fonso.” He stared at her in amazement. “Do you mean to tell me that you are not going to marry Ralph?” “I am not,” she said resolutely. “And this is Fonso?” The girl nodded. Michael threw back his head and filled the station with laughter. “You don’t know Fonso, do you?” she said. “He’s horribly poor. Aren’t you, dear?” “Horribly,” admitted the young man but did not seem unhappy. “And you are going to marry him?” said Michael. “Of course I am going to marry him,” said the girl wrathfully. “I didn’t expect that you would disapprove.” “Disapprove?” he chuckled and catching her up in his strong arms he kissed her. “We will all go along and have some grub,” he said; “dash home and make yourself respectable, Moya. I see your father has left his car for you. Meet me at Sebo’s in an hour’s time.” CHAPTER XIII. THE CHRONOLOGY OF A GREAT THEFT It is necessary to tell the story of what was undoubtedly one of the strangest and most audacious crimes recorded in the annals of crime with greater detail and at greater length than is ordinarily necessary. Le Flavier of the French police, who is surely the greatest living authority on the subject of modern crime, has likened Kate Westhanger’s masterpiece (he does not refer to her, by the way) to the first of the Napoleonic campaigns against Italy and has published an elaborate treatise showing the points of resemblance which are not so far fetched as some of the critics, in their hasty review of this work, are justified in saying. Kirschner, a little quoted authority, but nevertheless a brilliant and talented philocriminologist, has said that it would be humanly possible to reduplicate such a crime and that at any rate it would be wholly impossible to excel the ingenuity which planned the strategics of the issue. At 8:30 on the night of May 14th the _Charter Queen_, eight thousand tons, commander T. Brown, came to her moorings in E-basin, No. 3 Quay of the Seahampton Docks. She carried a hundred-and-twenty third class passengers, seventy-four second class and fifty-nine first class passengers, a general cargo and in her strong-room forty-four thousand, eight hundred pounds of bar gold. They were made up of four-hundred and forty-eight hundred-pound ingots, bearing the stamp of the Central Rand Gold Extraction Company.