“‘He killed the brother of the gamekeeper,’ said the policeman, ‘and he stole hens.’ Of course I knew that he was lying, because a real thief would have taken the saucepans away, and had the policeman known him he would have arrested him. ‘Does the Prince know this?’ I asked. ‘Of course he knows it,’ answered the policeman. ‘Then why does not he insist on his arrest?’ I asked. ‘The Prince has pity on us,’ said the policeman. ‘We are poor people. If he were arrested he would soon come back again and probably kill me; he would certainly burn my house. The Prince knows. What does it matter if he stole a few saucepans? The Prince will buy new ones. The Prince does not mind. He will do no further harm. He has come back to see his home and his native village.’ Questioned as to whether the clerk was connected with the theft, the policeman laughed. He said the clerk was ‘red,’ and busied himself with politics, but was not a hooligan. “I asked him if sufficient proof were found whether he would arrest the thief. ‘May God forfend!’ answered this amazing policeman. I also ascertained from him that a large sum of money, about half a million roubles, will be transported from the town of O---- to the town of X---- to-morrow. Then I returned home. “You now doubtless understand the object of the _coup_. It is to obtain money for the revolutionary funds, and the object of the theft of saucepans was to throw suspicion, when the _coup_ should take place, on an indefinite band of robbers who would be supposed to be lurking in the neighbourhood. “Now we come to further links in the chain. The young Prince, as you remember, was in the habit of taking the skat-scoring book every evening from the drawing-room in the wooden house to his sitting-room in this house, and of bringing it back every morning and leaving it in the front hall. Why did he do this; and why the front hall? I suppose that even you, Watson, have already concluded that the spurious thief of the saucepans and the leading spirit of this dark conspiracy is none other than the young Prince. He could not communicate openly with the clerk, nor see him too often without raising suspicion, so every evening he wrote what he had to say in cipher on the blank leaves provided at the end of the book for scoring purposes, and left the book in a prominent place. The clerk called at the house on business matters and tore off a leaf from the book and left an answer in it, if he wished to do so.” “Most ingenious,” I interrupted; “but why did the book disappear?”