With nothing like regularity of time or periodicity, but with great frequency, a shabby hack brougham might be seen about or after dusk proceeding along a road leading through a western reach of the metropolis into the most picturesque western suburb. My clue began with the vehicle at the north-eastern corner of the Green Park, and ended just on the eastern entrance to the village of ----. It was a suspicious fact that this hack brougham was not driven by the same man throughout the entire distance. One driver was met about half way on the road, when he alighted from the box, and handed the whip to the person (always the same) who met him. The brougham was one of those registered at Somerset House as a cab. It was a private vehicle, which appeared like the property of some indigent postmaster or jobber. Where could this vehicle go to and come from? Among the difficulties in our case was that of tracing the goods. It was, I confess, not a little remarkable that no part of the goods could be traced. We had searched all the most notorious "fences." I do not think there was one known place in which goods of the kind in question would be brought that we had not examined. Could this brougham be the means of conveying the plunder in small quantities to and from its place of concealment to the place or places of conversion into money? Those were questions we determined to solve. A diligent watch was set at stages from the Green Park to ----. Next evening the carriage did not present itself, nor the next; but on the third evening it was seen to emerge from a lane in Piccadilly, near to a street in which there is an inferior livery-stable. It was now followed and kept in sight during its entire journey. I saw the driver changed. I critically scanned the hirsute visage of the rider. Just outside the village of ----, on the high road, there stood, and yet stands, a cottage residence, in not the finest state, with coachhouse and stabling for more carriages and horses than the occupant seemed to make use of. The house was, I may also explain, shut out from the view of travellers by a close wooden paling, a high gate, and a tall, dense, leafy hedge. At this cottage the brougham stopped. The rider alighted, and the servant placed the horse and vehicle in the outbuildings allotted to them, which were entered by the rear. All this looked to me very suspicious. I determined, however, to pursue my inquiries. There was not yet enough evidence, in my own opinion, to justify an application for a search-warrant, and less justification for any one's arrest on a criminal charge. Inquiries in the village and neighbourhood elicited not much; but the few scraps of fact that we did get tended to fortify a suspicion that here was a depôt of the plunder.