by that? “Might be a couple of football elevens,” he muttered with a shade of sarcastic bitterness. “Only one thing for it,” he concluded after seven abortive attempts to extract any pertinent information from a number of dead and gone historians—“only one thing for it, and that is to work systematically and methodically right through the incidents of Mary’s life as I find them recorded here.” He arranged all the volumes he had requisitioned, side by side, and started to go through them, as far as possible, simultaneously. An hour and a half’s arduous exertion yielded him nothing, and even his own inexhaustible supply of patience combined with intellectual optimism began to feel the strain. But it is the darkest hour before the dawn—suddenly a sentence from the fourth of his arranged books seemed to leap from the page upon which it was printed! Anthony’s eyes glistened—he read on with feverish excitement—he felt certain in his mind that at last he had run to earth his first clue to the identification of “The Cardinal’s great gift.” At least, here was a definite start and a start of the right kind! Fortified with this piece of knowledge, he ransacked every book for additional data. Fruitlessly! Here all success ended—not a single page told him anything more. He worked on for another hour; then he began to tell himself that he was ploughing the sands. “After all,” he soliloquized, “what more can I really reasonably expect to find? If Réné de St. Maure knew what he did know and yet remained ignorant of the real secret of Girardier’s work—how can I expect to find any trace of this knowledge in other historians who were probably nothing like so well placed for knowledge as de St. Maure himself? This part of the problem I shall have to solve by my own ingenuity.” He pushed his chair back from the table—and thought the whole question over very carefully, omitting nothing and giving every possible point the fullest examination and consideration. Suddenly he came to a decision. He returned the books he had requisitioned to the appropriate attendant, at the same time requesting access to recent files of “The Times” and “The Daily Telegraph.” “Those two will do for a start,” he said to himself—“it’s only an idea on my part and it may lead nowhere, but I should like to test my theory before relinquishing it.” Starting with “The Times,” he ran his eye down the “Personal” column on the front page—day by day—six copies to each week—till he had worked back as far as the 1st January. Nothing caught his eye as being likely to be what he wanted. He paused at several—considering them with the utmost discrimination—but eventually, occasionally perhaps with a certain amount of reluctance, decided to discard them as inappropriate. He then commenced on the file of the “Daily Telegraph.” The first few days were quickly disposed of. But at the second item of the “Personal” column of the copy for Monday, May 30th, he paused. The message ran as follows:—“M. S.