"I have a very strong suspicion, but I have never been able to verify it. All the same, you can imagine what an enormous weight it was off my mind, and how comparatively cheerful I was as I crossed over to the hotel of Lord Littimer after breakfast. I found him literally beside himself with passion. Some thief had got into his room in the night and stolen his Rembrandt. The frame was intact, but the engraving had been rolled up and taken away." "Very like the story of the stolen Gainsborough." "No doubt the one theft inspired the other. I was sent off on foot to look for Van Sneck, only to find that he had suddenly left the city. He had got into trouble with the police, and had fled to avoid being sent to gaol. And from that day to this nothing has been seen of that picture." "But I read to-day that it is still in Littimer Castle," said David. "Another one," Bell observed. "Oblige me by opening yonder parcel. There you see is the print that I purchased to-day for L5. This, _this_, my friend, is the print that was stolen from Littimer's lodgings in Amsterdam. If you look closely at it you will see four dull red spots in the left-hand corner. They are supposed to be blood-spots from a cut finger of the artist. I am prepared to swear that this is the very print, frame and all, that was purchased in Amsterdam from that shady scoundrel Van Sneck." "But Littimer is credited with having one in his collection," David urged. "He has one in his collection," Bell said, coolly, "And, moreover, he is firmly under the impression that he is at present happy in the possession of his own lost treasure. And up to this very day I was under exactly the same delusion. Now I know that there must have been two copies of the plate, and that this knowledge was used to ruin me." "But," Steel murmured, "I don't exactly see--" "I am just coming to that. We hunted high and low for the picture, but nowhere could it be found. The affair created a profound impression in Amsterdam. A day or two later Von Gulden went back to his duty on the Belgian frontier and business called me home. I packed my solitary portmanteau and departed. When I arrived at the frontier I opened my luggage for the Custom officer and the whole contents were turned out without ceremony. On the bottom was a roll of paper on a stick that I quite failed to recognise. An inquisitive Customs House officer opened it and immediately called the lieutenant in charge. Strange to say, he proved to be Von Gulden. He came up to me, very gravely, with the paper in his hand. "'May I inquire how this came amongst your luggage?' he asked. "I could say nothing; I was dumb. For there lay the Rembrandt. The red spots had been smudged out of the corner, but there, the picture was.