"McTaggart ..." The Home Secretary was about to blurt out the truth and tell him what McTaggart had singularly announced. But he checked himself. To insult his last remaining prop would be fatal. "Oh, McTaggart?" he evaded. "Why, McTaggart said he hadn't got it." "Ar! just so. 'E did, did 'e? Now, that's _very_ important," affirmed Mr. Collop, and he noted that down also. "Now here," he continued, slipping an elastic band over the notebook and putting it back into his pocket--"here, Mr. Dee Boe Hun, we 'ave got three 'ypothetics." He again began ticking them off on the thumb and fingers of the left hand. "First 'ypothetic: Lord Galton stole the em'rald. Second 'ypothetic: Old Giglamps stole the em'rald ... Tortoise-shell specs, I mean: the schoolmaster," and he winked again. "Third 'ypothetic: McTaggart stole the em'rald. Now these three 'ypothetics," he went on, "lead to three totally different conclusions. Each of 'em has its conjunctions and conjugations. Mr. Dee Boe Hun," he concluded, rising and assuming hieratic tones, "I shall not sleep to-night." (There is many a true word spoken in lying.) "I shall bend all the energies of me mind in the ensuing hours of darkness, and on the morrow you shall 'ave my conclusions.... I'll trouble you, sir, to leave me a syphon and a drop o' something. Helps me to concentrate." "I'm afraid," said the Home Secretary, "the servants will have cleared the drinks away from the library, and they have all gone to bed." Then, terrified lest the lack of sustenance should imperil victory, he added hurriedly: "Don't move! Pray don't move! I think I know where to find it." He was away some time, going on tiptoe in the offices. When he returned it was with an unopened bottle of whiskey, a syphon and a glass. "I'm afraid I have no corkscrew," he apologised. "I 'ave," said the imperturbable Collop, who had sat royally in his chair to receive this tribute. He pulled out the cork, smelt the brand, approved of it, poured himself out a dope and a most miserable little splash from the syphon. "Here's luck!" he said. "Cheerio! Now you leave me _to_ it!" And de Bohun left him to it, ardently praying with what was left of his childhood's faith to a God in whom he still vaguely believed, that never again in the remaining years of his declining life should he be compelled to harbour under the roof of Paulings any unit from the mighty Secret Service which he commanded, and inwardly deciding that he would relinquish that command for India, Paris, South Africa--nay, New Zealand--anything rather than bear such a burden again. CHAPTER THIRTEEN It is a fascinating occupation to watch a powerful human brain at work upon some great problems--the face alive with mind, the tension of the muscles, the frowning eyes; and to feel behind it all that driving, compelling power of the intelligence wherein man is God-like.