"I'm coming to that," nodded Milsom. "Van Heerden is the type of scientist that never trusts his memory. You find that kind in all the school--they usually spend their time making the most complete and detailed notes, and their studies are packed with memoranda. Yet he had a wonderful memory for the commonplace things--for example, in the plain English of his three messages he was word perfect. He could tell you off-hand the names and addresses of all his agents. But when it came to scientific data his mind was a blank until he consulted his authorities. It seemed that once he made a note his mind was incapable of retaining the information he had committed to paper. That, as I say, is a phenomenon which is not infrequently met with amongst men of science." "And he had committed the code to paper?" asked Kitson. "I am coming to that. After the fire at the Paddington works, van Heerden said the time had come to make a get away. He was going to the Continent, I was to sail for Canada. 'Before you go,' he said, 'I will give you the code--but I am afraid that I cannot do that until after ten o'clock.'" McNorton was scribbling notes in shorthand and carefully circled the hour. "We went back to his flat and had breakfast together--it was then about five o'clock. He packed a few things and I particularly noticed that he looked very carefully at the interior of a little grip which he had brought the previous night from Staines. He was so furtive, carrying the bag to the light of the window, that I supposed he was consulting his code, and I wondered why he should defer giving me the information until ten o'clock. Anyway, I could swear he took something from the bag and slipped it into his pocket. We left the flat soon after and drove to a railway station where the baggage was left. Van Heerden had given me bank-notes for a thousand pounds in case we should be separated, and I went on to the house in South London. You needn't ask me where it is because van Heerden is not there." He gulped again at the wine. "At eleven o'clock van Heerden came back," resumed Milsom, "and if ever a man was panic-stricken it was he--the long and the short of it is that the code was mislaid." "Mislaid!" Beale was staggered. Here was farce interpolated into tragedy--the most grotesque, the most unbelievable farce. "Mislaid," said Milsom. "He did not say as much, but I gathered from the few disjointed words he flung at me that the code was not irredeemably lost; in fact, I have reason to believe that he knows where it is. It was after that that van Heerden started in to do some tall cursing of me, my country, my decadent race and the like. Things have been strained all the afternoon. To-night they reached a climax. He wanted me to help him in a burglary--and burglary is not my forte." "What did he want to burgle?" asked McNorton, with professional interest.