"He's a fine lad," said the inspector, thoughtfully. "I wonder what he is going to make of himself. We might have asked him who his friends were, but they are not badly off, or he couldn't have got that bag and his new clothes. What on earth caused Mason to connect him with that diamond story?" "It's hard to say," observed the constable. "I will look round and have a chat with him in the morning. Poor, little chap! He's sleeping like a top now." The inspector called at No. 3, Johnson's Mews, soon after ten next morning, but the door was locked and the bird flown. He spoke to Mason after that worthy was remanded for a week, but a night's painful seclusion had sealed the burglar's lips. He vowed, with fearful emphasis, to "get even" with the kid who "ahted" him, for the policeman's evidence had revealed the truth concerning the arrest. But not another word would Mason say about the diamonds, and for a little while the inspector placed his overnight revelations in the category of myths familiar to the police in their daily dealings with criminals. * * * * * Philip awoke shortly before seven. He was cold and stiff. The weather was chilly, and there was no ardent meteor in the back yard to keep the temperature of the house at a grateful point during the night. But his active, young frame quickly dissipated the effects of a deep sleep on a draughty floor. He washed his face and hands at the sink in the scullery, and his next thought was for breakfast, a proof, if proof were needed, that he arose refreshed in mind and body. In the Mile End Road there are plenty of early morning restaurants. At one of them he made a substantial meal, and, on his return to the mews, he lost not a moment in carrying out a systematic search through all parts of the house and yard for any traces of the meteor which might have escaped his ken in the darkness. Amidst the earth and broken stones of the excavation there were a few fragments of ore and some atomic specimens of the diamantiferous material--not sufficient, all told, to fill the palm of his hand. But he gathered them for obvious reasons, and then devoted five vigorous minutes with O'Brien's spade to the task of filling up the deep hole itself. By lowering the flagstones and breaking the earth beneath, he soon gave the small yard an appearance of chaos which might certainly puzzle people, but which would afford no possible clew to the nature of the disturbing element. At best they might imagine that the dread evidence of some weird crime lay in the broken area. If so, they could dig until they were tired. But, indeed, he was now guarding against a most unlikely hypothesis. The probability was that Johnson's Mews would soon cease to exist and become almost as fabulous as the Island of Atlantis.