"There's been a great robbery, your Highness, last night. The London and North Western Bank has been entered, and they say that four thousand pounds in gold has been stolen." "What!" gasped the Prince, springing up. "Mr Northover's bank?" "Yes, sir. The whole town is in an uproar! I've told Mr Mason, and he's gone down to see. They say that a week ago a youngish man from London took the empty shop next door to the bank, and it's believed the thieves were secreted in there. There doesn't seem any evidence of any of the locks being tampered with, for the front door was opened with a key, and they had keys of both the doors of the strong-room. The police are utterly mystified, for Mr Northover has one key, and Mr Ashdown the other, and the doors can't be opened unless they are both there together. Both gentlemen say their keys have never left them, and none of the burglar-alarms rang." "Then it's an absolute mystery--eh," remarked the Prince, utterly astonished. "Perhaps that scoundrel Charles has had something to do with it! He went to the bank for me on several occasions!" "That's what Mr Mason and the other police officers think, sir," the waiter said. "And it seems that the men must have got out the coin, brought it into the empty shop, carried it through the back of the premises and packed it into a dark-green motor-car. A policeman out on the Worthorpe Road, saw the car pass just before two o'clock this morning. There were two men in it, besides the driver." The Prince dressed hastily, and was about to rush down to the bank to condole with Northover when the latter burst into his room in a great state of mind. "It's an absolute mystery, and so daring!" he declared. "The thieves must have had duplicate keys of the whole bank! They left all the notes, but cleared out every bit of gold coin. We had some unusually heavy deposits lately, and they've taken three thousand four hundred and thirty-two pounds!" "What about that man who took the shop next door?" "He's perfectly respectable, the police assure me. He knows nothing about it. He's hardly finished stocking the place with groceries, and opens the day after to-morrow. His name is Newman." "Then how did they get their booty away?" "That's the mystery. Unless through the back of the shop next door. No motor-car came along the street in the night, for Ashdown's child was ill, and Mrs Ashdown was up all night and heard nothing. The means by which they got such a heavy lot of coin away so neatly is as mysterious as how they obtained the keys." "Depend upon it that my scoundrelly valet has had a finger in this!" the Prince declared. "I'll assist you to try and find him. I happen to know some of his friends in London."