If you see, on one hand, ice forming on a pool, and, on the other, a thermometer rising slowly to blood-heat, you may be satisfied in your mind that something is wrong somewhere. Nature cannot make mistakes. Thermometers are equally infallible. Look for the human agency at work on the mercury bulb for the jet of hot air directed to the instrument. In this parable is explained the market position, and T. B. Smith, who dealt with huge, vague problems like markets and wars and national prosperity, was looking for the hot-air current. The market rises because big people buy big quantities of shares; it falls because these same people sell, and T. B. Smith happened to know that nobody was buying. That is, nobody of account--Eckhardts, Tollingtons, or Bronte's Bank. You can account for the rise of a particular share by some local and favourable circumstance, but when the market as a whole moves up----? "We can trace no transactions," wrote Mr. Louis Vell, of the firm of Vell, Vallings & Boys, Brokers, "carried out by or on behalf of the leading jobbers. The market improvement in Industrial Stocks is due, as far as we can gather, to Continental buying--an unusual circumstance." Who was the "philanthropist" who was making a market in stagnant stocks? Whoever it was, he or they repented long before T. B. Smith had reached the Central Criminal Court, which was his objective. He was a witness in the Gildie Bank fraud case, and his cross-examination at the hands of one of the most relentless of counsel occupied three hours. This concluded to everybody's satisfaction, save counsel's, T. B. Smith, who hated the law courts, walked out into Old Bailey to find newsboys loudly proclaiming, "Slump on the Stock Exchange!" "Thank Heaven, that bubble's burst!" said T. B. piously, and walked back to Scotland Yard, whistling. He did not doubt that the artificial rise had failed, and that the market had gone back to normal. At the corner of the Thames Embankment he bought a paper, and the first item of news he read was: "Consols have fallen to 84." Now, Consols that morning had stood at 90, and T. B. Smith stopped whistling. CHAPTER X THE ANTICIPATORS T. B. Smith strolled into the room of Superintendent Elk. Elk is a detective officer chiefly remarkable for his memory. A tall, thin, sad man, who affects a low turned-down collar and the merest wisp of a black tie. If he has any other pose than his desire to be taken for a lay preacher, it is his pose of ignorance on most subjects. Elk's attitude to the world at large is comprehended in the phrase, "I am a child in these things," which accounts to a very great extent for the rapidity of his promotion in the Criminal Investigation Department. T. B.'s face wore a frown, and he twirled a paper-knife irritably. "Elk," he said, without any preliminary, "the market has gone to the devil." "Again?" said Elk politely, having knowledge without interest.