"Obviously, then, Schmall, Van Koon, and Merrifield were in league--whether Ebers was also in league, or was a catspaw, we did not trouble to decide. But there was another fact which seemed to have some bearing, though it is one which I have never yet worked out--perhaps some of you know something of it. It was this: Just before he went to Russia, Mr. James Allerdyke, being in town, gave me a photograph of himself which Mr. Marshall Allerdyke had recently taken. I kept that photo lying on my desk at Mr. Fullaway's for some time. One day I missed it. It is such an unusual thing for me to misplace anything that I turned over every paper on my desk in searching for it. It was not to be found. Four days later I found it, exactly where it ought to have been. Now, you can draw your own conclusions from that--mine are that Ebers stole it, so that he could reproduce it in order to give his reproduction to some person who wanted to identify James Allerdyke at sight. "However, to go forward to the discovery which we made about Schmall, Van Koon, and Merrifield. As soon as we made that discovery, Mr. Rayner was for going to the police at once, but I thought not--there was still certain evidence which I wanted, so that the case could be presented without a flaw. However, all of a sudden I saw that we should have to act. Ebers was found dead in a small hotel near the Docks, and at a conference in which Mr. Fullaway insisted I should join, in his rooms, and at which Van Koon, who had been playing a bluff game, was present, there was enough said to convince me that Van Koon and his associates would take alarm and be off with what they believed themselves to possess--the jewels in that parcel. So then Mr. Rayner and I determined on big measures. And they were risky ones--for me.