"You are the very man I was looking for," he said to me. "I had a thief in my house last night. One of the veranda doors was found open, but the queer part of the business is that he only took a clock. Thank goodness, he did not walk off with the Sultan's Cup." "That's funny!" I replied. "Exactly the same thing happened to Barton last night, even to the article stolen. Let's go and have a look." Examination convinced me that the robbery had been carried out in identically the same manner, and I grew puzzled. "What does your 'boy' say?" I asked. "He probably forgot to bolt the door. I am almost sure that is what happened at Barton's." "I can answer for that," replied the doctor. "I am a pretty late bird, as you fellows know; I did not turn in till about two last night, and I fastened the two doors myself." If ever I searched a house thoroughly I did that one, but not a scrap of any sort of evidence could I find, in spite of my boast. I next sent the sergeant-major to scour the pawnshops, but without success; no one had tried to pawn a clock that day. The climax was reached the following morning when, as I was returning from early parade, one of the Resident's "boys" met me with a note:-- "You might come up to the Residency and investigate a burglary which took place here last night. A clock was stolen." I trust neither the boy nor my Sikh orderly fully understood my remarks on the subject. The doctor and Barton might pass their little robberies off as a joke, but a burglary at the Residency was a very different matter. Exactly the same thing had occurred. A door had been found open and a clock gone. Nothing else had been touched. The Resident's remarks on the efficiency of my force as guardians of the peace were not complimentary, but distinctly to the point. Very sore, and very much mystified, I put my pride in my pocket and sent for Sergeant Cassim. When he arrived I took him on one side and discussed these three bewildering robberies with him. "Perhaps you can make something out of them," I said. "I believe it is the servants in each case." He walked round the Resident's drawing-room, examined the floor of the veranda and the steps, and then said:-- "I shall be able to tell the Tuan to-morrow morning who committed the robberies." "If you are so certain, why not now?" "The Tuan must give me time to think and act." That afternoon I received a letter through the post addressed to me in Malay. It contained a slip of paper bearing the following words, also in Malay:-- "If the Tuan will pretend he is going away to-night, and will return about eleven and hide near the veranda of his house, he will catch the burglar." I have received a fair number of anonymous letters in my time, which usually meant nothing, but this was the oddest of them all. Why on earth should I pretend to leave for the night? Why could I not have been told merely to hide?