I began to have a deep interest in Atkinson’s love affairs and a strong desire to learn who was the favoured lady. On our way to the Office I called in at Mr Ward’s, but the jeweller failed to identify Atkinson as the buyer of the articles. He was like him, he said, but the other had Dundreary whiskers, and this man was clean shaven. Afterwards, when I had clapped a pair of artificial whiskers upon Atkinson, the jeweller was inclined to alter his opinion and say positively that it was the man, but, on the whole, the case was so weak that it never went to trial. Atkinson was released, and returned to his place “without a stain upon his character,” and so justice appeared to be defeated. The first act of the drama had ended with villainy triumphant. Let me now bring on “the wrong umbrella.” A great party was given, some months after, in a house in the New Town, and, as usual at such gatherings, there was some confusion and accidental misappropriation at the close. All that happened was easily explained and adjusted, but the case of the umbrella. Most of the guests had come in cabs, but one or two living near had come on foot, bringing umbrellas with them. The number of these could have been counted on the fingers of one hand, yet, when the party was over, the lady of the house discovered that a fine gold-mounted ivory-handled umbrella of hers had been taken, and a wretched alpaca left in its place. The missing umbrella was a present, and therefore highly prized; it was also almost fresh from the maker. It was rather suggestive, too, that the wretched thing left in its place was a gentleman’s umbrella—a big, clumsy thing, which could not have been mistaken for the other by a blind man. It seemed therefore more like a theft than a mistake, and after fruitless inquiries all round, the lady sent word to us, and a full description of the stolen umbrella was entered in the books. The theory formed by the owner was that the umbrella had been stolen by some thief who had gained admittance during the confusion, and that the umbrella left in its place had simply been forgotten by some of the guests, and had no connection with the removal of her own. Reasoning upon this ground, I first tried the pawnbrokers, without success, and then, remembering that the missing article had been heavily mounted with gold, I thought of trying some of the jewellers to see if they had bought the mounting as old gold. I had no success on that trial either, but, to my astonishment and delight, M^cSweeny, whom I had sent out to hunt on the same lines in the afternoon, brought in the umbrella, safe and sound, as it had been taken from the owner’s house. The surprising thing was that the umbrella had been got in a jeweller’s shop, at which it had been left by a gentleman to get the initials E. H. engraved on the gold top. It was a mere chance remark which led to its discovery, for when M^cSweeny called the umbrella was away at an engraver’s, and had to be sent for.