It happened this way. When I recovered from the fever, I was helping Denniston to make an inventory of poor Pinkerton's personal effects, so that we could send them to his relatives, when we made the unpleasant discovery that a sum of £20 which he had in his possession was missing. Pinkerton used to carry the money in Turkish liras in the pocket of his trousers; and as I had been shifted into his room after his death because it was larger and airier than my own, his trousers were hanging on a nail on the wall right opposite my bed. We examined the pockets, but they were empty. Then I began to think back and to think hard. Gradually there appeared before the eye of my mind the picture of a shadowy, misty, unsubstantial figure, that wobbled grievously from side to side as it walked, and seemed to turn round and round with the room, the bed, the chair, and the window, which all swung and oscillated like the engines of the little Messageries steamer that brought us up to Trebizond. What on earth was the captain of the Messageries steamer going to do! and how the little tub was rolling, to be sure! Was it the captain, though, or some one else? I fastened all the will power of my brain, healthy once more, upon the misty shadow cast upon its disordered surface during illness. I saw the scene again, more distinctly now, and noted that the wobbling figure approached the wall exactly at the spot where the trousers hung on the nail opposite my bed. The engines seemed to be slowing down, little by little the room ceased to revolve, and at last the figure turned round towards my bed, and I saw the face. It was not the captain of the steamer, but it was Vachin, our dragoman, and he was deliberately counting out money from poor Pinkerton's trousers pocket. All this came back to me with greater clearness the longer I thought over it; and at last I felt morally certain that Vachin was the thief, and that he had cynically taken the money before my eyes, knowing that I was delirious, and confident that I would never recover to bear witness against him.