A very few minutes sufficed to give us the facts. Mr. Rolf had gone out of the

hotel at 11.15. At 11.30, a gentleman, so like him in appearance as to pass

muster, entered the hotel and demanded the jewel-case from the safe deposit. He

duly signed the receipt, remarking carelessly as he did so: “Looks a bit

different from my ordinary one, but I hurt my hand getting out of the taxi.” The

clerk merely smiled and remarked that he saw very little difference.

 

Rolf laughed and said: “Well, don’t run me in as a crook this time, anyway. I’ve

been getting threatening letters from a Chinaman, and the worst of it is I look

rather like a Chink myself—it’s something about the eyes.”

 

“I looked at him,” said the clerk who was telling us this, “and I saw at once

what he meant. The eyes slanted up at the corners like an Oriental’s. I’d never

noticed it before.”

 

“Darn it all, man,” roared Gregory Rolf, leaning forward, “do you notice it

now?”

 

The man looked up at him and started.

 

“No, sir,” he said. “I can’t say I do.” And indeed there was nothing even

remotely Oriental about the frank brown eyes that looked into ours.

 

The Scotland Yard man grunted. “Bold customer. Thought the eyes might be

noticed, and took the bull by the horns to disarm suspicion. He must have