the Doctor’s cottage. Then the pair took a slow stroll up the short, steep hill on to the Peterborough road, through the damp mists of the winter’s morning. Away across the meadows on the left, hounds were in full cry, a pretty sight, but neither noticed the incident.

“Do you know, Doctor,” exclaimed the young man as soon as they got beyond the village, “I’ve been thinking very seriously over the affair, and I’ve come to the conclusion that unless we put it before some great Hebrew scholar we shall never get down to the truth. The whole basis of the secret is the Hebrew language, without a doubt. What can we do alone—you and I?”

The little Doctor shook his head dubiously.

“I admit that neither of us is sufficiently well versed in Jewish history properly to understand the references which are given in the fragments which remain to us,” he said. “Yet if we go to a scholar, explain our views, and show him the documents, should we not be giving away what is evidently a most valuable secret?”

“No. I hardly think that,” answered the shrewd young man. “Before putting it to any scholar we should first make terms with him, so that he may not go behind our backs and profit upon the information.”

“You can’t do that!” declared Diamond.

“Among scholars there are a good many honourable men,” replied Frank Farquhar, with a glance of cunning. “If we proposed to deal with City sharks, it would be quite a different matter.”

“Then to whom do you propose we should submit the documents for expert opinion?” inquired the deformed man, as he trudged along at his side.

“I know a man up in London whom I implicitly trust, and who will treat the whole matter in strictest confidence,” was the other’s reply. “We can do nothing further down here. I’m going up to town this afternoon, and if you like I’ll call and see him.”

The Doctor hesitated. He recognised in the young man’s suggestion a desire to obtain his precious fragments and submit them to an expert. Most deformed men are gifted with unusually shrewd intelligence, and Raymond Diamond was certainly no exception. He smiled within himself at Frank Farquhar’s artless proposal.

“Who is the man?” he asked, as though half-inclined to adopt the suggestion.

“I know two men. One is named Segal—a professor who writes for our papers; an exceedingly clever chap, 

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