Mannard is very beautiful!" he said in a theatrical voice. Then he added placidly, "Any other words would have done as well. Put down the glass, Mr. Coghlan, and look at it."

Coghlan put down the goblet and took his hands away. There was a gold-piece in the goblet. It was an antique--a ten-dirhem piece of the Turkish Empire.

"I could not build up the illusion," said Appolonius, "but it was deceptive, was it not?"

"How'd you do it?" asked Mannard interestedly.

"At eye-level," said Appolonius, "you cannot see the bottom of a goblet filled with water. Refraction prevents it. I dropped in the coin and held it at the level of your eyes. So long as it was held high, it seemed empty. That is all."

Mannard grunted.

"It is the principle which counts!" said Appolonius. "I did something of which you knew nothing. You deceived yourselves, because you thought I was getting ready to do a trick. I had already done it. That is the secret of magic."

He fished out the gold-piece and put it in his vest pocket, and Coghlan thought sourly that this trick was not quite as convincing as his own handwriting, his own fingerprints and most private thoughts, written down over seven centuries ago.

"Hm ... I think I'll mention your visitors to the police," said Mannard. "I'm mentioned. I may be involved. It's too elaborate to be a practical joke, and there's that mention of somebody getting killed. I know some fairly high Turkish officials ... you'll talk to anyone they send you?"

"Naturally." Coghlan felt that he should be relieved, but he was not. Then something else occurred to him.

"By the way," he said to Appolonius, "you're in on this, too. There's a memorandum that says the 'adepts' were inquiring for you!"

He quoted, as well as he was able, the memo on the back of the page containing his fingerprints. The fat man listened, frowning.

"This," he said firmly, "I very much do not like! It is not good for my professional reputation to be linked with tricksters. It is very much not good!"

Astonishingly, he looked pale. It could be anger, but he was definitely paler than he had been. Laurie said briskly:

"You said 

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