the volume very carefully and handed it to Coghlan. The thick, yellowed pages were covered with those graceless Greek characters which--without capitals or divisions between words or any punctuation or paragraphing--were the text of books when they had just ceased to be written on long strips and rolled up on sticks. Coghlan regarded it curiously.

"Do you by any chance read Byzantine Greek?" asked the Turk hopefully.

Coghlan shook his head. The police lieutenant looked depressed. He began to turn pages, while Coghlan held the book. The very first page stood up stiffly. There was brown, crackled adhesive around its edge, evidence that at some time it had been glued to the cover and lately had been freed. The top half of the formerly hidden sheet was now covered by a blank letterhead of the Istanbul Police Department, clipped in place by modern metal paper-clips. On the uncovered part of the page, the bottom half, there were five brownish smudges that somehow looked familiar. Four in a row, and a larger one beneath them. Lieutenant Ghalil offered a pocket magnifying-glass.

"Will you examine?" he asked.

Coghlan looked. After a moment he raised his head.

"They're fingerprints," he agreed. "What of it?"

Duval stood up and abruptly began to pace up and down the room, as if filled with frantic impatience. Lieutenant Ghalil drew a deep breath.

"I am about to say the absurd," he said ruefully. "M. Duval came upon this book in the Bibliotheque National in Paris. It has been owned by the library for more than a hundred years. Before, it was owned by the Comptes de Huisse, who in the sixteenth century were the patrons of a man known as Nostradamus. But the book itself is of the thirteenth century, written and bound in Byzantium. In the Bibliotheque National, M. Duval observed that a leaf was glued tightly. He loosened it. He found those fingerprints and--other writing."

Coghlan said, "Most interesting," thinking that he should be leaving for his dinner engagement with Laurie and her father.

"Of course," said the police officer, "M. Duval suspected a hoax. He had the ink examined chemically, then spectroscopically. But there could be no doubt. The fingerprints were placed there when the book was new. I repeat, there can be no doubt!"

Coghlan had no inkling of what was to come. He said, puzzledly:

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