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Coates appeared.
     
    "Ah, Dr. Taverner," he said, "I presume you have come about the extraordinary matter of your young relative who broke into my house last evening?"
     
    "That is so, Mr. Coates," replied my companion. "I have come to offer you my sincere apologies on behalf of the family."
     
    "Don't mention it," said our host, "the poor lad was suffering from mental trouble, I take it?"
     
    "A passing mania," said Taverner, brushing it away with a wave of his hand. He glanced round the room. "I see by your books that you are interested in a hobby of my own, the ancient mystery religions. I think I may claim to be something of an Egyptologist." Coates rose to the bait at once.
     
    "I came across the most extraordinary document the other day," said our new acquaintance. "I should like to show it to you. I think you would be interested."
     
    He drew from his pocket a bunch of keys, and inserted one in the lock of a drawer in a bureau. To his astonishment the key pushed loosely through the hole, and he pulled the drawer open only to find that the lock had been forced off. He ran his hand to the back of the drawer, and withdrew it empty! Coates looked from Taverner to myself and back again in astonishment.
     
    "That manuscript was there when I went to the police court this morning," he said. "What is the meaning of this extraordinary business? First of all a man breaks into my house and makes no attempt to steal anything, and then someone else breaks in and, neglecting many objects of value, takes a thing that can be of no interest to anyone but myself."
     
    "Then the manuscript which has been stolen is of no particular value?" said Taverner.
     
    "I gave half-a-crown for it," replied Coates.
     
    "Then you should be thankful to have got off so light," said Taverner.
     
    "This is the devil, Rhodes," he went on, as we re-entered the waiting taxi. "Someone from a Chelsea Black Lodge, knowing Coates would be at the police court this morning, has taken that manuscript."
     
    "What is to be the next move?" I inquired.
     
    "Get hold of Robson; we can only work through him." I asked him how he intended to deal with the situation that had arisen.
     
    "Are you going to send Robson after the manuscript again?" I inquired.
     
    "I shall have to," said Taverner.
     
    "I do not think there is the makings of a successful buccaneer in Robson."
     
    "Neither do I," agreed Taverner; "we shall have to fall back on Pierro della Costa."
     
    Robson met us at Harley Street, and Taverner took him out to dinner.
     
    After dinner we returned to the consulting room, where Taverner handed round cigars, and set himself to be an agreeable host, a task in which he succeeded to perfection, for he was one of the most interesting talkers I have ever met.
     
    Presently the talk led round to Italy during the Renaissance, and the great days of Florence and the Medici; and then he began to tell the story of one, Pierro della Costa, who had been a student of the occult arts in those days, and had brewed love philtres for the ladies of the Florentine court. He told the story with considerable vividness, and in great detail, and I was surprised to see that the attention of the lad was wandering, and that he was apparently pursuing a train of thought of his own, oblivious of his surroundings. Then I realized that he was sliding off into that trance condition with which my experience of my colleague had made me familiar.
     
    Still Taverner talked on, telling the history of the old Florentine to the unconscious boy--how he rose to be custodian of the archives, was offered a bribe, and betrayed his trust in order that he might buy the favour of the Woman he loved Then, as he came to the end of the story, his voice changed, and he addressed the unconscious lad by name.
     
    "Pierro della Costa," he said, "why did you do it?"
     
    "Because I was tempted," came the answer, but not in the voice in which the boy had talked to us, it was a man's voice calm, deep,