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 simpler to copy the plans for himself than to take the originals, as was actually done?”

“It would take considerable technical knowledge to copy the plans in an effective way.”

“But I suppose either Sir James, or you, or West had that technical knowledge?”

“No doubt we had, but I beg you won’t try to drag me into the matter, Mr. Holmes. What is the use of our speculating in this way when the original plans were actually found on West?”

“Well, it is certainly singular that he should run the risk of taking originals if he could safely have taken copies, which would have equally served his turn.”

“Singular, no doubt—and yet he did so.”

“Every inquiry in this case reveals something inexplicable. Now there are three papers still missing. They are, as I understand, the vital ones.”

“Yes, that is so.”

“Do you mean to say that anyone holding these three papers, and without the seven others, could construct a Bruce-Partington submarine?”

“I reported to that effect to the Admiralty. But to-day I have been over the drawings again, and I am not so sure of it. The double valves with the automatic self-adjusting slots are drawn in one of the papers which have been returned. Until the foreigners had invented that for them-