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62 desk by the light of an oil-lamp with a heavy green shade, rose and bowed courteously.

"Good morning, monsieur," he said with the cordiality of one who greets an acquaintance of old standing. "Be seated," he added, indicating an arm-chair beside the desk. "It seems long since one has had the honour of a call from monsieur."

"That is so," Lanyard admitted, sitting down.

The young man followed suit. The lamplight, striking across his face beneath the greenish penumbra of the shade, discovered a countenance of Hebraic cast.

"Monsieur has something to show me, eh?"

"But naturally."

Lanyard's reply just escaped a suspicion of curtness: as who should say, what did you expect? He was puzzled by something strange and new in the attitude of this young man, a trace of reserve and constraint….

They had been meeting from time to time for several years, conducting their secret and lawless business according to a formula invented by Bourke and religiously observed by Lanyard. A note or telegram of innocent superficial intent, addressed to a certain member of a leading firm of jewellers in Amsterdam, was the invariable signal for conferences such as this; which were invariably held in the same place, at an hour indeterminate between midnight and dawn, between on the one hand this intelligent, cultivated and well-mannered young Jew, and on the other hand the thief in his mask.

In such wise did the Lone Wolf dispose of his loot, at all events of the bulk thereof; other channels were, of course,