guinea-pig he would have brazened it out and have been prepared for this, and taken very good care not to show what he felt."

"In fact, you don't think he killed the pig," I said.

And Peters said he didn't think James had; but he was keeping an open mind.

Then came the most extraordinary clue of the ten-shilling piece. Happening to go to his desk one day—between schools—for toffee, Peters found in it a bit of paper lightly screwed up. He opened it and discovered in it no less than a gold ten-shilling piece; and on the paper, printed in lead pencil, were these words—

"FOR ANUTHER GINNEA-PIG."

He said nothing to anybody but me; but he seemed to think that I was a sort of a Dr. Watson in my way; besides, it simplified the workings of his mind to talk out loud; so he showed me the clue and then asked me what I thought. I had rather picked up his dodge of talking like Sherlock Holmes, so I said—

"The first question is, of course, to see what is the date on the half-quid."

I thought this pretty good; but Peters said that this was not the first question, and didn't matter in the least.

He said, "My dear Maydew, the money is nothing; the paper in which it is wrapped up is everything."

So I turned to the paper.

"What does it tell you?" he asked.

"It tells me that some utter kid did it," I said, "for he can't spell 'another' and he can't spell 'guinea-pig.'"

But Peters smiled and put the points of his fingers together like Sherlock Holmes.

"My dear Maydew," he said, "might not that have been done on purpose?"

Then I scored off him.

"It is just because it might have been done on purpose," I said, "that I think it was done accidentally."

He nodded.

"Of course, it may be the work of a kid," he admitted. "But, on the other hand, it may be a subterfuge. Besides, no kid would have killed my guinea-pig. Where's the motive?"

"The great thing is that you've got half-a-sovereign and we share pocket-money," I said.

But he attached little importance to this, except to say that the half-sov. wasn't pocket-money, though I might have half.

"Now, examine the paper," he went on.

I did so. It was a sheet of one of our ordinary, lined copybooks, used for dictation, composition, exercises, and such like.

"Evidently torn out of one of the copybooks," I said.

"Exactly; but which one?"

"Ask me another," I said. "You'll never find that out."

He smiled and arranged his hands again like Holmes.

"I have," he said.

"Then you know?"

"On the contrary, I know nothing."

"It wasn't James's book?"

"It wasn't. The first thing was to find a book with a sheet torn out. I tried twenty-five books, and seven had pages torn out. But James's book had not. Then judge of my surprise, Maydew, when, coming to my desk for the form of the thing, and looking at my own exercise-book, I found a sheet was torn out; and this is it, for the tear fits!"

"What frightful cheek!" I cried out.

"I don't so much mind that," said Peters; "but the point is that, splendid though this clue seems to be on the surface, I can't get any forwarder by it. In fact, it may be the act of a friend, and not a foe."

"What would Sherlock Holmes do?" I asked; and Peters gave a sort of mournful sound and scratched his head.

"I wish I knew," he said.

II

Gideon was helpful in a way, but nobody could make much of it. Gideon said that it was conscience money, and was often known to happen, especially with the Income Tax; because people, driven to desperation by it, often pay too little, and then, when things brighten up with them afterwards, it begins to weigh on their minds, if they are fairly decent at heart, and they remember that they have swindled the King and been dishonest; and so they send the money secretly, but, of course, feel too ashamed to say who they are.

I asked James if he had sent the money, and he swore he hadn't; but he did it in such an excitable sort of way that I was positive he had. Peters wouldn't believe or disbelieve. He went quietly on, keeping an open mind and detecting the crime; and when the truth came to light, Peters was still detecting.

But in the meantime happened the mystery of the pencil-sharpener, and the two great mysteries were cleared up simultaneously, which Peters says is a common thing. You couldn't say that one cleared up the other, but still, it did so happen that both came out in the same minute.

There was a boy whose name was Pratt, and his father was on the Stock Exchange of London. This father used to go out to his lunch, and at these times he saw many curious things sold by wandering London men who are too poor to keep shops, but yet have the wish to sell things. These men stand by the pavement and display most queer and uncommon curiosities, such as walking spiders and such like; and once from one of these men Pratt's father bought quite a new sort of pencil-sharpener of the rarest kind. It was shaped like a stirrup, and cut pencils well without breaking off the lead.

After a good week of this pencil-sharpener, Pratt found it had been stolen out of his desk, and he told Peters about it, and Peters took up the case. I asked him if he was hopeful, and he said that there was always hope; but he also said, rather bitterly, that it was curious what a frightful lot of hard cases he had had since coming to Merivale. He said it was enough to tax anybody's reputation, and that each case seemed more difficult than the last.

I reminded him of one or two rather goodish things he had done in a small way, but he said that as yet he had not really brought off a brilliant stroke.

A week went by, and then Peters came to me in a state of frightful excitement.

"The pencil-sharpener!" he said.

"Have you got a clue?" I asked. But he could hardly speak for excitement, and forgot to put his hands like Holmes, or to try and arrange a 'far-away' look on his face, or anything.

"Not only a clue," he said, "I know who took it!"

"This will be a great score for you when it comes out," I said.

"You swear you won't breathe a word?" he asked.

And I swore. Then he whispered the fearful news into my ear.

"The Doctor's taken it!" he said.

"He never would," I answered. "Pratt is positive that he left it in his desk."

"It is a case of purloining," said Peters; "and wish it had happened to anybody else but