that you have the emerald? It is perhaps flattery to myself to believe that you got up your extremely effective campaign to learn the secret of the box, and afterward planned some still more clever method of taking the stone, solely to oppose me; but, from whatever motive you acted, the action itself can scarcely be questioned. There are only two possible explanations of the disappearance of the emerald. You know them both."
"Still I would like to hear them."
"Only two persons—yourself and Baraka—could possibly get into the box. Baraka tells me there is a total of seventy-two manipulations, eighteen of which must be chosen and performed in their right order to raise the cover. The complete impossibility of any one's hitting by chance upon the correct eighteen in the correct order proves per-
