“Necromancy—­wizardry—­fairy-lore—­all the stuff and nonsense that goes to the making of ’The Arabian Nights’!” said Narkom, waxing excited as his thoughts were thus shoved back to the amazing affair he had in hand.  “All your ‘Red Crawls’ and your ‘Sacred Sons’ and your ’Nine-fingered Skeletons’ are fools to it for wonder and mystery.  Talk about witchcraft!  Talk about wizards and giants and enchanters and the things that witches did in the days of Macbeth!  God bless my soul, they’re nothing to it.  Those were the days of magic, anyhow, so you can take it or leave it, as you like; but this—­look here, Cleek, you’ve heard of a good many queer things and run foul of a good many mysteries, I’ll admit, but did you ever—­in this twentieth century, when witchcraft and black magic are supposed to be as dead as Queen Anne—­did you ever, my dear fellow, hear of such a marvel as a man putting on a blue leather belt that was said to have the power of rendering the wearer invisible and then forthwith melting into thin air and floating off like a cloud of pipe smoke?”

“Gammon!”

“Gammon nothing!  Facts!”

“Facts?  You’re off your head, man.  The thing couldn’t possibly happen.  Somebody’s having you!”

“Well, somebody had him, at all events.  Young Carboys, I mean—­the chap that’s engaged, or, rather was engaged, to Captain Morrison’s daughter; and the poor girl’s half out of her mind over it.  He put the belt on in the presence of her and her father—­in their own house, mind you—­walked into a bedroom, and vanished like smoke.  Doors locked, windows closed, room empty, belt on the floor, and man gone.  Not a trace of him from that moment to this; and yesterday was to have been his wedding-day.  There’s a ‘mystery,’ if you like.  What do you make of that?”

Cleek looked at him for an instant.  Then: 

“My dear Mr. Narkom, for the moment I thought you were fooling,” he said in a tone of deep interest.  “But I see now that you are quite in earnest, although the thing sounds so preposterous, a child might be expected to scoff at it.  A man to get a magic belt, to put it on, and then to melt away?  Why, the ‘Seven-league Boots’ couldn’t be a greater tax on one’s credulity.  Sit down and tell me all about it.”

“The dickens of it is there doesn’t seem to be much to tell,” said Narkom, accepting the invitation.  “Young Carboys, who appears to have been a decent sort of chap, had neither money, position, nor enemies, so that’s an end to any idea of somebody having a reason for wishing to get rid of him; and, as he was devotedly attached to Miss Morrison, and was counting the very hours to the time of their wedding, and, in addition, had no debts, no entanglements of any sort, and no possible reason for wishing to disappear, there isn’t the slightest ground for suspecting that he did so voluntarily.”

“Suppose you tell me the story from the beginning, and leave me to draw my own conclusions regarding that,” said Cleek.  “Who and what was the man?  Was he living in the same house with his fiancee, then?  You say the disappearance occurred there, at night, and that he went into a bedroom.  Was the place his home, as well as Captain Morrison’s, then?”