“Yes, sir.”

“Place detectives in plain clothes in the railway; steamship, and ferry depots, and upon all roadways leading out of Jersey City, with orders to search all suspicious persons.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Furnish all these men with photograph and accompanying description of the elephant, and instruct them to search all trains and outgoing ferryboats and other vessels.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If the elephant should be found, let him be seized, and the information forwarded to me by telegraph.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let me be informed at once if any clues should be found footprints of the animal, or anything of that kind.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get an order commanding the harbor police to patrol the frontages vigilantly.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Despatch detectives in plain clothes over all the railways, north as far as Canada, west as far as Ohio, south as far as Washington.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Place experts in all the telegraph offices to listen in to all messages; and let them require that all cipher despatches be interpreted to them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let all these things be done with the utmost’s secrecy—­mind, the most impenetrable secrecy.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Report to me promptly at the usual hour.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Go!”

“Yes, sir.”

He was gone.

Inspector Blunt was silent and thoughtful a moment, while the fire in his eye cooled down and faded out.  Then he turned to me and said in a placid voice: 

“I am not given to boasting, it is not my habit; but—­we shall find the elephant.”

I shook him warmly by the hand and thanked him; and I felt my thanks, too.  The more I had seen of the man the more I liked him and the more I admired him and marveled over the mysterious wonders of his profession.  Then we parted for the night, and I went home with a far happier heart than I had carried with me to his office.

II

Next morning it was all in the newspapers, in the minutest detail.  It even had additions—­consisting of Detective This, Detective That, and Detective The Other’s “Theory” as to how the robbery was done, who the robbers were, and whither they had flown with their booty.  There were eleven of these theories, and they covered all the possibilities; and this single fact shows what independent thinkers detectives are.  No two theories were alike, or even much resembled each other, save in one striking particular, and in that one all the other eleven theories were absolutely agreed.  That was, that although the rear of my building was torn out and the only door remained locked, the elephant had not been removed through the rent, but by some other (undiscovered) outlet.  All agreed that the robbers had made that rent only to mislead the detectives.  That