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“No,” replied Fisher, “the runaway monk is not a thief. At any rate he is not the thief. And he’s not altogether a liar, either. He said one true thing at least that night.”

“And what was that?” inquired March.

“He said it was all magnetism. As a matter of fact, it was done by means of a magnet.” Then, seeing they still looked puzzled, he added, “It was that toy magnet belonging to your nephew, Mr. Twyford.”

“But I don’t understand,” objected March. “If it was done with the schoolboy’s magnet, I suppose it was done by the schoolboy.”

“Well,” replied Fisher, reflectively, “it rather depends which schoolboy.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“The soul of a schoolboy is a curious thing,” Fisher continued, in a meditative manner. “It can survive a great many things besides climbing out of a chimney. A man can grow gray in great campaigns, and still have the soul of a schoolboy. A man can return with a great reputation from India and be put in charge of a great public treasure, and still have the soul of a schoolboy, waiting to be awakened by an accident. And it is ten times more so when to the schoolboy you add the skeptic, who is generally a sort of stunted schoolboy. You said just now that things might be done by religious mania. Have you ever heard of irreligious mania? I assure you it exists very violently, especially in men who like showing up magicians in India. But here the skeptic had the temptation of showing up a much more tremendous sham nearer home.”

A light came into Harold March’s eyes as he suddenly saw, as if afar off, the wider implication of the suggestion. But Twyford was still wrestling with one problem at a time.

“Do you really mean,” he said, “that Colonel Morris took the relic?”

“He was the only person who could use the magnet,” replied Fisher. “In fact, your obliging nephew left him a number of things he could use. He had a ball of string, and an instrument for making a hole in the wooden floor–I made a little play with that hole in the floor in my trance, by the way; with the lights left on below, it shone like a new shilling.” Twyford suddenly bounded on his chair. “But in that case,” he cried, in a new and altered voice, “why then of course– You said a piece of steel–?”

“I said there were two pieces of steel,” said Fisher. “The bent piece of steel was the boy’s magnet. The other was the relic in the glass case.”

“But that is silver,” answered the archaeologist, in a voice now almost unrecognizable.

“Oh,” replied Fisher, soothingly, “I dare say it was painted with silver a little.”

There was a heavy silence, and at last Harold March said, “But where is the real relic?”

“Where it has been for five years,” replied Horne Fisher, “in the possession of a mad millionaire named Vandam, in Nebraska. There was a playful little photograph about him in a society paper the other day, mentioning his delusion, and saying he was always being taken in about relics.”

Harold March frowned at the tablecloth; then, after an interval, he said: “I think I understand your notion of how the thing was actually done; according to that, Morris just made a hole and fished it up with a magnet at the end of a string. Such a monkey trick looks like mere madness, but I suppose he was mad, partly with the boredom of watching over what he felt was a fraud, though he couldn’t prove it. Then came a chance to prove it, to himself at least, and he had what he called ‘fun’ with it. Yes, I think I see a lot of details now. But it’s just the whole thing that knocks me. How did it all come to be like that?”

Fisher was looking at him with level lids and an immovable manner.