'I was informed that if I got hold of the clue of the silver spoons I should be in a fair way of settling our case.'
'Who told you that?'
'Mr. Lionel Dacre.'
'Oh, does Dacre refer to his own conjuring?'
'I don't know, I'm sure. What was his conjuring?'
'A very clever trick he did one night at dinner here about two months ago.'
'Had it anything to do with silver spoons?'
'Well, it was silver spoons or silver forks, or something of that kind. I had entirely forgotten the incident. So far as I recollect at the moment there was a sleight-of-hand man of great expertness in one of the music halls, and the talk turned upon him. Then Dacre said the tricks he did were easy, and holding up a spoon or a fork, I don't remember which, he professed his ability to make it disappear before our eyes, to be found afterwards in the clothing of some one there present. Several offered to bet that he could do nothing of the kind, but he said he would bet with no one but Innis, who sat opposite him. Innis, with some reluctance, accepted the bet, and then Dacre, with a great show of the usual conjurer's gesticulations, spread forth his empty hands, and said we should find the spoon in Innis's pocket, and there, sure enough, it was. It seemed a proper sleight-of-hand trick, but we were never able to get him to repeat it.'
'Thank you very much, Mr. Gibbes; I think I see daylight now.'
'If you do you are cleverer than I by a long chalk,' cried Bentham Gibbes as I took my departure.