Seconds after the bell clanged, we could hear footsteps upon the stairs. Holmes said, "I recognize that footstep only too well. What has our mystery woman done to attract the attention of Scotland Yard's finest detective?" He was no doubt speaking sarcastically, as his low opinion of Inspector Lestrade was very familiar to me.

I heard a tap upon the door, then Holmes said, "Come in, Inspector Lestrade."

The inspector, a little sallow, rat-faced, dark-eyed man, entered the room with an expression of complete bafflement. Holmes would have said that Lestrade was always in a state of complete bafflement.

"Mr. Holmes, last night, the most extraordinary robbery occurred at the British Musuem!" he began, then stopped at once.

"What is it, Lestrade?" asked Holmes. I turned to see what Lestrade was staring at, and noticed that Lestrade seemed to be staring at the hat of the mysterious "C.S."

"Where did you get that hat?" asked Lestrade.

"Oh, it was delivered to me by Mrs. Hudson. She found it upon her doorstep. Somebody had awakened her, then left the hat upon her doorstep and was gone by the time Mrs. Hudson arrived at the door. Why should you ask?"

"Because I interviewed the guard in charge of the museum during the afternoon, and he said he had seen a woman dressed most peculiarly leaving the museum several hours before he closed the museum and turned it over to the night watchman. He said that she was dressed in a long red jacket, with something yellow underneath, and wore an unusual red hat. The description of the hat fits the description of that hat I see on your chair."

"Indeed," said Holmes, rubbing his hands in excitement as he picked up the hat so Lestrade could sit in the chair. "So this mystery woman was seen in the British Museum some hours before the robbery occurred? That is most suggestive, considering that she left both this hat and a letter which says only 'The game is afoot. C.S.'"

He handed the letter to Lestrade, who examined it.

"So you are suggesting that this woman who goes by the initials 'C.S.' is connected to the British Museum robbery?" he asked.

"I am not only suggesting that she is connected to it, but also that she is in all probability the thief," said Holmes. "Now, tell me what was stolen from the British Museum, and how you discovered that they were stolen."

"Early this morning, the night watchman was making his usual rounds preparing for the arrival of the guard. You understand that when the guard arrives, he opens the British Museum for the public."

"We understand," said Holmes. "Continue."

"When the night watchman checked the Parthenon Gallery to see that all the marbles in the Elgin Collection were still there, he saw that three of the figures there were gone! He looked everywhere in the Museum to see if they had been stored somewhere without his knowledge, but they were nowhere to be found in the museum! Luckily, the constable on patrol in that area was nearby when the night watchman sounded the alarm. He examined the scene, then went to Scotland Yard. I arrived on the scene, and examined it myself. Somebody has stolen three figures of goddesses from the east pediment of the Parthenon!"

"Which goddesses were stolen?" asked Holmes.

"There were three goddesses to the right of what would have been the centre group, and the curator has informed me that the one on the left may have been Hestia, the goddess of hearth and home; Dione, a Titaness; and Aphrodite, the goddess of love. However, the two figures on the right might not be Dione and Aphrodite, but instead the personification of the Sea in the lap of the Earth," Lestrade added.

"Hmm, I am going to have to ask the curator who the personification of the Sea and the Earth are, and what Dione's connection to Aphrodite may be," said Holmes. I was not surprised that he would have to ask the curator both facts, as I already knew that his knowledge of literature was nil, and these goddesses were from Greek mythology. "How big are these goddesses?" he asked.

"Well the ones on the right are over 6 feet long, and when you add in the third figure, I would say the three are nearly 7 feet long," said Lestrade.

Holmes whistled. "That is an extremely bold robbery," he said. "I wonder how she managed to commit such a daring theft without the night watchman hearing her."

"And why would she steal three goddesses from the Elgin Marbles collection?" I could not help asking. "I am certain there are other items in the museum which she might have stolen which would have been less risky."

"There is only one way to find out," said Holmes. "Do you have a hansom waiting outside, Lestrade?"

"I do, indeed," said Lestrade.

"Then let us go to the British Museum at once," said Holmes. "As the mysterious 'C.S.' might say, the game's afoot!"

The British Museum, nearly 10:30 AM

We took Lestrade's hansom from 221B Baker Street, passing by Regent's Park, traveling along Euston Road till we turned left onto Gower Street. Finally we reached Bloomsbury Street and turned right onto Great Russell Street, where the front entrance to the British Museum was located.

Lestrade ordered the driver to pull up a few feet from the front entrance at Holmes's request, and Holmes disembarked. He leisurely walked up toward the British Museum, carefully checking the road. Lestrade and I followed. Lestrade was sneering, but I knew enough of Holmes's methods by now to realize that he was carefully searching for clues.

Finally, we reached the front entrance of the British Museum, where Holmes suddenly whistled. He examined the stretch of road immediately outside the entrance and leading past the front entrance with great interest, giving a cry of excitement at one point. He then returned and carefully examined the front steps, then the keyhole of the door. Finally, he stood up and said, "Let's go inside and see if there are any more clues to be found there."

"And have you found anything important from examining the road?" Lestrade asked with barely concealed sarcasm.

"There was a wagon here last night," said Holmes. "It had been parked close to the curb. See how close the wheels are. It cannot have been a private carriage or a cab because of the wide gauge of its wheels. A wagon is considerably wider than either of these means of transportation. In all probability, our mysterious thief drove the wagon and left it outside while she went inside and stole the statues."

"How can you guess that?" said Lestrade.

"I never guess," said Holmes. "The horse had wandered on in a way which would have been impossible had there been anyone in charge of it. The driver must have been inside the museum, since the wagon had been left there. Again, I seriously doubt any sane person would carry out a deliberate crime under the very eyes, as it were, of a second person, who would be sure to betray her."

"What else can you deduce?" I asked, curious to discover how much Holmes knew, while hoping to prevent another argument from Lestrade.

"Our thief wears high-heeled size 7 shoes and is probably between five feet six inches and five feet eight inches," said Holmes. "That would mean she is above the middle height. There is no mystery about it," he added, looking at our surprised faces. "I had her stride as walked toward the museum. The stride indicates that she was about six feet tall. Yet the footprints consistently reveal that the woman's heel is elevated. Therefore, she wears high heels, and her height is between five feet six inches and five feet eight inches. The toe of her shoe indicates that she wears size 7 shoes, and is too small for a man's shoe in the same size. Therefore, the owner of the shoe is a woman."

"Is there any more evidence?" asked Lestrade.

"Just that the woman used either a wire or maybe a hairpin to force her way around the key," said Holmes. "You can see the scratches on the outside where pressure was applied. However, the woman had enough sense to lock the door before she left. Let us go inside and see if we can find any more information."

Once inside, we met the curator of the British Museum, who gladly volunteered to take Holmes through the museum.

"Lestrade mentioned that the two statues to the right are either Dione and Aphrodite or the personification of the Sea and the Earth," said Holmes. "Could you explain Dione's connection to Aphrodite and tell me what the personification of the Sea and the Earth are in Greek mythology?"

"In the Iliad, Dione is Aphrodite's mother, while the Greek goddess of the Sea was Thalassa," said the curator. "The Greek goddess of the Earth was Gaea. Now let's go to the Parthenon Gallery."

Along the way, Holmes was carefully examining the floor, but there were no exclamatory cries indicating that he had found anything. Nor were things much different when we arrived at the location of the Elgin Marbles in the Parthenon Gallery. All the statues were left in place except for the ones that were stolen, of course.

As Holmes carefully examined the location of the missing statues without any seeming success, Lestrade looked more and more smug. Finally, he seemed to be no longer able to restrain his glee and said, "The great Sherlock Holmes unable to make any brilliant deductions concerning the thief? That is a first!"

Holmes looked up and said, "The thief is obviously very clever. While she used a wagon to transport the statues, she does not seem to have used a device with wheels to carry it out of the museum. There are no wheel marks. Also, she stood at the doorway, where she removed the mud from her shoes with the aid of a scraper. There were footprints at the door, but not through the museum."

"Are you suggesting that this woman used a device with no wheels to carry the statues out of the museum?" asked Lestrade, clearly dumbfounded.

"It seems that way," said Holmes. "I would like to examine the night watchman before I proceed any further, just to ascertain whether or not he fell asleep at any time while the thief might have been inside the museum?"

"Of course," said the curator. And he went to find the night watchman.

The watchman was named Thomas Atwater, and he looked to be a nervous young man in his mid-thirties, with dull brown hair and grey eyes. While it was possible he was always nervous, it was more likely that his nervousness was due to fear that it might be believed he had fallen asleep.

"Yes, Mr. Holmes?" he asked.

"What can you tell us about your watch after the museum closed?" asked Holmes.

"Well, the museum closed at about 8:00 last night, but the Great Court actually closed at 1:30 AM," said Atwater. "I came on duty at midnight, when the late afternoon and evening guard let me in, then I locked the doors. I can not understand how the thief got in without my hearing me, as I was awake when he must have stolen the statues."

"What time do you go off duty?" asked Holmes.

"9:00 AM every day," said Atwater. "I always open the museum to the morning guard, then go home, eat breakfast, and go to bed at 10:00. I wake up at 6:00 PM, read the newspaper, eat dinner, and wait until around 11:30 PM, when I head over to the British Museum."

He yawned then. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm just tired. "It's past my bedtime."

"I understand," said Holmes. "It appears then that you would have been awake during the hours that the robbery would've taken place, which would've probably been after 1:30 AM and before dawn. In fact, I think it would've been between 2:00 AM, since the thief would not want to get in at exactly 1:30 AM, and while the sky is turning gray, which would be around 5:00, since dawn comes at either 5:30 or 6:00, and our thief would not want to be anywhere near the museum at dawn. And you would have been awake during that whole time, but the thief must've waited until you were patrolling another area before she struck."

"She?" asked Atwater.

"Yes," said Holmes. "The thief is a woman. And an extremely clever one."

"How can you tell that Atwater would have been awake when the thief stole the statues?" asked Lestrade.

"Is Atwater prone to falling asleep on the job?" Holmes asked the curator.

"Never," said the curator. "I would have known if he had been. He does not get drunk while on the job, either."

"And I seriously doubt a healthy man as Atwater appears to be would have been asleep during the hours when the thief must have operated unless he was drunk, which you claim he was not, or drugged."

"I would have known if I was drunk or any drinks I had were drugged," Atwater added.

"But what about his hearing?" asked Lestrade. "Even if he was not asleep while on the job for any reason, he must have had bad hearing to not hear the thief."

"That is the next thing we are going to test," said Holmes. "I would like a handcart brought here."

"I will get it," said Atwater as he left, still yawning.

"You seriously believe that Atwater is not to blame for the thief getting in and out without him seeing or hearing her?" asked Lestrade.

"I do," said Holmes. "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Our thief would not want the night watchman to hear her, so she probably moved quietly through the museum. AND the lack of wheel marks in the museum indicates that she may have used a transportation device which didn't need wheels. Such a device is improbable but NOT impossible."

"I would say it is impossible," said Lestrade scoffingly.

"Then the handcart will test your theory that Atwater has poor hearing," said Holmes. "Ah, here is the handcart. Would you kindly step into Room 19?"

"Sure," said Atwater, puzzled as he left Room 18, where the Parthenon Gallery was located.

Holmes said, "Now we are going to walk this handcart from Room 18 into Room 17 and then into Room 23. If Atwater has excellent hearing, this will prove my theory that the woman used some kind of new device which doesn't require wheels to maneuver. Watson, will you move this handcart?"

"Of course," I said as I gripped the handles of the handcart.

"Ready ... set ... now, Watson!" Holmes yelled.

I slowly moved the handcart toward the next room. But before I got very far, I heard a voice yell, "Is that the handcart I hear?"

"Stop, Watson!" said Holmes. I stopped, and saw Holmes turn to Lestrade with a triumphant look, saying, "Well, Lestrade?"

Lestrade looked stunned. "I must admit, Atwater can hear quite well," he said grudgingly.

"I suggest that you allow Mr. Atwater to go home," Holmes said to the curator. "He can clearly hear quite well, and therefore would have heard the thief if she was close enough to be heard OR if she didn't have a noiseless device."

"And what will you do?" asked Lestrade.

"Why, follow the trail of our mysterious thief," said Holmes. "Come along, Watson," he said as we left a completely befuddled Lestrade in the Parthenon Gallery.