It was without place, or
date, or signature, and ran as follows:--

"Mr. James Headley, F.S.A., will receive from his agent in Armenia, on
the 12th inst., a unique coin, the gold Tiberius. It hears on the
reverse a faun, with the legend VICTORIA. It is believed that this coin
is of immense value. Mr. Headley will come up to town to show the coin
to his friend, Professor Memys, of Chenies Street, Oxford Street, on
some date between the 13th and the 18th." Dr. Lipsius chuckled at my face of blank surprise when I laid down this
singular communication. "You will have a good chance of showing your discretion," he said. "This
is not a common case; it requires great management and infinite tact. I
am sure I wish I had a Panurge in my service, but we will see what you
can do." "But is it not a joke?" I asked him. "How can you know, or rather how
can this correspondent of yours know that a coin has been despatched
from Armenia to Mr. Headley? And how is it possible to fix the period in
which Mr. Headley will take it into his head to come up to town? It
seems to me a lot of guess work." "My dear Mr. Walters," he replied; "we do not deal in guess work here. It would bore you if I went into all these little details, the cogs and
wheels, if I may say so, which move the machine. Don't you think it is
much more amusing to sit in front of the house and be astonished, than
to be behind the scenes and see the mechanism? Better tremble at the
thunder, believe me, than see the man rolling the cannon ball. But,
after all, you needn't bother about the how and why; you have your share
to do. Of course, I shall give you full instructions, but a great deal
depends on the way the thing is carried out. I have often heard very
young men maintain that style is everything in literature, and I can
assure you that the same maxim holds good in our far more delicate
profession. With us style is absolutely everything, and that is why we
have friends like yourself." I went away in some perturbation; he had no doubt designedly left
everything in mystery, and I did not know what part I should have to
play. Though I had assisted at scenes of hideous revelry, I was not yet
dead to all echo of human feeling, and I trembled lest I should receive
the order to be Mr. Headley's executioner. A week later, it was on the sixteenth of the month, Dr. Lipsius made me
a sign to come into his room. "It is for to-night," he began. "Please to attend carefully to what I am
going to say, Mr. Walters, and on peril of your life, for it is a
dangerous matter,--on peril of your life I say, follow these
instructions to the letter. You understand? Well, to-night at about
half-past seven you will stroll quietly up the Hampstead Road till you
come to Vincent Street. Turn down here and walk along, taking the third
turning to your right, which is Lambert Terrace. Then follow the
terrace, cross the road, and go along Hertford Street, and so into
Lillington Square. The second turning you will come to in the square is
called Sheen Street; but in reality it is more a passage between blank
walls than a street. Whatever you do, take care to be at the corner of
this street at eight o'clock precisely. You will walk along it, and just
at the bend, where you lose sight of the square, you will find an old
gentleman with white beard and whiskers. He will in all probability be
abusing a cabman for having brought him to Sheen Street instead of
Chenies Street. You will go up to him quietly and offer your services;
he will tell you where he wants to go, and you will be so courteous as
to offer to show him the way. I may say that Professor Memys moved,
into Chenies Street a month ago; thus Mr. Headley has never been to see
him there, and moreover he is very short-sighted, and knows little of
the topography of London. Indeed he has quite lived the life of a
learned hermit at Audley Hall. "Well, need I say more to a man of your intelligence? You will bring him
to this house; he will ring the bell, and a servant in quiet livery will
let him in. Then your work will be done, and I am sure done well. You
will leave Mr. Headley at the door, and simply continue your walk, and I
shall hope to see you the next day. I really don't think there is
anything more I can tell you." These minute instructions I took care to carry out to the letter. I
confess that I walked up the Tottenham Court Road by no means blindly,
but with an uneasy sense that I was coming to a decisive point in my
life. The noise and rumor of the crowded pavements were to me but
dumb-show. I revolved again and again in ceaseless iteration the task
that had been laid on me, and I questioned myself as to the possible
results. As I got near the point of turning, I asked myself whether
danger were not about my steps; the cold thought struck me that I was
suspected and observed, and every chance foot-passenger who gave me a
second glance seemed to me an officer of police. My time was running
out, the sky had darkened, and I hesitated, half resolved to go no
farther, but to abandon Lipsius and his friends forever. I had almost
determined to take this course, when the conviction suddenly came to me
that the whole thing was a gigantic joke, a fabrication of rank
improbability. Who could have procured the information about the
Armenian agent, I asked myself. By what means could Lipsius have known
the particular day, and the very train that Mr. Headley was to take? How
engage him to enter one special cab amongst the dozens waiting at
Paddington? I vowed it a mere Milesian tale, and went forward merrily,
and turned down Vincent Street, and threaded out the route that Lipsius
had so carefully impressed upon me. The various streets he had named
were all places of silence and an oppressive cheap gentility; it was
dark, and I felt alone in the musty squares and crescents, where people
pattered by at intervals, and the shadows were growing blacker. I
entered Sheen Street, and found it, as Lipsius had said, more a passage
than a street; it was a by-way, on one side a low wall and neglected
gardens and grim backs of a line of houses, and on the other a timber
yard. I turned the corner, and lost sight of the square, and then to my
astonishment I saw the scene of which I had been told. A hansom cab had
come to a stop beside the pavement, and an old man carrying a handbag
was fiercely abusing the cabman, who sat on his perch the image of
bewilderment. "Yes, but I'm sure you said Sheen Street, and that's where I brought
you," I heard him saying, as I came up, and the old gentleman boiled in
a fury, and threatened police and suits at law. The sight gave me a shock; and in an instant I resolved to go through
with it. I strolled on, and without noticing the cabman, lifted my hat
politely to old Mr. Headley. "Pardon me, sir," I said, "but is there any difficulty? I see you are a
traveller; perhaps the cabman has made a mistake. Can I direct you?"