sentiment imported with Christianity from Asia.  We have had every other virtue, including hospitality.  In the Iliad a man declines to kill his enemy on the ground that their people had dined together, which is going rather far, but it is not recorded that any ancient Greek, even Socrates himself, ever felt pity or did an act of spontaneous kindness!  I don’t believe any one has said that, but it’s perfectly true.’

‘Then why did you take all that trouble for Mr. Feist?’

’I don’t know.  People who always know why they do things are great bores.  It was probably a caprice that took me to see him, and then it did not occur to me to let him cut his throat, so I took away his razor; and, finally, I telephoned for my doctor, because my misspent life has brought me into contact with Western civilisation.  But when we began to pack Mr. Feist’s papers I became interested in him.’

‘Do you mean to say that you read his letters?’ Margaret inquired.

’Why not?  If I had let him kill himself, somebody would have read them, as he had not taken the trouble to destroy them!’

‘That’s a singular point of view.’

’So was Mr. Feist’s, as it turned out.  I found enough to convince me that he is the writer of all those articles about Van Torp, including the ones in which you are mentioned.  The odd thing about it is that I found a very friendly invitation from Van Torp himself, begging Mr. Feist to go down to Derbyshire and stop a week with him.’

Margaret leaned back in her chair and looked at her guest in quiet surprise.

‘What does that mean?’ she asked.  ’Is it possible that Mr. Van Torp has got up this campaign against himself in order to play some trick on the Stock Exchange?’

Logotheti smiled and shook his head.

‘That’s not the way such things are usually managed,’ he answered.  ’A hundred years ago a publisher paid a critic to attack a book in order to make it succeed, but in finance abuse doesn’t contribute to our success, which is always a question of credit.  All these scurrilous articles have set the public very much against Van Torp, from Paris to San Francisco, and this man Feist is responsible for them.  He is either insane, or he has some grudge against Van Torp, or else he has been somebody’s instrument, which looks the most probable.’

‘What did you find amongst his papers?’ Margaret asked, quite forgetting her vicarious scruples about reading a sick man’s letters.

’A complete set of the articles that have appeared, all neatly filed, and a great many notes for more, besides a lot of stuff written in cypher.  It must be a diary, for the days are written out in full and give the days of the week.’

‘I wonder whether there was anything about the explosion,’ said Margaret thoughtfully.  ‘He said he was there, did he not?’

‘Yes.  Do you remember the day?’

’It was a Wednesday, I’m sure, and it was after the middle of March.  My maid can tell us, for she writes down the date and the opera in a little book each time I sing.  It’s sometimes very convenient.  But it’s too late now, of course, and, besides, you could not have read the cypher.’