“I believe that there is something positively uncanny about Max at times,” murmured the perturbed gentleman to himself.

THE TRAGEDY AT BROOKBEND COTTAGE

“Max,” said Mr. Carlyle, when Parkinson had closed the door behind him, “this is Lieutenant Hollyer, whom you consented to see.”

“To hear,” corrected Carrados, smiling straight into the healthy and rather embarrassed face of the stranger before him.  “Mr. Hollyer knows of my disability?”

“Mr. Carlyle told me,” said the young man, “but, as a matter of fact, I had heard of you before, Mr. Carrados, from one of our men.  It was in connection with the foundering of the Ivan Saratov.”

Carrados wagged his head in good-humoured resignation.

“And the owners were sworn to inviolable secrecy!” he exclaimed.  “Well, it is inevitable, I suppose.  Not another scuttling case, Mr. Hollyer?”

“No, mine is quite a private matter,” replied the lieutenant.  “My sister, Mrs. Creake—­but Mr. Carlyle would tell you better than I can.  He knows all about it.”

“No, no; Carlyle is a professional.  Let me have it in the rough, Mr. Hollyer.  My ears are my eyes, you know.”

“Very well, sir.  I can tell you what there is to tell, right enough, but I feel that when all’s said and done it must sound very little to another, although it seems important to me.”

“We have occasionally found trifles of significance ourselves,” said Carrados encouragingly.  “Don’t let that deter you.”

This was the essence of Lieutenant Hollyer’s narrative: 

“I have a sister, Millicent, who is married to a man called Creake.  She is about twenty-eight now and he is at least fifteen years older.  Neither my mother (who has since died) nor I cared very much about Creake.  We had nothing particular against him, except, perhaps, the moderate disparity of age, but none of us appeared to have anything in common.  He was a dark, taciturn man, and his moody silence froze up conversation.  As a result, of course, we didn’t see much of each other.”

“This, you must understand, was four or five years ago, Max,” interposed Mr. Carlyle officiously.

Carrados maintained an uncompromising silence.  Mr. Carlyle blew his nose and contrived to impart a hurt significance into the operation.  Then Lieutenant Hollyer continued: 

“Millicent married Creake after a very short engagement.  It was a frightfully subdued wedding—­more like a funeral to me.  The man professed to have no relations and apparently he had scarcely any friends or business acquaintances.  He was an agent for something or other and had an office off Holborn.  I suppose he made a living out of it then, although we knew practically nothing of his private affairs, but I gather that it has been going down since, and I suspect that for the past few years they have been getting along almost entirely on Millicent’s little income.  You would like the particulars of that?”