I turned back into the room pretty completely enlightened, and looked at Calverley with a new-born distaste.  He still sat facing the bewildered lawyer, one moment sobbing convulsively, the next yelping with hysteric laughter.  He was not an agreeable spectacle, and when, a few moments later, Thorndyke entered the room, and halted by the door with a stare of disgust, I was moved to join him.  But at this juncture a man pushed past Thorndyke, and, striding up to Calverley, shook him roughly by the arm.

“Stop that row!” he exclaimed furiously.  “Do you hear?  Stop it!”

“I can’t help it, Raggerton,” gasped Calverley.  “He gave me such a turn—­the mandarin, you know.”

“What!” ejaculated Raggerton.

He dashed across to the closet, looked in, and turned upon Calverley with a snarl.  Then he walked out of the room.

“Brodribb,” said Thorndyke, “I should like to have a word with you and Jervis outside.”  Then, as we followed him out on to the landing, he continued:  “I have something rather interesting to show you.  It is in here.”

He softly opened an adjoining door, and we looked into a small unfurnished room.  A projecting closet occupied one side of it, and at the door of the closet stood Captain Raggerton, with his hand upon the key.  He turned upon us fiercely, though with a look of alarm, and demanded: 

“What is the meaning of this intrusion? and who the deuce are you?  Do you know that this is my private room?”

“I suspected that it was,” Thorndyke replied quietly.  “Those will be your properties in the closet, then?”

Raggerton turned pale, but continued to bluster.  “Do I understand that you have dared to break into my private closet?” he demanded.

“I have inspected it,” replied Thorndyke, “and I may remark that it is useless to wrench at that key, because I have hampered the lock.”

“The devil you have!” shouted Raggerton.

“Yes; you see, I am expecting a police-officer with a search warrant, so I wished to keep everything intact.”

Raggerton turned livid with mingled fear and rage.  He stalked up to Thorndyke with a threatening air, but, suddenly altering his mind, exclaimed, “I must see to this!” and flung out of the room.

Thorndyke took a key from his pocket, and, having locked the door, turned to the closet.  Having taken out the key to unhamper the lock with a stout wire, he reinserted it and unlocked the door.  As we entered, we found ourselves in a narrow closet, similar to the one in the other room, but darker, owing to the absence of a mirror.  A few clothes hung from the pegs, and when Thorndyke had lit a candle that stood on a shelf, we could see more of the details.

“Here are some of the properties,” said Thorndyke.  He pointed to a peg from which hung a long, blue silk gown of Chinese make, a mandarin’s cap, with a pigtail attached to it, and a beautifully-made papier-mache mask.  “Observe,” said Thorndyke, taking the latter down and exhibiting a label on the inside, marked “Renouard a Paris,” “no trouble has been spared.”