Then came this unexpected challenge and he hesitated before accepting it.  Yet a second reading of the woman’s appeal determined him, for Jenny wrote for herself as well as her uncle.  She reminded Brendon of his goodwill and declared how personally she should welcome him and feel safer and more sanguine for his companionship.  She also contrived to let him know that she was not particularly happy.  The fact seemed implicitly woven into her long letter, though another, less vitally interested in the writer, might have failed to observe it.

Regretting only that Albert Redmayne’s friend must be approached and hoping that Mr. Peter Ganns would at least allow him a few days’ start, Brendon sought the famous American and found his direction without difficulty.  He had already visited New Scotland Yard, where he numbered several acquaintances, and Mark learned that he was stopping at the Grand Hotel in Trafalgar Square.  On sending in his name a messenger boy bade Brendon follow to the smoking-room.

His first glance, however, failed to indicate the great man.  The smoking-room was nearly empty on this June morning and Mark observed nobody but a young soldier, writing letters, and a white-haired, somewhat corpulent gentleman sitting with his back to the light reading the Times.  He was clean shaved, with a heavy face modelled to suggest a rhinoceros.  The features were large; the nose swollen and a little veined with purple, the eyes hidden behind owl-like spectacles with tortoise-shell rims, and the brow very broad, but not high.  From it abundant white hair was brushed straight back.

Brendon extended his glance elsewhere, but the messenger stopped, turned, and departed, while the stout man rose, revealing a massive frame, wide shoulders, and sturdy legs.

“Glad to meet you, Mr. Brendon,” he said in a genial voice; then he shook hands, took off his spectacles, and sat down again.

“This is a pleasure I had meant to give myself before I quitted the city,” declared the big man.  “I’ve heard about you and I’ve taken off my hat to you more than once during the war.  You might know me, too.”

“Everybody in our business knows you, Mr. Ganns.  But I’ve not come hero-worshipping to waste your time.  I’m proud you’re pleased to see me and it’s a great privilege to meet you; but I’ve looked in this morning about something that won’t wait; and your name is the big noise in a letter I received from Italy to-day.”

“Is that so?  I’m bound for Italy in the fall.”

“The question is whether this letter may change your plans and send you there sooner.”

The elder stared, took a golden box out of his waistcoat pocket, opened it, tapped it, and helped himself to a pinch of snuff.  The habit explained his somewhat misshapen nose.  It was tobacco, not alcohol, that lent its exaggerated lustre and hypertrophied outline to that organ.

“I hate changing my itinerary, once made,” replied Mr. Ganns.  “I’m the most orderly cuss on earth.  So far as I know, there’s but one man in all Italy is likely to knock my arrangements on the head; and I’ll see him, if all’s well, in September next.”