When he returned a few minutes later, however, the idealist seemed to have simmered down into the materialist, the extraordinary to have become merged in the ordinary, for he found his famous ally no longer studying the beauties of Nature, but giving his whole attention to the sordid commonplaces of man, for he was standing before a glaringly printed bill one of many that were tacked upon the walls, which set forth in amazing pictures and double-leaded type the wonders that were to be seen daily and nightly at Olympia, where, for a month past, “Van Zant’s Royal Belgian Circus and World-famed Menagerie” had been holding forth to “Crowded and delighted audiences.”  Much was made of two “star turns” upon this lurid bill:  “Mademoiselle Marie de Zanoni, the beautiful and peerless bare-back equestrienne, the most daring lady rider in the universe,” for the one; and for the other, “Chevalier Adrian di Roma, king of the animal world, with his great aggregation of savage and ferocious wild beasts, including the famous man-eating African lion, Nero, the largest and most ferocious animal of its species in captivity.”  And under this latter announcement there was a picture of a young and handsome man, literally smothered with medals, lying at full length, with his arms crossed and his head in the wide-open jaws of a snarling, wild-eyed lion.

“My dear chap, you really do make me believe that there actually is such a thing as instinct,” said Narkom, as he came in.  “Fancy your selecting that particular bill out of all the others in the room!  What an abnormal individual you are!”

“Why?  Has it anything to do with the case you have in hand?”

“Anything to do with it?  My dear fellow, it is ‘the case.’  I can’t imagine what drew your attention to it.”

“Can’t you?” said Cleek, with a half-smile.  Then he stretched forth his hand and touched the word “Nero” with the tip of his forefinger.  “That did.  Things awaken a man’s memory occasionally, Mr. Narkom, and—­Tell me, isn’t that the beast there was such a stir about in the newspapers a fortnight or so ago—­the lion that crushed the head of a man in full view of the audience?”

“Yes,” replied Narkom, with a slight shudder.  “Awful thing, wasn’t it?  Gave me the creeps to read about it.  The chap who was killed, poor beggar, was a mere boy, not twenty, son of the Chevalier di Roma himself.  There was a great stir about it.  Talk of the authorities forbidding the performance, and all that sort of thing.  They never did, however, for on investigation—­Ah, the tea at last, thank fortune.  Come, sit down, my dear fellow, and we’ll talk whilst we refresh ourselves.  Landlady, see that we are not disturbed, will you, and that nobody is admitted but the parties I mentioned?”

“Clients?” queried Cleek, as the door closed and they were alone together.

“Yes.  One, Mlle. Zelie, the ‘chevalier’s’ only daughter, a slack-wire artist; the other, Signor Scarmelli, a trapeze performer, who is the lady’s fiance.”