“I don’t know, Mr. Brett.”

“Unless I am much mistaken, you will learn to-night.  Holden is nearly due.”

The barrister resumed his stalk round the room.  In another minute he stopped to glance at his watch.

“Half-past seven,” he murmured.  “Just time to get a message through to Whitby, and perhaps a reply.”

He wrote a telegram to Hume:  “Where is Fergusson?  I want to see him.”

“What has Fergusson got to do with the business?” asked the detective.

“Probably nothing.  But he is the oldest available repository of the family secrets.  His master has told him to be explicit with me.  By questioning him, I may solve the riddle presented by Mr. Ooma.  Does the name suggest nothing to you, Winter?”

“It has a Japanese ring about it.”

“Nothing Scotch?  Isn’t it like Hume, for instance?”

“By Jove!  I never thought of that.  Well, there, I give in.  Ooma!  Dash my buttons, that beats cock-fighting!”

The barrister paid no heed to Winter’s fall from self-importance.  He pondered deeply on the queer twist given to events by the detective’s statement.  At last he took a volume from his book-case.

“Do you remember what I told you about Japanese names?” he said.  “I described to you, for instance, what strange mutations your surname would undergo were you born in the Far East.”

“Yes; I would be called Spring, Summer, etc, according to my growth.”

“Then listen to this,” and he read the following extract from that excellent work, “The Mikado’s Empire,” by W.E.  Griffis: 

“It has, until recently, in Japan been the custom for every Samurai to be named differ-ently In babyhood, boyhood, manhood, or promotion, change of life, or residence, In commemoration of certain events, or on account of a vow, or from mere whim.”

“What a place for aliases!” interpolated the professional.

“At the birth of a famous warrior,” went on Brett, “his mother, having dreamed that she conceived by the sun, called him Hiyoshi Maro (good sun).  Others dubbed him Ko Chiku (small boy), and afterward Saru Watsu (monkey-pine).”

He closed the volume.

“This gentleman has twenty other names,” he added; “but the foregoing list will suffice.  Doesn’t it strike you as odd that the man who struck down the fifth Hume-Frazer baronet on the spot so fatal to his four predecessors, should bring from a country given to such name-changes a cognomen that irresistibly recalls the original enemy of the family, David Hum"?”

“It Is odd,” asserted Winter.

Someone rang, and was admitted.

“Mr. Holden,” announced Smith.

CHAPTER XXVII

HOLDEN’S STORY

The long-nosed ex-sergeant entered.  His sallow face was browned after his long journeys and exposure to the Italian sun in midsummer.  He was soiled and travel-stained.