“Excuse my appearance,” he said.  “I have had no time for even a wash since this morning.  On board the boat I thought it best to keep a constant watch on Capella and his companions.”

“Who are they?” demanded Brett.

Mr. Holden looked at the barrister with an injured air.

“I am a man of few words, sir,” he said, “and if you do not mind, I will tell my story in my own way.”

Winter was secretly delighted to hear the “Old ’Un,” as they called him in the Yard, take a rise out of Brett in this manner.

“Perhaps,” exclaimed the barrister, “your few words will come more easily if you wet your whistle.”

“Well, I must admit that Italian wine—­”

“Is not equal to Scotch; or is it Irish?”

“Irish, sir, if you please.”

Mr. Holden’s utterance having been cleared of cinders, he made a fresh start.

“As I was saying, gentlemen, I kept an observant eye on Capella and his companions, and at the same time occupied myself in the fashioning of certain little models with which to illustrate my subsequent remarks.”

He produced a map of Naples, which he carefully smoothed out on the table, pressing the creases with his fingers until Brett itched to tweak his long nose.

The man was evidently a Belfast Irishman, and the barrister forced himself to find amusement in speculating how such an individual came to speak Italian fluently.  Speculation on this abstruse problem, however, yielded to keen interest in Mr. Holden’s proceedings.

On the face of the map he located a number of small wooden carvings, which were really very ingenious.  They represented churches, an hotel, a mansion, three ordinary houses, a rambling building like a public institution, and a nondescript structure difficult to classify.

“I find,” said Mr. Holden, when the mise-en-scene was quite to his liking, “that a good map, and a few realistic models of the principal buildings dealt with in my discourse, give a lucidity and a coherence otherwise foreign to the narrative.”

Even Winter became restive under this style of address.  Brett caught his eye, and moved by common impulse, they lessened the whisky-mark in a decanter of Antiquary.

“Allow me to remark,” interpolated Brett, “that your telegrams were admirably terse and to the point.”

“Thank you, sir.  Many eminent judges have complimented me on my manner of giving evidence.  And now to business.  I arrived at the railway station here” (touching the non-descript building), “and took a room in the Villa Nuova here” (he laid a finger on the mansion), “which, as you see, is quite close to the Hotel de Londres here” (a flourish over the hotel), “at which, as I expected, Mr. Capella took up his abode.  According to your instructions I obtained a competent assistant, a native of Naples, and we both awaited Mr. Capella’s arrival.  He reached Naples at 10.30 a.m. the