“If you refer to a lady who called upon me half an hour ago—­yes, she is gone.”

He drew himself upright again and stood there, gigantic in the little room—­a great, gaunt figure.

“Ah!  And she was not my niece?”

“I lack the pleasure of your niece’s acquaintance, Dr. Greefe.”

“Yes.  You said so.  Good day, Mr. Addison.”

He turned, lowered his head, and walked out of the room.  When I, in turn, emerged into the passage, I saw him striding out of the inn.  Martin was standing by the door of the bar-parlor looking very confused; and as I joined him, intent upon a chat, I observed that the shabby-looking stranger had departed.

“Hullo, Martin!” I exclaimed.  “I thought I saw a customer here.”

“When you came in there was.  He went off with Cassim and Hawkins.  They was goin’ to show him the road to Manton.”

“Cassim?”

“Aye.”

Martin growled and walked behind the bar-counter.

“You have some curious residents in this neighborhood.”

“Too curious by half.”

“Cassim, for instance, is not an English name.”

Martin indulged in that rumbling sound which was his only form of laughter.

“English!” he said.  “He’s as black as your hat!”

My hat chanced to be gray, but I followed the idea nevertheless, and: 

“What!” I exclaimed, “a negro?”

“A blackamoor.  That’s all I know or care; and dumb!”

“Dumb! and a friend of Hawkins?”

“God knows.  Things ain’t right.”

“Do you know if—­a lady—­resides with Dr. Greefe?”

“Maybe—­maybe not.  There is tales told.”

Substantially this was all I learned from mine host; but, having lighted my pipe, I sat down on the bench before the door and set my mind to work in an endeavor to marshal all the facts into some sort of order.

The reputation locally enjoyed by Dr. Damar Greefe I could afford to ignore, I thought, but from my personal observation of the man I had come to the conclusion that there was much about him which I did not and could not understand.  In the first place, for any man to choose to live, solitary, in such an abode as the Bell House was remarkable.  Why had the masterful Eurasian retired to that retreat in company with his black servitor?  I thought of my own case, but it did not seem to afford a strict analogy.

Then, who was the “niece” so closely guarded by Dr. Greefe?  And if she was none other than my late elegant visitor why had she sought the interview?  Not even my natural modesty, which in such matters I have sometimes thought to be excessive, could conceal from me the fact that she had found my society pleasing.  But, since I had never seen her before, did this theory account for her visit?  Recalling again that huskily caressing voice, I asked myself the question:  Had I seen her before?

Perhaps the apparition of green eyes looking up to my window from the lane below, which on the night of my arrival I had relegated to the limbo of dreamland, had been verity and not phantasm.  If that were so, then the uncanny visitant to my cottage had pursued me to Upper Crossleys!