I shall really have to put down at length the incidents of this night.  I always knew that Joe Smithers was invaluable not only to myself but to the police, but I really did not know he possessed talents of so high an order.  He wrote me this morning that he had succeeded in getting Mr. T—­’s promise to spend the evening with him, and advised me that if I desired to be present as well, his own servant would not be at home, and that an opener of bottles would be required.

As I was very anxious to see Mr. T—­ with my own eyes, I accepted this invitation to play the spy, and went at the proper hour to Mr. Smithers’s rooms.  I found them picturesque in the extreme.  Piles of books stacked here and there to the ceiling made nooks and corners which could be quite shut off by a couple of old pictures set into movable frames capable of swinging out or in at the whim or convenience of the owner.

As I had use for the dark shadows cast by these pictures, I pulled them both out, and made such other arrangements as appeared likely to facilitate the purpose I had in view; then I sat down and waited for the two gentlemen who were expected to come in together.

They arrived almost immediately, whereupon I rose and played my part with all necessary discretion.  While ridding Mr. T—­ of his overcoat, I stole a look at his face.  It is not a handsome one, but it boasts of a gay, devil-may-care expression which doubtless makes it dangerous to many women, while his manners are especially attractive, and his voice the richest and most persuasive that I ever heard.  I contrasted him, almost against my will, with Dr. Zabriskie, and decided that with most women the former’s undoubted fascinations of speech and bearing would outweigh the latter’s great beauty and mental endowments; but I doubted if they would with her.

The conversation which immediately began was brilliant but desultory, for Mr. Smithers, with an airy lightness for which he is remarkable, introduced topic after topic, perhaps for the purpose of showing off Mr. T-’s versatility, and perhaps for the deeper and more sinister purpose of shaking the kaleidoscope of talk so thoroughly, that the real topic which we were met to discuss should not make an undue impression on the mind of his guest.

Meanwhile one, two, three bottles passed, and I had the pleasure of seeing Joe Smithers’s eye grow calmer and that of Mr. T—­ more brilliant and more uncertain.  As the last bottle was being passed, Joe cast me a meaning glance, and the real business of the evening began.

I shall not attempt to relate the half dozen failures which Joe made in endeavouring to elicit the facts we were in search of, without arousing the suspicion of his visitor.  I am only going to relate the successful attempt.  They had been talking now for some hours, and I, who had long before been waved aside from their immediate presence, was hiding my curiosity and growing excitement behind one of the pictures, when I suddenly heard Joe say: