He saw that I understood.  “Thank you kindly, sir,” said he.

“Tell me,” said I, “do you love your wife?”

He gaped at me for a moment; obviously the question had never been put to him either by himself or anybody else.  Then, seeing that my interest was genuine, he spat and scratched his head.

“We’ve been together twenty years,” he said, in a low voice, emotion struggling with self-consciousness, “and I’ve ’ad nothing agin her all that time.  She’s a bloomin’ wonder, I tell you straight.”

I held out my hand.  “At any rate, you’ve got what I haven’t,” said I.  “A woman who loves you to welcome you home.”

And I went away, longing, longing for Lola’s arms and the deep love in her voice.

Now that I come to view my actions in some sort of perspective, it seems to me that it was the underlying poignancy of this trumpery incident—­a poignancy which, nevertheless, bit deep into my soul, that finally determined the current of my life.

A short while afterwards, Campion, who for some time past had found the organisation of Barbara’s Building had far outgrown his individual power of control, came to me with a proposal that I should undertake the management of the institution under his general directorship.  As he knew of my financial affairs and of my praiseworthy but futile efforts to live on two hundred a year, he offered me another two hundred by way of salary and quarters in the Building.  I accepted, moved the salvage of my belongings from Victoria Street to Lambeth, and settled down to the work for which a mirth-loving Providence had destined me from my cradle.

When I told Agatha, she nearly fainted.

CHAPTER XXIII

No sooner had I moved into Barbara’s Building and was preparing to begin my salaried duties than I received news which sent me off post haste to Berlin.  And just as it was not I but Anastasius Papadopoulos who discovered Captain Vauvenarde, so, in this case, it was Dale who discovered Lola.

He burst in upon me one day, flourishing a large visiting-card, which he flung down on the table before my eyes.

“Do you recognise that?”

It was the familiar professional card of the unhappy Anastasius.

“Yes.”

“Do you see the last line?”

I read “London Agents:  Messrs. Conto and Blag, 172 Maiden Lane, W.C.”  I looked up.  “Well?” I asked.

“It has done the trick,” said he triumphantly.  “What fools we were not to have thought of it before.  I was rooting out a drawer of papers and came across the card.  You remember he handed us one all round the first day we met him.  I put it away—­I’m rather a methodical devil with papers, as you know.  When I found it, I danced a hornpipe all round the room and went straight off to Conto and Blag.  I made certain she would work through them, as they were accustomed to shop