Bertram Ingledew, for his part, however, advanced towards his companion of last night with the frank smile and easy bearing of a cultivated gentleman.  He was blissfully unaware of the slight he was putting upon the respectability of Brackenhurst by appearing on Sunday in his grey tweed suit; so he only held out his hand as to an ordinary friend, with the simple words, “You were so extremely kind to me last night, Mr. Christy, that as I happen to know nobody here in England, I ventured to come round and ask your advice in unexpected circumstances that have since arisen.”

When Bertram Ingledew looked at him, Philip once more relented.  The man’s eye was so captivating.  To say the truth, there was something taking about the mysterious stranger—­a curious air of unconscious superiority—­so that, the moment he came near, Philip felt himself fascinated.  He only answered, therefore, in as polite a tone as he could easily muster, “Why, how did you get to know my name, or to trace me to my sister’s?”

“Oh, Miss Blake told me who you were and where you lived,” Bertram replied most innocently:  his tone was pure candour; “and when I went round to your lodgings just now, they explained that you were out, but that I should probably find you at Mrs. Monteith’s; so of course I came on here.”

Philip denied the applicability of that naive “of course” in his inmost soul:  but it was no use being angry with Mr. Bertram Ingledew.  So much he saw at once; the man was so simple-minded, so transparently natural, one could not be angry with him.  One could only smile at him, a superior cynical London-bred smile, for an unsophisticated foreigner.  So the Civil Servant asked with a condescending air, “Well, what’s your difficulty?  I’ll see if peradventure I can help you out of it.”  For he reflected to himself in a flash that as Ingledew had apparently a good round sum in gold and notes in his pocket yesterday, he was not likely to come borrowing money this morning.

“It’s like this, you see,” the Alien answered with charming simplicity, “I haven’t got any luggage.”

“Not got any luggage!” Philip repeated, awestruck, letting his jaw fall short, and stroking his clean-shaven chin with one hand.  He was more doubtful than ever now as to the man’s sanity or respectability.  If he was not a lunatic, then surely he must be this celebrated Perpignan murderer, whom everybody was talking about, and whom the French police were just then engaged in hunting down for extradition.

“No; I brought none with me on purpose,” Mr. Ingledew replied, as innocently as ever.  “I didn’t feel quite sure about the ways, or the customs, or the taboos of England.  So I had just this one suit of clothes made, after an English pattern of the present fashion, which I was lucky enough to secure from a collector at home; and I thought I’d buy everything else I wanted when I got to London.  I brought nothing at all in the way of luggage with me.”