Theydon nodded.  He understood perfectly.  Then he caught Forbes’s inquiring glance, and explained matters.

“Mr. Furneaux hinted last night at some such development as that which your present statement conveys, and his colleague, Mr. Winter, pretended to scout it,” he said.

“Pretended!” shrieked Furneaux, instantly in a rage.

“That was how it struck me,” said Theydon coolly.

“Didn’t I drag the Chinese aspect of the crime out of him with pincers?” came the indignant demand.

“Unquestionably.  I only remark that your large-sized friend had it tucked away all the time at the back of his head.”

Furneaux pounded the table so viciously that the cups rattled.

“Of course, he has a nose to smell joss sticks, and eyes to see an ivory skull, but didn’t he say I was talking nonsense when I spoke about Shang Ti scowling from a porcelain vase?” he shrilled.

“Yes.  For all that, I don’t think he missed the least hint of your meaning.”

Furneaux gazed at Theydon fixedly.

“Sorry,” he said, with an acid tone that was almost malicious.  “I imagined you were so busy throwing dust in our eyes that you wouldn’t have noticed such fine shades of perception on Winter’s part.”

But Theydon was now able to measure this strange little man with some degree of accuracy; he only smiled.

“As a thrower of dust I was a most abject failure,” he said.

Furneaux smiled and turned to the millionaire.

“Pardon the interruption,” he said.  “Like every artist, I am pained when my best efforts are scoffed at by heedless mediocrity.  You, at least, will understand what a big thing it was to deduce even the vaguest outline of the truth from the facts at my command.”

“I certainly do,” agreed Forbes.  “Until this morning I was convinced that Mrs. Lester’s death removed the one person in England who knew of my connection with the revolution in China.  To revert to the Young Manchus—­ they have secured far more victims than the world at large is aware of.  I am sure that they poisoned Arthur Lester, and his wife held the same view.  They aim at nothing less than the extinction of the democratic cause by the murder of every prominent man connected with it.  But they never yet have been able to obtain a full and authentic list of the reform leaders.  They suspected poor Lester of complicity in the movement, and killed him.  It was through Mrs. Lester that I first became aware of their existence as an active organization, and I hoped that when she had returned to England, and was living quietly in London, she would be lost sight of—­ ignored, in fact.  Nevertheless, both she and I thought it prudent that our acquaintance should cease until the turmoil in China had subsided.  For that reason I never visited her, nor did I permit the growth of friendship between her and my wife and daughter—­ a friendship which, in happier conditions, would have been natural