’Sure!—­Of course I’m sure!—­Think I didn’t recognise him?—­ Besides, there was the man’s own tale,—­owned to it himself,—­ besides all the rest, which sent one rushing Fulham way.’

’You must remember, Mr Atherton, that I am wholly in the dark as to what has happened.  What has the man, Holt, to do with the errand on which we are bound?’

’Am I not coming to it?  If you would let me tell the tale in my own way I should get there in less than no time, but you will keep on cutting in,—­how the deuce do you suppose Champnell is to make head or tail of the business if you will persist in interrupting?  —­Marjorie took the beggar in,—­he told his tale to her,—­she sent for me—­that was just now; caught me on the steps after I had been lunching with Dora Grayling.  Holt re-dished his yarn—­I smelt a rat—­saw that a connection possibly existed between the thief who’d been playing confounded conjuring tricks off on to me and this interesting party down Fulham way—­’

‘What party down Fulham way?’

’This friend of Holt’s—­am I not telling you?  There you are, you see,—­won’t let me finish!  When Holt slipped through the window—­ which is the most sensible thing he seems to have done; if I’d been in his shoes I’d have slipped through forty windows!—­dusky coloured charmer caught him on the hop,—­doctored him—­sent him out to commit burglary by deputy.  I said to Holt, “Show us this agreeable little crib, young man.”  Holt was game—­then Marjorie chipped in—­she wanted to go and see it too.  I said, “You’ll be sorry if you do,”—­that settled it!  After that she’d have gone if she’d died,—­I never did have a persuasive way with women.  So off we toddled, Marjorie, Holt, and I, in a growler,—­spotted the crib in less than no time,—­invited ourselves in by the kitchen window —­house seemed empty.  Presently Holt became hypnotised before my eyes,—­the best established case of hypnotism by suggestion I ever yet encountered—­started off on a pilgrimage of one.  Like an idiot I followed, leaving Marjorie to wait for me—­’

‘Alone?’

’Alone!—­Am I not telling you?—­Great Scott, Lessingham, in the House of Commons they must be hazy to think you smart!  I said, “I’ll send the first sane soul I meet to keep you company.”  As luck would have it, I never met one,—­only kids, and a baker, who wouldn’t leave his cart, or take it with him either.  I’d covered pretty nearly two miles before I came across a peeler,—­and when I did the man was cracked—­and he thought me mad, or drunk, or both.  By the time I’d got myself within nodding distance of being run in for obstructing the police in the execution of their duty, without inducing him to move a single one of his twenty-four-inch feet, Holt was out of sight.  So, since all my pains in his direction were clean thrown away, there was nothing left for me but to scurry back to Marjorie,—­so I scurried, and I found the house empty, no one there, and Marjorie gone.’