‘You’re a nice type of an ideal citizen!’ I was addressing myself, ’A first chop specimen of a low-down idiot,—­to connive at the escape of the robber who’s been robbing Paul.  Since you’ve let the villain go, the least you can do is to leave a card on the Apostle, and inquire how he’s feeling.’

I went to Lessingham’s front door and knocked,—­I knocked once, I knocked twice, I knocked thrice, and the third time, I give you my word, I made the echoes ring,—­but still there was not a soul that answered.

’If this is a case of a seven or seventy-fold murder, and the gentleman in the cloak has made a fair clearance of every living creature the house contains, perhaps it’s just as well I’ve chanced upon the scene,—­still I do think that one of the corpses might get up to answer the door.  If it is possible to make noise enough to waken the dead, you bet I’m on to it.’

And I was,—­I punished that knocker! until I warrant the pounding I gave it was audible on the other side of Green Park.  And, at last, I woke the dead,—­or, rather, I roused Matthews to a consciousness that something was going on Opening the door about six inches, through the interstice he protruded his ancient nose.

‘Who’s there?’

’Nothing, my dear sir, nothing and no one.  It must have been your vigorous imagination which induced you to suppose that there was, —­you let it run away with you.’

Then he knew me,—­and opened the door about two feet.

’Oh, it’s you, Mr Atherton.  I beg your pardon, sir,—­I thought it might have been the police.’

’What then?  Do you stand in terror of the minions of the law,—­at last?’

A most discreet servant, Matthews,—­just the fellow for a budding cabinet minister.  He glanced over his shoulder,—­I had suspected the presence of a colleague at his back, now I was assured.  He put his hand up to his mouth,—­and I thought how exceedingly discreet he looked, in his trousers and his stockinged feet, and with his hair all rumpled, and his braces dangling behind, and his nightshirt creased.

‘Well, sir, I have received instructions not to admit the police.’

‘The deuce you have!—­From whom?’

Coughing behind his hand, leaning forward, he addressed me with an air which was flatteringly confidential.

‘From Mr Lessingham, sir.’

’Possibly Mr Lessingham is not aware that a robbery has been committed on his premises, that the burglar has just come out of his drawing-room window with a hop, skip, and a jump, bounded out of the window like a tennis-ball, flashed round the corner like a rocket,’

Again Matthews glanced over his shoulder, as if not clear which way discretion lay, whether fore or aft.

’Thank you, sir.  I believe that Mr Lessingham is aware of something of the kind.’  He seemed to come to a sudden resolution, dropping his voice to a whisper.  ’The fact is, sir, that I fancy Mr Lessingham’s a good deal upset.’