He was dressed as a gentleman should be dressed,—­black frock coat, black vest, dark grey trousers, stand-up collar, smartly-tied bow, gloves of the proper shade, neatly brushed hair, and a smile, which if was not childlike, at any rate was bland.

‘I am not disturbing you?’

‘Not at all.’

’Sure?—­I never enter a place like this, where a man is matching himself with nature, to wrest from her her secrets, without feeling that I am crossing the threshold of the unknown.  The last time I was in this room was just after you had taken out the final patents for your System of Telegraphy at Sea, which the Admiralty purchased,—­wisely—­What is it, now?’

‘Death.’

‘No?—­really?—­what do you mean?’

’If you are a member of the next government, you will possibly learn; I may offer them the refusal of a new wrinkle in the art of murder.’

’I see,—­a new projectile.—­How long is this race to continue between attack and defence?’

‘Until the sun grows cold.’

‘And then?’

‘There’ll be no defence,—­nothing to defend.’

He looked at me with his calm, grave eyes.

’The theory of the Age of Ice towards which we are advancing is not a cheerful one.’  He began to finger a glass retort which lay upon a table.  ’By the way, it was very good of you to give me a look in last night.  I am afraid you thought me peremptory,—­I have come to apologise.’

’I don’t know that I thought you peremptory; I thought you—­ queer.’

‘Yes.’  He glanced at me with that expressionless look upon his face which he could summon at will, and which is at the bottom of the superstition about his iron nerve.  ’I was worried, and not well.  Besides, one doesn’t care to be burgled, even by a maniac.’

‘Was he a maniac?’

‘Did you see him?’

‘Very clearly.’

‘Where?’

‘In the street.’

‘How close were you to him?’

‘Closer than I am to you.’

’Indeed.  I didn’t know you were so close to him as that.  Did you try to stop him?’

‘Easier said than done,—­he was off at such a rate.’

‘Did you see how he was dressed,—­or, rather, undressed?’

‘I did.’

’In nothing but a cloak on such a night.  Who but a fanatic would have attempted burglary in such a costume?’

‘Did he take anything?’

‘Absolutely nothing.’

‘It seems to have been a curious episode.’

He moved his eyebrows,—­according to members of the House the only gesture in which he has been known to indulge.

’We become accustomed to curious episodes.  Oblige me by not mentioning it to anyone,—­to anyone.’  He repeated the last two words, as if to give them emphasis.  I wondered if he was thinking of Marjorie.  ’I am communicating with the police.  Until they move I don’t want it to get into the papers,—­or to be talked about.  It’s a worry,—­you understand?’