“Capital!” he murmured.  “I give you my word I never guessed what you were driving at.  You fooled me, I’ll be hanged if you didn’t—­you certainly fooled me.”

The man with the pearl stud leaned forward, with a nervous gesture.  “Hush! be careful!” he whispered.  But at that instant, for the third time, a servant, hastening through the room, handed him a piece of paper which he scanned eagerly.  The message on the paper read, “The light over the Commons is out.  The House has risen.”

The man with the black pearl gave a mighty shout, and tossed the paper from him upon the table.

“Hurrah!” he cried.  “The House is up!  We’ve won!” He caught up his glass, and slapped the Naval Attache, violently, upon the shoulder.  He nodded joyously at him, at the Solicitor, and at the Queen’s Messenger.  “Gentlemen, to you!” he cried; “my thanks and my congratulations!” He drank deep from the glass, and breathed forth a long sigh of satisfaction and relief.

“But I say,” protested the Queen’s Messenger, shaking his finger, violently, at the Solicitor, “that story won’t do.  You didn’t play fair—­and—­and you talked so fast I couldn’t make out what it was all about.  I’ll bet you that evidence wouldn’t hold in a court of law—­ you couldn’t hang a cat on such evidence.  Your story is condemned tommy-rot.  Now, my story might have happened, my story bore the mark--”

In the joy of creation, the story-tellers had forgotten their audience, until a sudden exclamation from Sir Andrew caused them to turn, guiltily, toward him.  His face was knit with lines of anger, doubt, and amazement.

“What does this mean?” he cried.  “Is this a jest, or are you mad?  If you know this man is a murderer, why is he at large?  Is this a game you have been playing?  Explain yourselves at once.  What does it mean?”

The American, with first a glance at the others, rose and bowed, courteously.

“I am not a murderer, Sir Andrew, believe me,” he said; “you need not be alarmed.  As a matter of fact, at this moment I am much more afraid of you than you could possibly be of me.  I beg you, please to be indulgent.  I assure you, we meant no disrespect.  We have been matching stories, that is all, pretending that we are people we are not, endeavoring to entertain you with better detective-tales than, for instance, the last one you read, ‘The Great Rand Robbery.’”

The Baronet brushed his hand, nervously, across his forehead.

“Do you mean to tell me,” he exclaimed, “that none of this has happened?  That Lord Chetney is not dead, that his Solicitor did not find a letter of yours, written from your post in Petersburg, and that just now, when he charged you with murder, he was in jest?”

“I am really very sorry,” said the American, “but you see, sir, he could not have found a letter written by me in St. Petersburg because I have never been in Petersburg.  Until this week, I have never been outside of my own country.  I am not a naval officer.  I am a writer of short stories.  And to-night, when this gentleman told me that you were fond of detective-stories, I thought it would be amusing to tell you one of my own—­one I had just mapped out this afternoon.”