“Who is your amateur, Sir Timothy?” Wilmore asked harshly.

“Your brother, Mr. Wilmore,” was the prompt reply.  “You shall see the fight if I have your promise not to attempt in any way to interfere.”

Wilmore rose to his feet.

“Do you mean to tell me,” he demanded, “that my brother has been decoyed here, kept here against his will, to provide amusement for your guests?”

“Mr. Wilmore, I beg that you will be reasonable,” Sir Timothy expostulated.  “I saw your brother box at his gymnasium in Holborn.  My agent made him the offer of this fight.  One of my conditions had to be that he came here to train and that whilst he was here he held no communication whatever with the outside world.  My trainer has ideas of his own and this he insists upon.  Your brother in the end acquiesced.  He was at first difficult to deal with as regards this condition, and he did, in fact, I believe, Mr. Ledsam, pay a visit to your office, with the object of asking you to become an intermediary between him and his relatives.”

“He began a letter to me,” Francis interposed, “and then mysteriously disappeared.”

“The mystery is easily explained,” Sir Timothy continued.  “My trainer, Roger Hagon, a Varsity blue, and the best heavyweight of his year, occupies the chambers above yours.  He saw from the window the arrival of Reginald Wilmore—­which was according to instructions, as they were to come down to Hatch End together —­went down the stairs to meet him, and, to cut a long story short, fetched him out of your office, Ledsam, without allowing him to finish his letter.  This absolute isolation seems a curious condition, perhaps, but Hagon insists upon it, and I can assure you that he knows his business.  The mystery, as you have termed it, of his disappearance that morning, is that he went upstairs with Hagon for several hours to undergo a medical examination, instead of leaving the building forthwith.”

“Queer thing I never thought of Hagon,” Francis remarked.  “As a matter of fact, I never see him in the Temple, and I thought that he had left.”

“May I ask,” Wilmore intervened, “when my brother will be free to return to his home?”

“To-night, directly the fight is over,” Sir Timothy replied.  “Should he be successful, he will take with him a sum of money sufficient to start him in any business he chooses to enter.”

Wilmore frowned slightly.

“But surely,” he protested, “that would make him a professional pugilist?”

“Not at all,” Sir Timothy replied.  “For one thing, the match is a private one in a private house, and for another the money is a gift.  There is no purse.  If your brother loses, he gets nothing.  Will you see the fight, Mr. Wilmore?”

“Yes, I will see it,” was the somewhat reluctant assent.

“You will give me your word not to interfere in any way?”

“I shall not interfere,” Wilmore promised.  “If they are wearing regulation gloves, and the weights are about equal, and the conditions are what you say, it is the last thing I should wish to do.”