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Updated: June 1, 2025
It was a little past mid-day, and Archibald Druce, who had returned an hour before from an early morning professional appointment with Medhurst, was feeling restless and lonely. Morgan was not due till half-past one, and so the old man wandered disconsolately about the hotel, seeking some congenial spirit with whom to hold converse.
"Quite so," Dr. Beddersley answered. "That is just what I should expect. Now, the question is, do you know him to be one man, or is he really a gang? Is he a name for a syndicate? Have you any photographs of Colonel Clay himself in any of his disguises?" "Not one," Charles answered. "He produced some himself, when he was Medhurst the detective.
Medhurst has translated from the "Taou Teh King" this striking Taouist prayer: "O thou perfectly honored One of heaven and earth, the rock, the origin of myriad energies, the great manager of boundless kalpas, do Thou enlighten my spiritual conceptions. Within and without the three worlds, the Logos, or divine Taou, is alone honorable, embodying in himself a golden light.
Sketches and prints were hung in profusion, nooks were draped, and wicker and quaint chairs and knick-knacks were arranged in a charming disorder, whilst books were scattered everywhere. A piano loomed huge in the crowded little drawing-room. And all this had been achieved, whispered Mrs. Medhurst confidentially in his ear, by the outlay of an incredibly few pounds.
When Lady Tresco brought her four plain daughters to an "At Home" one night, Medhurst, in evening dress, disguised as a waiter, followed them each round the room with obtrusive ices, to satisfy himself just how much of their complexion was real, and how much was patent rouge and Bloom of Ninon.
Sharp as Charles is, we realised at once he was nowhere in observation beside the trained and experienced senses of this professional detective. The worst of it all was, while Medhurst was with us, by some curious fatality, Colonel Clay stopped away from us. He was a perfect marvel, too, in his faculty of suspicion. He suspected everybody.
"Most certainly they are; we lived mostly abroad, but always in good style; the house we had at Medhurst was only taken on lease for a short time; it was my father's fancy never to stay long in one place; he was fond of travelling; when I am strong enough to brave the weather, I will go down to Medhurst and hunt up an acquaintance or two; there must be someone who knew him; but the doctor will not give me leave yet."
Last time he wrote it was on Craig-Ellachie paper: this time, like the wanton lapwing, he had got himself another crest. "MOST PERSPICACIOUS OF MILLIONAIRES! Said I not well, as Medhurst, that you must distrust everybody? And the one man you never dreamt of distrusting was Medhurst. Yet see how truthful I was! I told you I knew where Colonel Clay was living and I did know, exactly.
"Have you yet fixed on a title?" asked Medhurst, secretly amused at this sudden, strange development on the part of his old friend. "Ah! there's just the difficulty. It was one of the first questions I put to myself what about the title? The thing is to get a good striking one, and that's by no means an easy task.
One day they had a pleasant outing together. Greta, who still hankered after her old home, had proposed that she and Olivia should go down to Medhurst together. "It is only an hour's journey," she observed, "And there is a dear old inn where we could have tea. And just now it will be at its best. The horse-chestnuts will be out in the Grange garden, and the pink and white may at Ivy Dene."
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