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Updated: June 20, 2025
"What is the meaning of this? Did you know who that man was? And why did he try to force me into the car?" Theydon, slowly regaining his breath, stammered brokenly that he would make things clear in a minute or so. Then he gasped to Winter: "That is Wong Li Fu the man wanted at No. 17!" "We'll get him all right," was the grimly curt answer. "Meanwhile, are you and Miss Forbes going to the hotel?"
Theydon expected to see a shattered window in the drawing-room on the first floor, where, presumably, Mrs. Forbes was standing when the shot was fired, but each pane in three large windows was intact, and the windows were closed. Then he reflected as, indeed, proved to be the case that on such a fine day the window would probably be open.
Then Theydon took a hand in the dispute, poured oil on the troubled waters by tipping the policeman half a crown and the driver half a sovereign these sums being his private estimate of damages to dignity and lamp and the journey was resumed, with a net loss, to the person who had absolutely nothing to do with the affair, of twelve and sixpence in money and nearly ten minutes in time.
He held a florin in readiness; the rain, now falling heavily, did not encourage any loitering on the pavement. For all that, he saw out of the tail of his eye that the other man was approaching, though he had paused to examine the numbers blazoned on a lamp over the first doorway. "Good night, sir, and thank you!" said the taxi driver. The cab made off as Theydon ran up a short flight of steps.
Forbes, "so, if you are free, join us at 7:30, and we can talk uninterruptedly afterward." The train was not late. Bates, erect and soldierly, was standing at the rendezvous. With him were two men whom Theydon had never before seen. One, a bulky, stalwart, florid-faced man of forty, had something of the military aspect; the other supplied his direct antithesis, being small, wizened and sallow.
Bates entered, and was almost shocked at finding his master in such lively mood. "Oh, this lady has traveled from Oxford this morning; a cup of tea and some nice toast, please, Bates," said Theydon. Then when the two were alone together again, he brushed aside the question of his age as irrelevant.
"Need we remain here? The smell of that cursed joss stick oppresses me." Then Theydon found his tongue. "If Mr. Furneaux cares to abandon his vigil, my flat is entirely at your disposal," he said. "My vigil, as you accurately describe it, has ended for the time being," said Furneaux, apparently mollified by the millionaire's surrender.
Out with the truth, let who may suffer." But neither of the pair said anything of the sort. Furneaux only interjected a sarcastic comment. "You will observe, Mr. Theydon, that even in a minor instance of deductive reasoning, such as this, the man who smells rather than the man who smokes tobacco solves the problem promptly." Theydon threw out his hands in token of surrender.
His tone was genial, but slightly guarded. Theydon realized that this man of great wealth and high social position had reminded himself that his guest, though armed with the best of credentials, was quite unknown to him otherwise, and that, perhaps, he had acted unwisely in inviting a stranger to his house without making some preliminary inquiry.
Some one said that young de Winton was simply crazy about her, but he looks such a sloppy youth that I could hardly imagine those two getting married. Of course, there's the title, yet a title is not everything." Young de Winton! Theydon had not even been aware hitherto of the existence of a marriageable scion of that noble house.
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