should have claimed his attention. His face was
set and grim, and his expression one of total abstraction. In spirit
he stood again in that superheated room at the Savoy. Sometimes, as he
mused, he would smoke with unconscious vigour, surrounding himself with
veritable fog banks. An imaginary breath of hyacinths would have reached
him, to conjure up vividly the hateful, perfumed environment of Ormuz
Khan.

He was savagely aware of a great mental disorderliness. He recognized
that his brain remained a mere whirlpool from which Phyllis Abingdon,
the deceased Sir Charles, Nicol Brinn, and another, alternately arose to
claim supremacy. He clenched his teeth upon the mouthpiece of his pipe.

But after some time, although rebelliously, his thoughts began to
marshal themselves in a certain definite formation. And outstanding,
alone, removed from the ordinary, almost from the real, was the bizarre
personality of Ormuz Khan.

The data concerning the Oriental visitor, as supplied by Inspector
Wessex, had led him to expect quite a different type of character.
Inured as Paul Harley was to surprise, his first sentiment as he had set
eyes upon the man had been one of sheer amazement.

"Something of a dandy," inadequately described the repellent
sensuousness of this veritable potentate, who could contrive to invest
a sitting room in a modern hotel with the atmosphere of a secret
Eastern household. To consider Ormuz Khan in connection with matters
of international finance was wildly incongruous, while the manicurist
incident indicated an inherent cruelty only possible in one of Oriental
race.

In a mood of complete mental detachment Paul Harley found himself
looking again into those black, inscrutable eyes and trying to analyze
the elusive quality of their regard. They were unlike any eyes that
he had met with. It were folly to count their possessor a negligible
quantity. Nevertheless, it was difficult, because of the fellow's
scented effeminacy, to believe that women could find him attractive.
But Harley, wise in worldly lore, perceived that the mystery surrounding
Ormuz Khan must make a strong appeal to a certain type of female mind.
He was forced to admit that some women, indeed many, would be as clay in
the hands of the man who possessed those long-lashed, magnetic eyes.

He thought of the pretty manicurist. Mortification he had read in her
white face, and pain; but no anger. Yes, Ormuz Khan was dangerous.

In what respect