's all very interesting," I returned, "but you can see I'm bothered
just at present, and I want to be alone. You can tell me all that at
another time."

"There's one of them a-living in this house, sir," said Hinge, as little
moved by my interruption as if I had not spoken.

This was news, and my impatience and ill-temper vanished.

"How do you know?" I asked. "Tell me all about it."

"I never set eyes on him but just this minute, sir," said Hinge, "since
I left Vienna. But he walked upstairs just now with a latch-key in his
hand, and he went into the rooms overhead of yours, sir. That's him
a-walking about now, I'll lay a fiver." As a matter of fact, I could
bear a heavy footstep pacing the room above. "The odd part of it is,
sir," Hinge pursued, "this cove knows Mr. Brunow, and Mr. Brunow knows
him, sir."

"Oh," I asked, fully interested by this time, "how do you know that?"

"They spoke together on the stairs, sir. This fellow Sacovitch, that's
his name, he says to Mr. Brunow, 'Alloa,' he says, 'you 'ere?' And Mr.
Brunow says, 'Don't speak to me; I'll write to you.' Now I don't like
the look o' that, sir, and I thought you ought to know about it."

"You are quite right, Hinge," I said. "It was your business to tell
me; and if I had known it yesterday, or if I had only known of it eight
hours ago, it might have been of use to me."

"This Sacovitch chap didn't see me, sir," said Hinge, with a certain
modest exultation; "I took care of that. But I nips half-way upstairs
after him, and sees him open the door with his latch-key, and then I
nips down again."

"Do you think he would know you if he saw you?" I asked.

"There's no saying about that, sir," Hinge responded; "he might and he
mightn't. You see, sir, he's a swell in his own way, this chap is. He
used to dine with the general, and they used to salute him like as if he
was an officer. There was every reason, don't you see, sir, why I should
notice him, and there was no mortal reason in the world why he should
notice me. But there's no mistaking him, sir, and I should have spotted
his ugly mug among a million."

"Thank you very much, Hinge. That will do." Hinge went away, and I sat
down to think this new matter over. Of course I had never been foolish
enough to suppose that Brunow had given me any information of value
against his party, outside the one admission that he had been hired by
the Baroness Bonnar; but here was sudden proof of the incompleteness