s, as
Dyson pompously remarked, "a sunset in a dream," and the lamplight, the
twilight of London streets, was shut out with strangely worked
curtains, glittering here and there with threads of gold. In the
shelves of an oak _armoire_ stood jars and plates of old French china,
and the black and white of etchings not to be found in the Haymarket or
in Bond Street, stood out against the splendour of a Japanese paper.
Salisbury sat down on the settle by the hearth, and sniffed the mingled
fumes of incense and tobacco, wondering and dumb before all this
splendour after the green rep and the oleographs, the gilt-framed
mirror and the lustres of his own apartment.

"I am glad you have come," said Dyson. "Comfortable little room, isn't
it? But you don't look very well, Salisbury. Nothing disagreed with
you, has it?"

"No; but I have been a good deal bothered for the last few days. The
fact is I had an odd kind of--of--adventure, I suppose I may call it,
that night I saw you, and it has worried me a good deal. And the
provoking part of it is that it's the merest nonsense--but, however, I
will tell you all about it, by and by. You were going to let me have
the rest of that odd story you began at the restaurant."

"Yes. But I am afraid, Salisbury, you are incorrigible. You are a slave
to what you call matter of fact. You know perfectly well that in your
heart you think the oddness in that case is of my making, and that it
is all really as plain as the police reports. However, as I have begun,
I will go on. But first we will have something to drink, and you may as
well light your pipe."

Dyson went up to the oak cupboard, and drew from its depths a rotund
bottle and two little glasses quaintly gilded.

"It's Benedictin," he said. "You'll have some, won't you?"

Salisbury assented, and the two men sat sipping and smoking
reflectively for some minutes before Dyson began.

"Let me see," he said at last; "we were at the inquest, weren't we? No,
we had done with that. Ah, I remember. I was telling you that on the
whole I had been successful in my inquiries, investigation, or what
ever you like to call it, into the matter. Wasn't that where I left
off?"

"Yes, that was it. To be precise, I think 'though' was the last word
you said on the matter."

"Exactly. I have been thinking it all over since the other night, and I
have come to the conclusion that that 'though' is a very big 'though'
indeed. Not to put too fine a point on