hen Hillyard had finished:

"Well, he might be like that," Luttrell conceded. "It was not our idea."

"No," said Colin Rayne. "You will remember I always differed from all of
you, but it seems that I am wrong too. I pictured him as a tall,
melancholy man, with a conical bald head and with a habit of plucking at
a black straggling beard--something like the portraits of Tennyson."

"To me," said Luttrell, "he was always fat and fussy, with white spats."

"But why are you interested in him at all?" cried Hillyard.

"We will explain the affair to you on the balcony," answered Luttrell,
as he rose.

They moved into the dark and coolness of this spacious place, and,
stretching themselves in comfort on the long cane chairs, they explained
to Hillyard this great mystery. Rayne began the tale.

"You see, we don't get a mail here so very often. Consequently we pay
attention when it comes. We read the _Searchlight_, for instance, with
care."

Mr. Blacker snatched the narrative away at this point.

"And Sir Chichester Splay occurs in most issues and in many columns. At
first we merely noticed him. Some one would say, 'Oh, here's old Splay
again,' as if--it seems incredible now--the matter was of no importance.
It needed Luttrell to discover the real significance of Sir Chichester,
the man's unique and astounding quality."

Harry Luttrell interrupted now.

"Yes, it was I," he said with pride. "Sir Chichester one day was seen at
a Flower Show in Chelsea. On another he attended the first performance
of a play. On a third day he honoured the Private View of an Exhibition
of Pictures. On a fourth he sat amongst the Distinguished Strangers in
the Gallery of the House of Commons. But that was all! This is what I
alone perceived. Always that was all!"

Luttrell leaned back and relit his cigar.

"When other people come to be mentioned in the newspapers day after day,
sooner or later some information about them slips out, some
characteristic thing. If you don't get to know their appearance, you
learn at all events their professions, their opinions. But of Sir
Chichester Splay--never anything at all. Yet he is there always, nothing
can happen without his presence, a man without a shadow, a being without
a history. To me, a simple soldier, he is admirable beyond words. For he
has achieved the inconceivable. He combines absolute privacy of life
with a world-wide notoriety. He may be a stamp-collector. Do I know
that? No. All I kn