wing the tips of his thin
fingers through his brown beard. His eyes twinkled pleasantly. "Why
'extraordinary,' Barker?" he repeated encouragingly, noticing the
perplexed expression in the man's eyes.

"He's so--so thin, sir. I could hardly see 'im at all--at first. He was
inside the house before I could ask the name," he added, remembering
strict orders.

"And who brought him here?"

"He come alone, sir, in a closed cab. He pushed by me before I could say
a word--making no noise not what I could hear. He seemed to move so soft
like--"

The man stopped short with obvious embarrassment, as though he had
already said enough to jeopardise his new situation, but trying hard to
show that he remembered the instructions and warnings he had received
with regard to the admission of strangers not properly accredited.

"And where is the gentleman now?" asked Dr. Silence, turning away to
conceal his amusement.

"I really couldn't exactly say, sir. I left him standing in the 'all--"

The doctor looked up sharply. "But why in the hall, Barker? Why not in
the waiting-room?" He fixed his piercing though kindly eyes on the man's
face. "Did he frighten you?" he asked quickly.

"I think he did, sir, if I may say so. I seemed to lose sight of him, as
it were--" The man stammered, evidently convinced by now that he had
earned his dismissal. "He come in so funny, just like a cold wind," he
added boldly, setting his heels at attention and looking his master full
in the face.

The doctor made an internal note of the man's halting description; he
was pleased that the slight signs of psychic intuition which had induced
him to engage Barker had not entirely failed at the first trial. Dr.
Silence sought for this qualification in all his assistants, from
secretary to serving man, and if it surrounded him with a somewhat
singular crew, the drawbacks were more than compensated for on the whole
by their occasional flashes of insight.

"So the gentleman made you feel queer, did he?"

"That was it, I think, sir," repeated the man stolidly.

"And he brings no kind of introduction to me--no letter or anything?"
asked the doctor, with feigned surprise, as though he knew what was
coming.

The man fumbled, both in mind and pockets, and finally produced an
envelope.

"I beg pardon, sir," he said, greatly flustered; "the gentleman handed
me this for you."

It was a note from a discerning friend, who had never yet sent him a
case that was no