trated by the
family portraits. You have not been in the dining-room or picture-gallery
at Beechcroft, or you must have noticed this instantly."

Brett flung himself into a chair.

"The Argentine!" he muttered. "A nice school for a 'quarrelsome'
Hume-Frazer."

He had calmed sufficiently to reach for his cigarette-case when Smith
entered with a note, delivered by a boy messenger.

It was from Winter:

"Have found Okasaki. His name is now Numagawa Jiro, so you were right, as
usual. He and Mrs. Jiro live at 17 St. John's Mansions, Kensington."

CHAPTER XI

MR. "OKASAKI"

In fifteen minutes Brett was bowling along Knightsbridge in a hansom,
having left Hume with a strict injunction to rack his brains for any
further undiscovered facts bearing upon the inquiry, and turn up promptly
at ten o'clock next morning.

Although the hour was late for calling upon a complete stranger, the
barrister could not rest until he had inspected the Jiro menage. No. 17
was a long way from the ground level. Indeed, the cats of Kensington, if
sufficiently enterprising, inhabitated the floor above.

He rang, and was surveyed with astonishment by a very small maid-servant.

"Is Mr. Numagawa Jiro at home?" he inquired.

"No, sir, but Mrs. Jiro is."

An infantine wail from one of the apartments showed that there was also a
young Jiro.

The maid neither advanced nor retreated. She simply stood stock still,
petrified by the sight of a well-dressed visitor.

Brett suggested that she should inform her mistress of his presence.

"Please, sir," whispered the girl, "are you from Ipswich?"

"No; from Victoria Street."

"I only asked, sir, because master is particular about people from
Ipswich. They upset missus so."

She vanished into the interior, and came back to usher him into the
drawing-room. The flat was expensively furnished, but very untidy. He at
once perceived, however, that the "former" Mr. Okasaki was not romancing
when he boasted of his artistic tastes. The Japanese articles in the room
were gems of faience and lacquer work.

The entrance of Mrs. Jiro drew the barrister's eyes from surrounding
objects. He was momentarily stunned. The woman was almost a giantess, and
amazingly stout. In a tiny flat, waited on by a diminutive servant, and
married to a Japanese, she was grotesque.

Originally a very tall and fairly good-looking girl, she had evidently
blossomed out like one of the gorgeous chrysanthemums of her hu