tenant, bluntly,
offering his friend a cigarette and lighting one himself. "No, depend
upon it, poor old Dick was a man of mystery. Many strange rumours were
afloat concerning him. Yet, after all, he was a real fine fellow, and
as smart an officer as ever trod a quarter-deck. He was a splendid
linguist, and had fine prospects, for he has an uncle an admiral on
the National Defence Committee. Yet he chucked it all and became a
cosmopolitan wanderer, and--if there be any truth in the gossip I've
heard--an adventurer."

"An outsider--eh?"

"Well--no, not exactly. Dick Harborne was a gentleman, therefore he
could never have been an outsider," replied the naval officer quickly.
"By adventurer I mean that he led a strange, unconventional life. He was
met by men who knew him in all sorts of out-of-the-world corners of
Europe, where he spent the greater part of his time idling at _cafes_
and in a section of society which was not altogether reputable."

"And you say he was not an adventurer?" remarked the staid British
landowner--one of a class perhaps the most conservative and
narrow-minded in all the world.

"My dear fellow, travel broadens a man's mind," exclaimed the naval
officer. "A man may be a cosmopolitan without being an adventurer. Dick
Harborne, though there were so many sinister whispers concerning him,
was a gentleman--a shrewd, deep-thinking, patriotic Englishman. And his
death is a mystery--one which I intend to solve. I've come over here
again to-day to find out what I can."

"Well," exclaimed Goring, "I for one am hardly satisfied with his recent
career. While he was in the Navy and afloat--gunnery-lieutenant of one
of His Majesty's first-class cruisers--there appears to have been
nothing against his personal character. Only after his retirement these
curious rumours arose."

"True, and nobody has fathomed the mystery of his late life," admitted
Barclay, drawing hard at his cigarette and examining the lighted end.
"I've heard of him being seen in Cairo, Assouan, Monte Carlo, Aix,
Berlin, Rome--all over the Continent, and in Egypt he seems to have
travelled, and with much more means at his disposal than ever he had in
the ward-room."

"There are strange mysteries in some men's lives, my dear Barclay.
Harborne was a man of secrets without a doubt. Some of those secrets may
come out at the inquest."

"I doubt it. Poor Dick!" he sighed. "He's dead--killed by an unknown
hand, and his secret, whatever it w