n then the quality of the man outshone the eccentricities
of the super-crank. And I had a taste of it that August morning; a
foretaste, when I looked into the road and saw worry and distress where
I expected only righteous indignation.

I went down and asked him in, and his face lit up like a stormy sunbeam.
But the most level-headed man in England could not have come to the
point in fewer words or a more temperate tone.

"I'm glad your friend has told you what I've come about. I'm a plain
speaker, Mr. Gillon, and I shall be plainer with you than I've been with
him, because he tells me you know Abercromby Royle. In that case you
won't start a scandal--because to know the fellow is to like him--and I
only hope it may prove in your power to prevent one."

"I'll do anything I can, Mr. Coysh," I went so far as to say. But I was
already taken by surprise. And so, I could see, was Uvo Delavoye.

"I'll hold you to that," said Coysh frankly. "When did you see him last,
Mr. Gillon?"

"Do you mean Mr. Royle?" I stammered, turning away from Delavoye. If
only he had not been there!

"Of course I do; and let me tell you, Mr. Gillon, this is a serious
matter for the man, you know. You won't improve his chances by keeping
anything back. When did you see him last?"

"Monday night," I mumbled.

But Delavoye heard.

"Monday _night_?" he interjected densely. "Why, it was on Monday he went
away!"

"Exactly--by the last train."

"But we heard they'd gone hours before!"

"We heard wrong, so far as Royle was concerned. I came across him after
I left you, and I saw him off myself."

Coysh had a sharp eye on both of us, and Delavoye's astonishment was not
lost upon him. But it was at me that he looked last and longest.

"And you keep this to yourself from Monday night till now?"

"What's about it?" I demanded, falling into my own vernacular in my
embarrassment.

"It only looks rather as though you were behind the scenes," replied
Coysh simply. And his honesty called to mine.

"Well, so I was, to a certain extent," I cried; "but I got there by
accident, I blundered in where I wasn't wanted, and yet the fellow
treated me like a gentleman! That's why I never gave it away. But," I
added with more guile, "there was really nothing to give away." And with
that I improvised a garbled version of my last little visit to the house
with red blinds, which I did not say I had discovered in utter darkness,
any more than I described the s