f purpose, from which it was difficult to
withhold admiration.

T. X. kept in his locked desk a little red book, steel bound and triple
locked, which he called his "Scandalaria." In this he inscribed in his
own irregular writing the titbits which might not be published, and
which often helped an investigator to light upon the missing threads
of a problem. In truth he scorned no source of information, and was
conscienceless in the compilation of this somewhat chaotic record.

The affairs of John Lexman recalled Kara, and Kara's great reception.
Mansus would have made arrangements to secure a verbatim report of the
speeches which were made, and these would be in his hands by the night.
Mansus did not tell him that Kara was financing some very influential
people indeed, that a certain Under-secretary of State with a great
number of very influential relations had been saved from bankruptcy by
the timely advances which Kara had made. This T. X. had obtained through
sources which might be hastily described as discreditable. Mansus knew
of the baccarat establishment in Albemarle Street, but he did not know
that the neurotic wife of a very great man indeed, no less than the
Minister of Justice, was a frequent visitor to that establishment, and
that she had lost in one night some 6,000 pounds. In these circumstances
it was remarkable, thought T. X., that she should report to the police
so small a matter as the petty pilfering of servants. This, however,
she had done and whilst the lesser officers of Scotland Yard were
interrogating pawnbrokers, the men higher up were genuinely worried by
the lady's own lapses from grace.

It was all sordid but, unfortunately, conventional, because highly
placed people will always do underbred things, where money or women
are concerned, but it was necessary, for the proper conduct of the
department which T. X. directed, that, however sordid and however
conventional might be the errors which the great ones of the earth
committed, they should be filed for reference.

The motto which T. X. went upon in life was, "You never know."

The Minister of Justice was a very important person, for he was a
personal friend of half the monarchs of Europe. A poor man, with two or
three thousand a year of his own, with no very definite political
views and uncommitted to the more violent policies of either party, he
succeeded in serving both, with profit to himself, and without earning
the obloquy of either. T