fficer to start
back in alarm.

"Listen," said T. X., grasping an ivory paperknife savagely in his hand
and tapping his blotting-pad to emphasize his words, "you're a pie!"

"I'm a policeman," said the other patiently.

"A policeman!" exclaimed the exasperated T. X. "You're worse than a pie,
you're a slud! I'm afraid I shall never make a detective of you," he
shook his head sorrowfully at the smiling Mansus who had been in the
police force when T. X. was a small boy at school, "you are neither Wise
nor Wily; you combine the innocence of a Baby with the grubbiness of a
County Parson--you ought to be in the choir."

At this outrageous insult Mr. Mansus was silent; what he might have
said, or what further provocation he might have received may be never
known, for at that moment, the Chief himself walked in.

The Chief of the Police in these days was a grey man, rather tired, with
a hawk nose and deep eyes that glared under shaggy eyebrows and he was a
terror to all men of his department save to T. X. who respected nothing
on earth and very little elsewhere. He nodded curtly to Mansus.

"Well, T. X.," he said, "what have you discovered about our friend
Kara?"

He turned from T. X. to the discomforted inspector.

"Very little," said T. X. "I've had Mansus on the job."

"And you've found nothing, eh?" growled the Chief.

"He has found all that it is possible to find," said T. X. "We do not
perform miracles in this department, Sir George, nor can we pick up the
threads of a case at five minutes' notice."

Sir George Haley grunted.

"Mansus has done his best," the other went on easily, "but it is rather
absurd to talk about one's best when you know so little of what you
want."

Sir George dropped heavily into the arm-chair, and stretched out his
long thin legs.

"What I want," he said, looking up at the ceiling and putting his hands
together, "is to discover something about one Remington Kara, a wealthy
Greek who has taken a house in Cadogan Square, who has no particular
position in London society and therefore has no reason for coming
here, who openly expresses his detestation of the climate, who has
a magnificent estate in some wild place in the Balkans, who is an
excellent horseman, a magnificent shot and a passable aviator."

T. X. nodded to Mansus and with something of gratitude in his eyes the
inspector took his leave.

"Now Mansus has departed," said T. X., sitting himself on the edge of
his desk and