you spoke of 'a case.' What is the case, Mr. Narkom?"

"I will leave Mr. Philip Bawdrey himself to tell you that," said Narkom,
as the door opened to admit a young man of about eight-and-twenty,
clothed in tennis flannels, and looking very much perturbed, a handsome,
fair-haired, fair-moustached young fellow, with frank, boyish eyes and
that unmistakable something which stamps the products of the 'Varsities.
"Come in, Mr. Bawdrey. You said we were not to wait tea, and you see
that we haven't. Let me have the pleasure of introducing Mr.--"

"Headland," put in Cleek adroitly, and with a look at Narkom as much as
to say, "Don't give me away. I may not care to take the case when I hear
it, so what's the use of letting everybody know who I am?" Then he
switched round in his chair, rose, and held out his hand. "Mr. George
Headland, of the Yard, Mr. Bawdrey. I don't trust Mr. Narkom's
proverbially tricky memory for names. He introduced me as Jones once,
and I lost the opportunity of handling the case because the party in
question couldn't believe that anybody named Jones would be likely to
ferret it out."

"Funny idea, that!" commented young Bawdrey, smiling, and accepting the
proffered hand. "Rum lot of people you must run across in your line, Mr.
Headland. Shouldn't take you for a detective myself, shouldn't even in a
room full of them. College man, aren't you? Thought so. Oxon or Cantab?"

"Cantab--Emmanuel."

"Oh, Lord! Never thought I'd ever live to appeal to an Emmanuel man to
do anything brilliant. I'm an Oxon chap; Brasenose is my alma mater. I
say, Mr. Narkom, do give me a cup of tea, will you? I had to slip off
while the others were at theirs, and I've run all the way. Thanks very
much. Don't mind if I sit in that corner and draw the curtain a little,
do you?" his frank, boyish face suddenly clouding. "I don't want to be
seen by anybody passing. It's a horrible thing to feel that you are
being spied upon, at every turn, Mr. Headland, and that want of caution
may mean the death of the person you love best in all the world."

"Oh, it's that kind of case, is it?" queried Cleek, making room for him
to pass round the table and sit in the corner, with his back to the
window and the loosened folds of the chintz curtain keeping him in the
shadow.

"Yes," answered young Bawdrey, with a half-repressed shudder and a
deeper clouding of his rather pale face. "Sometimes I try to make myself
believe that it isn't, that it's