ed at it. It was a Melania, a
cigarette I happen to know for they stock them at one of my clubs, the
Dionysus, and it chances to be the only place in London where you can
get the brand.

It looked as if my unknown friend had come from London.

There was also a plain silver watch of Swiss make.

In the trousers pocket was some change, a little English silver and
coppers, some Dutch silver and paper money. In the right-hand trouser
pocket was a bunch of keys.

That was all.

I put the different articles on the floor beside me. Then I got up, put
the candle on the table, drew the chair up to it and opened the
portfolio.

In a little pocket of the inner flap were visiting cards. Some were
simply engraved with the name in small letters:

Dr. Semlin

Others were more detailed:

Dr. Semlin, Brooklyn, N.Y.
The Halewright Mfg. Coy., Ltd.

There were also half a dozen private cards:

Dr. Semlin, 333 E. 73rd St., New York.
Rivington Park House.

In the packet of cards was a solitary one, larger than the rest, an
expensive affair on thick, highly glazed millboard, bearing in gothic
characters the name:

Otto von Steinhardt.

On this card was written in pencil, above the name:

"Hotel Sixt, Vos in't Tuintje," and in brackets, thus: "(Mme. Anna
Schratt.)"

In another pocket of the portfolio was an American passport surmounted
by a flaming eagle and sealed with a vast red seal, sending greetings to
all and sundry on behalf of Henry Semlin, a United States citizen,
travelling to Europe. Details in the body of the document set forth that
Henry Semlin was born at Brooklyn on 31st March, 1886, that his hair was
Black, nose Aquiline, chin Firm, and that of special marks he had None.
The description was good enough to show me that it was undoubtedly the
body of Henry Semlin that lay at my feet.

The passport had been issued at Washington three months earlier. The
only _visa_ it bore was that of the American Embassy in London, dated
two days previously. With it was a British permit, issued to Henry
Semlin, Manufacturer, granting him authority to leave the United Kingdom
for the purpose of travelling to Rotterdam, further a bill for luncheon
served on board the Dutch Royal mail steamer _Koningin Regentes_ on
yesterday's date.

In the long and anguishing weeks that followed on that anxious night in
the Hotel of the Vos in't Tuintje, I have often wondered to what
malicious promptings, to what insane impulse, I owed th