e. The second Scottish stimulant
had served somewhat to restore his failing courage; he congratulated
himself upon taking the only move which could have saved him from
arrest; he perceived that he owed his immunity entirely to the
protective wings of Mr. King. He trembled to think that his fate might
indeed have been that of the man arrested at Olton; for, without money
and without friends, he would have become, ere this, just such an
outcast and natural object of suspicion.

He noted, as a curious circumstance, that throughout the report there
was no reference to the absence of Mrs. Leroux; therefore--a primitive
reasoner--he assumed that she was back again at Palace Mansions. He
was mentally incapable of fitting Mrs. Leroux into the secret machine
engineered by Mr. King through the visible agency of Ho-Pin. On the
whole, he was disposed to believe that her several absences--ostensibly
on visits to Paris--had nothing to do with the catacombs of Ho-Pin, but
were to be traced to the amours of the radiant Gianapolis. Taking into
consideration his reception by the Chinaman in the cave of the golden
dragon, he determined, to his own satisfaction, that this had been
dictated by prudence, and by Mr. Gianapolis. In short he believed that
the untimely murder of Mrs. Vernon had threatened to direct attention to
the commercial enterprise of the Greek, and that he, Soames, had become
incorporated in the latter in this accidental fashion. He believed
himself to have been employed in a private intrigue during the time
that he was at Palace Mansions, and counted it a freak of fate that Mr.
Gianapolis' affairs of the pocket had intruded upon his affairs of the
heart.

It was all very confusing, and entirely beyond Soames' mental capacity
to unravel.

He treated himself to a third scotch whisky, and sallied out into the
rain. A brilliantly lighted music hall upon the opposite side of the
road attracted his attention. The novelty of freedom having worn off, he
felt no disposition to spend the remainder of the evening in the street,
for the rain was now falling heavily, but determined to sample the
remainder of the program offered by the "first house," and presently was
reclining in a plush-covered, tip-up seat in the back row of the stalls.

The program was not of sufficient interest wholly to distract his mind,
and during the performance of a very tragic comedian, Soames found his
thoughts wandering far from the stage. His seat was