im."

Coryndon was not watching his host, he was leaning back in his chair,
his eyes on a little spiral of smoke that circled up from his cigarette.

"I wish that damned little Absalom had never been heard of, and that it
was anybody's business but mine to find him, if he is to be found."

If Coryndon's finely-cut lips trembled into an instantaneous smile, it
passed almost at once, and he looked quietly round at Hartley, who still
paced, looking like an overgrown schoolboy in a bad mood.

"I wish I could help you, Hartley, but I have not enough to go on. As
you say, the case is unusual, and it makes it impossible for me to
advise." He got up and stretched himself. "There is one thing I will
do, if you wish it, and, from what you said, you may wish it; I will
take over the whole thing--for my holiday, and the Wagner Cycle will
have to wait."

Hartley came to a standstill before his guest.

"You'll do that, Coryndon?"

"The case interests me," said Coryndon, "otherwise, I should not suggest
it." He paused for a moment and reflected. "I shall have to make your
bungalow my headquarters; that is the simplest plan. Any absences may be
accounted for by shooting trips and that sort of thing. That part of it
is straightforward enough, and I can see the people I want to see."

"You shall have a free hand to do anything you like," said Hartley. "And
any help that I can give you."

Coryndon looked at him for a moment without replying.

"Thank you, Hartley. Our methods are different, as you know, but when I
want you, I will tell you how you can help me."

He walked across the room to where two tumblers and a decanter of whisky
stood on a tray, and, pouring himself out a glass of soda water, sipped
it slowly.

"Here are my notes," said Hartley, in a voice of great relief. "They
will be useful for reference."

Coryndon folded them up and put them in his pocket.

"Most of what is there is also in my official report."

Coryndon nodded his head, and, opening the piano, struck a light chord.
After a moment he sat down and played softly, and the air he played came
straight from the high rocks that guard the Afghan frontier. Like a
breeze that springs up at evening, the little love-song lilted and
whispered under his compelling fingers, and the "Song of the Broken
Heart" sang itself in the room of Hartley, Head of the Police. Where it
carried Coryndon no one could guess, but it carried Hartley into a very
rose-garden of se