ome wooden
staircase brought us to his garret. When I entered that wooden and
scrappy interior, the white gleam of Basil's shirt-front and the lustre
of his fur coat flung on the wooden settle, struck me as a contrast. He
was drinking a glass of wine before retiring. I was right; he had come
back from the dinner-party.

He listened to the repetition of the story of the Rev. Ellis Shorter
with the genuine simplicity and respect which he never failed to exhibit
in dealing with any human being. When it was over he said simply:

"Do you know a man named Captain Fraser?"

I was so startled at this totally irrelevant reference to the worthy
collector of chimpanzees with whom I ought to have dined that evening,
that I glanced sharply at Grant. The result was that I did not look at
Mr Shorter. I only heard him answer, in his most nervous tone, "No."

Basil, however, seemed to find something very curious about his answer
or his demeanour generally, for he kept his big blue eyes fixed on the
old clergyman, and though the eyes were quite quiet they stood out more
and more from his head.

"You are quite sure, Mr Shorter," he repeated, "that you don't know
Captain Fraser?"

"Quite," answered the vicar, and I was certainly puzzled to find him
returning so much to the timidity, not to say the demoralization, of his
tone when he first entered my presence.

Basil sprang smartly to his feet.

"Then our course is clear," he said. "You have not even begun your
investigation, my dear Mr Shorter; the first thing for us to do is to go
together to see Captain Fraser."

"When?" asked the clergyman, stammering.

"Now," said Basil, putting one arm in his fur coat.

The old clergyman rose to his feet, quaking all over.

"I really do not think that it is necessary," he said.

Basil took his arm out of the fur coat, threw it over the chair again,
and put his hands in his pockets.

"Oh," he said, with emphasis. "Oh--you don't think it necessary; then,"
and he added the words with great clearness and deliberation, "then, Mr
Ellis Shorter, I can only say that I would like to see you without your
whiskers."

And at these words I also rose to my feet, for the great tragedy of my
life had come. Splendid and exciting as life was in continual contact
with an intellect like Basil's, I had always the feeling that that
splendour and excitement were on the borderland of sanity. He lived
perpetually near the vision of the reason of things whic