n with my business. What kind of house would you desire me to
get for you, sir?"

He opened his blank blue eyes on Rupert, who seemed for the second
staggered. Then he recovered himself with perfect common sense and
answered:

"I am sorry, Mr Montmorency. The fascination of your remarks has unduly
delayed us from joining our friend outside. Pray excuse my apparent
impertinence."

"Not at all, sir," said the house-agent, taking a South American spider
idly from his waistcoat pocket and letting it climb up the slope of his
desk. "Not at all, sir. I hope you will favour me again."

Rupert Grant dashed out of the office in a gust of anger, anxious
to face Lieutenant Keith. He was gone. The dull, starlit street was
deserted.

"What do you say now?" cried Rupert to his brother. His brother said
nothing now.

We all three strode down the street in silence, Rupert feverish, myself
dazed, Basil, to all appearance, merely dull. We walked through grey
street after grey street, turning corners, traversing squares, scarcely
meeting anyone, except occasional drunken knots of two or three.

In one small street, however, the knots of two or three began abruptly
to thicken into knots of five or six and then into great groups and then
into a crowd. The crowd was stirring very slightly. But anyone with a
knowledge of the eternal populace knows that if the outside rim of a
crowd stirs ever so slightly it means that there is madness in the
heart and core of the mob. It soon became evident that something really
important had happened in the centre of this excitement. We wormed our
way to the front, with the cunning which is known only to cockneys, and
once there we soon learned the nature of the difficulty. There had been
a brawl concerned with some six men, and one of them lay almost dead
on the stones of the street. Of the other four, all interesting matters
were, as far as we were concerned, swallowed up in one stupendous fact.
One of the four survivors of the brutal and perhaps fatal scuffle was
the immaculate Lieutenant Keith, his clothes torn to ribbons, his eyes
blazing, blood on his knuckles. One other thing, however, pointed at him
in a worse manner. A short sword, or very long knife, had been drawn out
of his elegant walking-stick, and lay in front of him upon the stones.
It did not, however, appear to be bloody.

The police had already pushed into the centre with their ponderous
omnipotence, and even as they did so, Rupe