nowledged the lady's obeisance. And it was he, beyond
any shadow of reasonable doubt, to whom it had really been directed.

"So I hear," he said, in a kindly yet somehow formal voice, "I hear,
madam, that my friends have been trying to rescue you. But without
success."

"No one, naturally, knows my faults better than you," answered the lady
with a high colour. "But you have not found me guilty of treachery."

"I willingly attest it, madam," replied Basil, in the same level tones,
"and the fact is that I am so much gratified with your exhibition of
loyalty that I permit myself the pleasure of exercising some very large
discretionary powers. You would not leave this room at the request of
these gentlemen. But you know that you can safely leave it at mine."

The captive made another reverence. "I have never complained of
your injustice," she said. "I need scarcely say what I think of your
generosity."

And before our staring eyes could blink she had passed out of the room,
Basil holding the door open for her.

He turned to Greenwood with a relapse into joviality. "This will be a
relief to you," he said.

"Yes, it will," replied that immovable young gentleman with a face like
a sphinx.

We found ourselves outside in the dark blue night, shaken and dazed as
if we had fallen into it from some high tower.

"Basil," said Rupert at last, in a weak voice, "I always thought you
were my brother. But are you a man? I mean--are you only a man?"

"At present," replied Basil, "my mere humanity is proved by one of the
most unmistakable symbols--hunger. We are too late for the theatre in
Sloane Square. But we are not too late for the restaurant. Here comes
the green omnibus!" and he had leaped on it before we could speak.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

As I said, it was months after that Rupert Grant suddenly entered my
room, swinging a satchel in his hand and with a general air of having
jumped over the garden wall, and implored me to go with him upon the
latest and wildest of his expeditions. He proposed to himself no less
a thing than the discovery of the actual origin, whereabouts, and
headquarters of the source of all our joys and sorrows--the Club of
Queer Trades. I should expand this story for ever if I explained how
ultimately we ran this strange entity to its lair. The process meant a
hundred interesting things. The tracking of a member, the bribing of
a cabman, the fightin