tone of one who had had a long acquaintance with the public schools and universities of England. There was no trace of any foreign accent, yet Remington Kara was a Greek and had been born and partly educated in the more turbulent area of Albania.
The two men shook hands warmly.
“You’ll stay to dinner?”
Kara glanced round with a smile at Grace Lexman. She sat uncomfortably upright, her hands loosely folded on her lap, her face devoid of encouragement.
“If Mrs. Lexman doesn’t object,” said the Greek.
“I should be pleased, if you would,” she said, almost mechanically; “it is a horrid night and you won’t get anything worth eating this side of London and I doubt very much,” she smiled a little, “if the meal I can give you will be worthy of that description.”
“What you can give me will be more than sufficient,” he said, with a little bow, and turned to her husband.
In a few minutes they were deep in a discussion of books and places, and Grace seized the opportunity to make her escape. From books in general to Lexman’s books in particular the conversation flowed.
“I’ve read every one of them, you know,” said Kara.
John made a little face. “Poor devil,” he said sardonically.
“On the contrary,” said Kara, “I am not to be pitied. There is a great criminal lost in you, Lexman.”
“Thank you,” said John.
“I am not being uncomplimentary, am I?” smiled the Greek. “I am merely referring to the ingenuity of your plots. Sometimes your books baffle and annoy me. If I cannot see the solution of your mysteries before the book is half through, it angers me a little. Of course in the majority of cases I know the solution before I have reached the fifth chapter.”
John looked at him in surprise and was somewhat piqued.
“I flatter myself it is impossible to tell how my stories will end until the last chapter,” he said.
Kara nodded.
“That would be so in the case of the average reader, but you forget that I am a student. I follow every little thread of the clue which you leave exposed.”
“You should meet T. X.,” said John, with a laugh, as he rose from his chair to poke the fire.
“T. X.?”
“T. X. Meredith. He is the most ingenious beggar you could meet. We were at Caius together, and he is by way of being a great pal of mine. He is in the Criminal Investigation Department.”
Kara nodded. There was the light of interest in his eyes and he would have pursued the discussion further, but at the moment dinner was announced.
It was not a particularly cheerful meal because Grace did not as usual join in the conversation, and it was left to Kara and to her husband to supply the deficiencies. She was experiencing a curious sense of depression, a premonition of evil which she could not define. Again and again in the course of the dinner she took her mind back to the events of the day to discover the reason for her unease.
Usually when she adopted this method she came upon the trivial causes in which apprehension was born, but now she was puzzled to find that a solution was denied her. Her letters of the morning had been pleasant, neither the house nor the servants had given her any trouble. She was well herself, and though she knew John had a little money trouble, since his unfortunate speculation in Roumanian gold shares, and she half suspected that he had had to borrow money to make good his losses, yet his prospects were so excellent and the success of his last book so promising that she, probably seeing with a clearer vision the unimportance of those money worries, was less concerned about the problem than he.
“You will have your coffee in the study, I suppose,” said Grace, “and I know you’ll excuse me; I have to see Mrs. Chandler on the mundane subject of laundry.”
She favoured Kara with a little nod as she left the room and touched John’s shoulder lightly with her hand in passing.
Kara’s eyes followed her graceful figure until she was out of view, then:
“I want to see you, Kara,” said John Lexman, “if you will give me five minutes.”
“You can have five hours, if you like,” said the other, easily.
They went into the study together; the maid brought the coffee and liqueur, and placed them on a little table near the fire and disappeared.
For a time the conversation was general. Kara, who was a frank admirer of the comfort of the room and who lamented his own inability to secure with money the cosiness which John had obtained at little cost, went on a foraging expedition whilst his host applied himself to a proof which needed correcting.
“I suppose it is impossible for you to have electric light here,” Kara asked.
“Quite,” replied the other.
“Why?”
“I rather like the light of this lamp.”
“It isn’t the lamp,” drawled the Greek and made a little grimace; “I hate these candles.”
He waved his hand to the mantle-shelf where the six tall, white, waxen candles stood out from two wall sconces.
“Why on earth do you hate candles?” asked the other in surprise.
Kara made no reply for the moment, but shrugged his shoulders. Presently he spoke.
“If you were ever tied down to a chair and by the side of that chair was a small keg of black powder and stuck in that powder was a small candle that burnt lower and lower every minute—my God!”
John was amazed to see the perspiration stand upon the forehead of his guest.
“That sounds thrilling,” he said.
The Greek wiped his forehead with a silk handkerchief and his hand shook a little.
“It was something more than thrilling,” he said.
“And when did this occur?” asked the author curiously.
“In Albania,” replied the other; “it was many years ago, but the devils are always sending me reminders of the fact.”
He did not attempt to explain who the devils were or under what circumstances he was brought to this unhappy pass, but changed the subject definitely.
Sauntering round the cosy room he followed the bookshelf which filled one wall and stopped now and again to examine some title. Presently he drew forth a stout volume.
“‘Wild Brazil’,” he read, “by George Gathercole-do you know Gathercole?”
John was filling his pipe from a big blue jar on his desk and nodded.
“Met him once—a taciturn devil. Very short of speech and, like all men who have seen and done things, less inclined to talk about himself than any man I know.”
Kara looked at the book with a thoughtful pucker
