e off your coat. It is all warm in here!"

"Yes, and some brute's been burning scent in a shovel!" thought Sir
Seymour, as he stepped into the flat.

"I think I'll keep my coat," he said. "I shan't be staying long."

"Oh, if you are in such a hurry!" said Arabian, with sudden moody
irritation.

He shut the door with a bang. In the electric light he looked tired and
menacing. At least Sir Seymour thought so. But the light in the little
hall was shaded and not very strong.

"You will be much too hot truly!" said Arabian.

"Then I'll leave my coat," said Sir Seymour.

And he took it off, laid it on a chair and went into a room on the left,
the door of which Arabian held open.

"This is my salon. I take the flat furnished. The river is there."

He pointed towards the windows now covered by curtains.

"Please sit down by the fire. I will explain. I know you will be on my
side."

He pressed a bell on the right of the mantelpiece.

Almost instantaneously the door was opened and a thin man--who looked
about thirty, Sir Seymour thought--showed himself. He had a very dark
narrow face and curiously light-grey eyes. Arabian spoke to him in
Spanish. He listened, motionless, turned and went softly out.

"You must have a little whisky with me!" said Arabian.

"No, thank you!"

"But--why not?"

"I never take it at this time."

"Well, I must have some. I have got a cold. This climate in winter--it
is awful!"

He shook his broad shoulders and blinked rapidly several times, then
suddenly opened his eyes very wide and yawned.

"Well now!" he said. "But please sit down."

Sir Seymour sat down. Arabian stood with his back to the fire and
his hands thrust into his trouser pockets. Sir Seymour noticed what
a magnificently made man he was. He had certainly been endowed with
physical gifts for the undoing of women. But his brown face, strikingly
handsome though it undoubtedly was, had the hard stamp of vice on it.
Long ago at a first glance Sir Seymour had seen that this man was a
wrong 'un, and now, as he looked at Arabian, he found himself wondering
how anyone could fail to see that.

"Now I will tell you exactly," Arabian said.

And he explained carefully and lucidly enough--though through occasional
yawns--what had happened between Garstin and himself. He did not mention
Miss Van Tuyn's name. As he was getting towards the end of his narrative
his servant came in with a tray on which were bottles and glasses. He
s