ent which I am about to put upon record took place. I was the
first of the men to arrive at the studio, but Mrs. Delamere was already
there, having had afternoon tea with Mrs. Harvey Deacon. The two ladies
and Deacon himself were standing in front of an unfinished picture of
his upon the easel. I am not an expert in art, and I have never
professed to understand what Harvey Deacon meant by his pictures; but I
could see in this instance that it was all very clever and imaginative,
fairies and animals and allegorical figures of all sorts. The ladies
were loud in their praises, and indeed the colour effect was a
remarkable one.

"What do you think of it, Markham?" he asked.

"Well, it's above me," said I. "These beasts--what are they?"

"Mythical monsters, imaginary creatures, heraldic emblems--a sort of
weird, bizarre procession of them."

"With a white horse in front!"

"It's not a horse," said he, rather testily--which was surprising, for
he was a very good-humoured fellow as a rule, and hardly ever took
himself seriously.

"What is it, then?"

"Can't you see the horn in front? It's a unicorn. I told you they were
heraldic beasts. Can't you recognise one?"

"Very sorry, Deacon," said I, for he really seemed to be annoyed.

He laughed at his own irritation.

"Excuse me, Markham!" said he; "the fact is that I have had an awful job
over the beast. All day I have been painting him in and painting him
out, and trying to imagine what a real live, ramping unicorn would look
like. At last I got him, as I hoped; so when you failed to recognise it,
it took me on the raw."

"Why, of course it's a unicorn," said I, for he was evidently depressed
at my obtuseness. "I can see the horn quite plainly, but I never saw a
unicorn except beside the Royal Arms, and so I never thought of the
creature. And these others are griffins and cockatrices, and dragons of
sorts?"

"Yes, I had no difficulty with them. It was the unicorn which bothered
me. However, there's an end of it until to-morrow." He turned the
picture round upon the easel, and we all chatted about other subjects.

Moir was late that evening, and when he did arrive he brought with him,
rather to our surprise, a small, stout Frenchman, whom he introduced as
Monsieur Paul Le Duc. I say to our surprise, for we held a theory that
any intrusion into our spiritual circle deranged the conditions, and
introduced an element of suspicion. We knew that we could trust each
oth