d taken him
round for just about ten or a dozen minutes when word was suddenly
brought to me that the representative of one of the biggest managers
in the country had just called with reference to an important order,
so, of course, I put back to the office as quickly as I could foot
it, young Stan quite naturally following me, as he didn't know his
way about the place alone, and, being a modest, retiring sort of boy,
didn't like facing the possibility of blundering into what might
prove to be private quarters, and things of that sort. He said as
much to me at the time.

"Well, when I got back to the office, I soon found that the business
with my visitor was a matter that would take some time to settle--you
can't give a man an estimate all on a jump, and without doing a
bit of figuring, you know--so I told young Stan that he might cut
off and go over the place on his own, if he liked, as it had been
arranged that, when knocking-off time came, I was to go back with
him to Miss Larue's flat, where we all were to have supper together.
When I told him that, he asked eagerly if he might go up to the
wax-figure department, as he was particularly anxious to see Loti
at work, and so----"

"Loti!" Cleek flung in the word so sharply that Trent gave a nervous
start. "Just a moment, please, before you go any further, Mr. Trent.
Sorry to interrupt, but, tell me, please: is the man who models
your show-window effigies named Loti, then? Is, eh? Hum-m! Any
connection by chance with that once famous Italian worker in wax,
Giuseppe Loti--chap that used to make those splendid wax tableaux
for the Eden Musee in Paris some eighteen or twenty years ago?"

"Same chap. Went all to pieces all of a sudden--clear off his head
for a time, I've heard--in the very height of his career, because
his wife left him. Handsome French woman--years younger than he--ran
off with another chap and took every blessed thing of value she
could lay her hands upon when--but maybe you've heard the story?"

"I have," said Cleek. "It is one that is all too common on the
Continent. Also, it happened that I was in Paris at the time of the
occurrence. And so you have that great Giuseppe Loti at the head of
your waxwork department, eh? What a come-down in the world for
him! Poor devil! I thought he was dead ages ago. He dropped out
suddenly and disappeared from France entirely after that affair with
his unfaithful wife. The rumour was that he had committed suicide;
a