ewcomer.
Francis rose to his feet with a half-stifled expression of anger at the
clumsiness of his clerk. Sir Timothy, well-shaven and groomed, attired
in a perfectly-fitting suit of grey flannel, nodded to Francis in
friendly fashion and laid his Homburg hat upon the table with the air of
a familiar.

"My dear Ledsam," he said, "I do hope that you will excuse this early
call. I could only have been an hour behind you on the road. I dare
say you can guess what I have come to see you about. Can we have a word
together?"

"Certainly," was the ready reply. "You remember my friend Shopland, Sir
Timothy? It was Mr. Shopland who arrested young Fairfax that night at
Soto's."

"I remember him perfectly," Sir Timothy declared. "I fancied, directly I
entered, that your face was familiar," he added, turning to Shopland.
"I am rather ashamed of myself about that night. My little outburst
must have sounded almost ridiculous to you two. To tell you the truth,
I quite failed at that time to give Mr. Ledsam credit for gifts which I
have since discovered him to possess."

"Mr. Shopland and I are now discussing another matter," Francis went on,
pushing a box of cigarettes towards Sir Timothy, who was leaning against
the table in an easy attitude. "Don't go, Shopland, for a minute. We
were consulting together about the disappearance of a young man, Reggie
Wilmore, the brother of a friend of mine--Andrew Wilmore, the novelist."

"Disappearance?" Sir Timothy repeated, as he lit a cigarette. "That is
rather a vague term."

"The young man has been missing from home for over a week," Francis
said, "and left no trace whatever of his whereabouts. He was not in
financial trouble, he does not seem to have been entangled with any
young woman, he had not quarrelled with his people, and he seems to have
been on the best of terms with the principal at the house of business
where he was employed. His disappearance, therefore, is, to say the
least of it, mysterious."

Sir Timothy assented gravely.

"The lack of motive to which you allude," he pointed out, "makes the
case interesting. Still, one must remember that London is certainly the
city of modern mysteries. If a new 'Arabian Nights' were written, it
might well be about London. I dare say Mr. Shopland will agree with
me," he continued, turning courteously towards the detective,
"that disappearances of this sort are not nearly so uncommon as the
uninitiated would believe. For one that is r