his host, Philip Poland, alias Louis Lessar,
lived, stood back a little distance from the London road, two miles or
so out of the quiet market-town of Andover, a small picturesque old
place surrounded by high old elms wherein the rooks cawed incessantly,
and commanding extensive views over Harewood Forest and the undulating
meadow-lands around, while close by, at the foot of the hill, nestled
a cluster of homely thatched cottages, with a square church-tower, the
obscure village of Middleton.

In that rural retreat lived the Honourable Philip Poland beneath a
cloak of highest respectability. The Elms was, indeed, delightful
after the glare and glitter of that fevered life he so often led, and
here, with his only child, Sonia, to whom he was so entirely devoted,
he lived as a gentleman of leisure.

Seldom he went to London, and hardly ever called upon his neighbours.
With Sonia he led a most retired existence, reading much, fishing a
little, and taking long walks or cycling with his daughter and her
fox-terrier, "Spot," over all the country-side.

To the village he had been somewhat of a mystery ever since he had
taken the house, three years before. Yet, being apparently comfortably
off, subscribing to every charity, and a regular attendant at
Middleton church, the simple country-folk had grown to tolerate him,
even though he was somewhat of a recluse. Country-folk are very slow
to accept the stranger at his own valuation.

Little did they dream that when he went away each winter he went with
a mysterious purpose--that the source of his income was a mystery.

As he stood there, leaning against the roll-top writing-table of his
prettily furnished little study and facing the man who had travelled
half across Europe to see him, Phil Poland, with clean-shaven face and
closely-cropped hair tinged with grey, presented the smart and dapper
appearance of a typical British naval officer, as, indeed, he had
been, for, prior to his downfall, he had been first lieutenant on
board one of his Majesty's first-class cruisers. His had been a
strangely adventurous career, his past being one that would not bear
investigation.

In the smart, go-ahead set wherein he had moved when he was still in
the Navy opinion regarding him had been divided. There were some who
refused to believe the truth of the scandals circulated concerning
him, while others believed and quickly embellished the reports which
ran through the service clubs and ward