n, General Sir Hugh Elcombe and Walter Fetherston were,
perhaps, equally distinguished. The former, as all the world knows, had
had a brilliant career in Afghanistan, in Egypt, Burmah, Tirah, the
Transvaal, and in France, and now held an appointment as inspector of
artillery.

The latter was a man of entirely different stamp. As he spoke he
gesticulated slightly, and no second glance was needed to realise that he
was a thorough-going cosmopolitan.

By many years of life on the Continent he had acquired a half-foreign
appearance. Indeed, a keen observer would probably have noticed that his
clothes had been cut by a foreign tailor, and that his boots, long,
narrow and rather square-toed, bore the stamp of the Italian boot-maker.
When he made any humorous remark he had the habit of slightly closing the
left eye in order to emphasise it, while he usually walked with his left
hand behind his back, and was hardly ever seen without a cigarette. Those
cigarettes were one of his idiosyncrasies. They were delicious, of a
brand unobtainable by the public, and made from tobacco grown in one of
the Balkan States. With them he had, both before the war and after, been
constantly supplied by a certain European sovereign whose personal friend
he was. They bore the royal crown and cipher, but even to his most
intimate acquaintance Walter Fetherston had never betrayed the reason
why he was the recipient of so many favours from the monarch in question.

Easy-going to a degree, full of open-hearted _bonhomie_, possessing an
unruffled temper, and apparently without a single care in all the world,
he seldom, if ever, spoke of himself. He never mentioned either his own
doings or his friends'. He was essentially a mysterious man--a man of
moods and of strong prejudices.

More than one person who had met him casually had hinted that his
substantial income was derived from sources that would not bear
investigation--that he was mixed up with certain financial adventurers.
Others declared that he was possessed of a considerable fortune that had
been left him by an uncle who had been a dealer in precious stones in
Hatton Garden. The truth was, however, that Walter Fetherston was a
writer of popular novels, and from their sale alone he derived a handsome
income.

The mystery stories of Walter Fetherston were world-famous. Wherever the
English language was spoken this shrewd-eyed, smiling man's books were
read, while translations of them appeared