t only
with the Medchester tradespeople. He did not hold out his hand, but he
eyed Brooks with a sort of critical survey, which the latter found a
little disconcerting.

"You wished to see me, sir?" Brooks asked. "My name is Kingston Brooks,
and these are my rooms."

"So I understood," the new-comer replied imperturbably. "I called about
an hour ago, and took the liberty of awaiting your return."

Brooks sat down. His vis-a-vis was calmly selecting a cigarette from a
capacious case. Brooks found himself offering a light and accepting a
cigarette himself, the flavour of which he at once appreciated.

"Can I offer you a whisky-and-soda?" he inquired.

"I thank you, no," was the quiet reply.

There was a short pause.

"You wished to see me on some business connected with the election, no
doubt?" Brooks suggested.

His visitor shook his head slowly. He knocked the ash from his
cigarette and smiled whimsically.

"My dear fellow," he said, "I haven't the least idea why I came to see
you this evening."

Brooks felt that he had a right to be puzzled, and he looked it. But
his visitor was so evidently a gentleman and a person of account, that
the obvious rejoinder did not occur to him. He merely waited with
uplifted eyebrows.

"Not the least idea," his visitor repeated, still smiling. "But at the
same time I fancy that before I leave you I shall find myself
explaining, or endeavouring to explain, not why I am here, but why I
have not visited you before. What do you think of that?"

"I find it," Brooks answered, "enigmatic but interesting."

"Exactly. Well, I hate talking, so my explanation will not be a tedious
one. Your name is Kingston Brooks."

"Yes."

"Your mother's name was Dorothy Kenneir. She was, before her marriage,
the matron of a home in the East End of London, and a lady devoted to
philanthropic work. Your father was a police-court missionary."

Brooks was leaning a little forward in his chair. These things were
true enough. Who was his visitor?

"Your father, through over-devotion to the philanthropic works in which
he was engaged, lost his reason temporarily, and on his partial recovery
I understand that the doctors considered him still to be mentally in a
very weak state. They ordered him a sea voyage. He left England on the
Corinthia fifteen years ago, and I believe that you heard nothing more
of him until you received the news of his death--probably ten years
back."

"Yes! Ten years ago.