g
already sound asleep, and as Lord Creedmore, in his dressing-gown and
slippers, gave them a written statement to the effect that Mr. Van
Torp was no longer at Craythew, they had no choice but to return to
town, rather the worse for wear. What they said to each other by the
way may safely be left to the inexhaustible imagination of a gentle
and sympathising reader.

Their suppressed rage, their deep mortification, and their profound
disgust were swept away in their overwhelming amazement, however,
when they found that Mr. Rufus Van Torp, whom they had sought in
Derbyshire, was in Scotland Yard before them, closeted with their
Chief and explaining what an odd mistake the justice of two nations
had committed in suspecting him to have been at the Metropolitan
Opera-House in New York at the time of the explosion, since he had
spent that very evening in Washington, in the private study of the
Secretary of the Treasury, who wanted his confidential opinion on a
question connected with Trusts before he went abroad. Mr. Van Torp
stuck his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets and blandly insisted that
the cables should be kept red-hot--at international expense--till the
member of the Cabinet in Washington should answer corroborating the
statement. Four o'clock in the morning in London was only eleven
o'clock of the previous evening, Mr. Van Torp explained, and it was
extremely unlikely that the Secretary of the Treasury should be in
bed so early. If he was, he was certainly not asleep; and with the
facilities at the disposal of governments there was no reason why the
answer should not come back in forty minutes.

It was impossible to resist such simple logic. The lines were cleared
for urgent official business between London and Washington, and in
less than an hour the answer came back, to the effect that Mr. Rufus
Van Torp's statement was correct in every detail; and without any
interval another official message arrived, revoking the request
for his extradition, which 'had been made under a most unfortunate
misapprehension, due to the fact that Mr. Van Torp's visit to the
Secretary of the Treasury had been regarded as confidential by the
latter.'

Scotland Yard expressed its regret, and Mr. Van Torp smiled and begged
to be allowed, before leaving, to 'shake hands' with the three men who
had been put to so much inconvenience on his account. This democratic
proposal was promptly authorised, to the no small satisfaction and
prof