ons, submarine pleasure courts and must lay out huge
estates--because he wished that he should be thought well of.

Mansus sniffed again.

"What about the man who half murders his wife, does he do that to be
well thought of?" he asked, with a tinge of sarcasm.

T. X. looked at him pityingly.

"The low-brow who beats his wife, my poor Mansus," he said, "does so
because she doesn't think well of him. That is our ruling passion,
our national characteristic, the primary cause of most crimes, big or
little. That is why Kara is a bad criminal and will, as I say, end his
life very violently."

He took down his glossy silk hat from the peg and slipped into his
overcoat.

"I am going down to see my friend Kara," he said. "I have a feeling that
I should like to talk with him. He might tell me something."

His acquaintance with Kara's menage had been mere hearsay. He had
interviewed the Greek once after his return, but since all his efforts
to secure information concerning the whereabouts of John Lexman and
his wife--the main reason for his visit--had been in vain, he had not
repeated his visit.

The house in Cadogan Square was a large one, occupying a corner site. It
was peculiarly English in appearance with its window boxes, its discreet
curtains, its polished brass and enamelled doorway. It had been the
town house of Lord Henry Gratham, that eccentric connoisseur of wine and
follower of witless pleasure. It had been built by him "round a
bottle of port," as his friends said, meaning thereby that his first
consideration had been the cellarage of the house, and that when those
cellars had been built and provision made for the safe storage of his
priceless wines, the house had been built without the architect's being
greatly troubled by his lordship. The double cellars of Gratham House
had, in their time, been one of the sights of London. When Henry Gratham
lay under eight feet of Congo earth (he was killed by an elephant
whilst on a hunting trip) his executors had been singularly fortunate
in finding an immediate purchaser. Rumour had it that Kara, who was
no lover of wine, had bricked up the cellars, and their very existence
passed into domestic legendary.

The door was opened by a well-dressed and deferential man-servant and
T. X. was ushered into the hall. A fire burnt cheerily in a bronze grate
and T. X. had a glimpse of a big oil painting of Kara above the marble
mantle-piece.

"Mr. Kara is very busy, sir," said