n sigh of
relief. The arbiter of his fortunes had not failed him!

"Thank you very much!" he said to the man in charge of the office, who
had been bending over his books and apparently taking not the slightest
interest in the telephone conversation. Soames placed twopence, the
price of the call, on the desk. "Good night."

"Good night."

He hastened out of the gate and across the road. An electric tramcar
which would bear him as far as the Elephant-and-Castle was on the point
of starting from the corner. Grip in hand, Soames boarded the car and
mounted to the top deck. He was in some doubt respecting his mode of
travel from the next point onward, but the night was fine, even if he
had to walk, and his reviving spirits would cheer him with visions of a
golden future!

His money!--That indeed was a bitter draught: the loss of his hardly
earned savings! But he was now established--linked by a common
secret--in partnership with Gianapolis; he was one of that mysterious,
obviously wealthy group which arranged drafts on Paris--which could
afford to pay him some hundreds of pounds per annum for such a trifling
service as juggling the mail!

Mr. King!--If Gianapolis were only the servant, what a magnificent man
of business must be hidden beneath the cognomen, Mr. King! And he
was about to meet that lord of mystery. Fear and curiosity were oddly
blended in the anticipation.

By great good fortune, Soames arrived at the Elephant-and-Castle in time
to catch an eastward bound motor-'bus, a 'bus which would actually carry
him to the end of Globe Road. He took his seat on top, and with greater
composure than he had known since his dramatic meeting with Gianapolis
in Victoria Street, lighted one of Mr. Leroux's cabanas (with which he
invariably kept his case filled) and settled down to think about the
future.

His reflections served apparently to shorten the journey; and Soames
found himself proceeding along Globe Road--a dark and uninviting
highway--almost before he realized that London Bridge had been
traversed. It was now long past one o'clock; and that part of the
east-end showed dreary and deserted. Public houses had long since
ejected their late guests, and even those argumentative groups,
which, after closing-time, linger on the pavements, within the odor
Bacchanalian, were dispersed. The jauntiness was gone, now, from Soames'
manner, and aware of a marked internal depression, he passed furtively
along the pavement wi