fellow."

"Yes," said Jennings, "there was some scandal, I know, but it was after
my time here."

"Something about an old mandarin out Johore Bahru way, was it not?"
asked Burton. "The last thing I heard about Adderley was that he had
disappeared."

"Nobody would have cared much if he had," declared Jennings. "I know
of several who would have been jolly glad. There was a lot of the brute
about Adderley, apart from the fact that he had more money than was good
for him. His culture was a veneer. It was his check-book that spoke all
the time."

"Everybody would have forgiven Adderley his vulgarity," said Dr.
Matheson, quietly, "if the man's heart had been in the right place."

"Surely an instance of trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear,"
someone murmured.

Burton gazed rather hard at the last speaker.

"So far as I am aware," he said, "the poor devil is dead, so go easy."

"Are you sure he is dead?" asked Dr. Matheson, glancing at Burton in
that quizzical, amused way of his.

"No, I am not sure; I am merely speaking from hearsay. And now I come
to think of it, the information was rather vague. But I gathered that he
had vanished, at any rate, and remembering certain earlier episodes in
his career, I was led to suppose that this vanishing meant------"

He shrugged his shoulders significantly.

"You mean the old mandarin?" suggested Dr. Matheson.

"Yes."

"Was there really anything in that story, or was it suggested by the
unpleasant reputation of Adderley?" Jennings asked.

"I can settle any doubts upon that point," said I; whereupon I
immediately became a focus of general attention.

"What! were you ever at that place of Adderley's at Katong?" asked
Jennings with intense curiosity.

I nodded, lighting a fresh cigarette in a manner that may have been
unduly leisurely.

"Did you see her?"

Again I nodded.

"Really!"

"I must have been peculiarly favoured, but certainly I had that
pleasure."

"You speak of seeing her," said one of the party, now entering the
conversation for the first time. "To whom do you refer?"

"Well," replied Burton, "it's really a sort of fairy tale--unless
Knox"--glacing across in my direction--"can confirm it. But there was a
story current during the latter part of Adderley's stay in Singapore to
the effect that he had made the acquaintance of the wife, or some member
of the household, of an old gentleman out Johore Bahru way--sort of
mandarin or big pot among