"

Sir Henry's drawl lengthened.

"It's Lal Gupta," he said, "the cleverest Oriental in the whole of Asia.
The jewel-traders sent him to watch Rodman, and to kill him if he was
ever able to get his formulae worked out. They must have paid him an
incredible sum."

"And that is why the creature attached himself to Rodman!" I said.

"Surely," replied Sir Henry. "He brought that bronze Romulus carrying
off the Sabine woman and staged the supernatural to work out his plan
and to save his life. I knew the bronze as soon as I got my eye on
it--old Franz Josef gave it as a present to Mahadal in Bombay for
matching up some rubies."

I swore bitterly.

"And we took him for a lunatic!"

"Ah, yes!" replied Sir Henry. "What was it you said as I came in? 'The
human mind is capable of any absurdity!'"

II. The Reward

I was before one of those difficult positions unavoidable to a visitor
in a foreign country.

I had to meet the obligations of professional courtesy. Captain Walker
had asked me to go over the manuscript of his memoirs; and now he had
called at the house in which I was a guest, for my opinion. We had long
been friends; associated in innumerable cases, and I wished to suggest
the difficulty rather than to express it. It was the twilight of an
early Washington winter. The lights in the great library, softened with
delicate shades, had been turned on. Outside, Sheridan Circle was almost
a thing of beauty in its vague outlines; even the squat, ridiculous
bronze horse had a certain dignity in the blue shadow.

If one had been speculating on the man, from his physical aspect one
would have taken Walker for an engineer of some sort, rather than the
head of the United States Secret Service. His lean face and his angular
manner gaffe that impression. Even now, motionless in the big chair
beyond the table, he seemed--how shall I say it?--mechanical.

And that was the very defect in his memoir. He had cut the great cases
into a dry recital. There was no longer in them any pressure of a human
impulse. The glow of inspired detail had been dissected out. Everything
startling and wonderful had been devitalized.

The memoir was a report.

The bulky typewritten manuscript lay on the table beside the electric
lamp, and I stood about uncertain how to tell him.

"Walker," I said, "did nothing wonderful ever happen to you in the
adventure of these cases?"

"What precisely do you mean, Sir Henry?" he replied.

T