gent with
the wild whiskers, who called himself Montmorency. The spears, the
green umbrella, and the cavalry sword hung in parallels on the wall. The
sealed jar of strange wine was on the mantelpiece, the enormous rifle
in the corner. In the middle of the table was a magnum of champagne.
Glasses were already set for us.

The wind of the night roared far below us, like an ocean at the foot
of a light-house. The room stirred slightly, as a cabin might in a mild
sea.

Our glasses were filled, and we still sat there dazed and dumb. Then
Basil spoke.

"You seem still a little doubtful, Rupert. Surely there is no further
question about the cold veracity of our injured host."

"I don't quite grasp it all," said Rupert, blinking still in the sudden
glare. "Lieutenant Keith said his address was--"

"It's really quite right, sir," said Keith, with an open smile. "The
bobby asked me where I lived. And I said, quite truthfully, that I lived
in the elms on Buxton Common, near Purley. So I do. This gentleman, Mr
Montmorency, whom I think you have met before, is an agent for houses
of this kind. He has a special line in arboreal villas. It's being kept
rather quiet at present, because the people who want these houses don't
want them to get too common. But it's just the sort of thing a fellow
like myself, racketing about in all sorts of queer corners of London,
naturally knocks up against."

"Are you really an agent for arboreal villas?" asked Rupert eagerly,
recovering his ease with the romance of reality.

Mr Montmorency, in his embarrassment, fingered one of his pockets and
nervously pulled out a snake, which crawled about the table.

"W-well, yes, sir," he said. "The fact was--er--my people wanted me very
much to go into the house-agency business. But I never cared myself for
anything but natural history and botany and things like that. My poor
parents have been dead some years now, but--naturally I like to respect
their wishes. And I thought somehow that an arboreal villa agency was
a sort of--of compromise between being a botanist and being a
house-agent."

Rupert could not help laughing. "Do you have much custom?" he asked.

"N-not much," replied Mr Montmorency, and then he glanced at Keith, who
was (I am convinced) his only client. "But what there is--very select."

"My dear friends," said Basil, puffing his cigar, "always remember two
facts. The first is that though when you are guessing about any one
who is sane