nto
the office at New Scotland Yard. We both regretted our inability to
see you personally.

"SEVERAC BABLON."

CHAPTER XXV

AN OFFICIAL CALL

The Home Secretary sat before the red-leathern expanse of his
writing-table. Papers of unique political importance were strewn
carelessly about that diplomatic battlefield, for at this famous table
the Right Honourable Walter Belford played political chess. To the right
honourable gentleman the game of politics was a pursuit only second in
its fascinations to the culture of rare orchids. It ranked in that fine,
if eccentric, mind about equal with the accumulating of rare editions,
early printed works, illuminated missals, palimpsests, and other MSS.,
or with the delights of the higher photography--a hobby to which Mr.
Belford devoted much attention.

Visitors to a well-known Sussex coast resort will need no introduction
to Womsley Old Place, the charming seat of that charming man, the Right
Hon. Walter Belford. With a frowning glance at a number of letters
pinned neatly together, Mr. Belford leant back in his heavily padded
chair, and, through his gold-rimmed pince-nez, allowed himself the
momentary luxury of surveying the loaded shelves of the noted Circular
Study wherein he now was seated. The great writing-table, with its
priceless bronze head of Cicero and its luxurious appointments; the
morocco, parchment, the vellum backs of the rare works about; the busts
above the belles-lettres, afforded him visible, if aesthetic enjoyment.
In a gap between two tall bookcases a Persian curtain partially
concealed the glass doors of a huge conservatory. Mr. Belford liked his
orchids near him when at work and not, as lesser men, when at play.

Sighing gently, he took up the bundle of letters, laid it down again,
and pressed a button.

"I will see Inspector Sheffield," he said to the footman who came.

Almost immediately entered a big man, fresh complexioned and of modest
bearing--a man, Mr. Belford determined after one shrewd glance, who,
once he saw his duty clearly, would pursue it through fire and flood,
but who frequently experienced some difficulty in this initial
particular.

"Sit down, inspector," said the politician genially, and with the
appearance of wishing to hasten a distasteful business. "You would like
to see the three communications which I have received from this man
Bablon?"

Sheffield, seated on the extreme edge of a big morocco-cover