s scowling preoccupation.
Then his face lightened with the relief of an idea, and he stepped
confidently back into the parlour.

"Come along," he said, jovially. "We'll have a drink downstairs, and
then we'll drive up to Hanover Square and see if we can't find a friend
of mine at his club."

In the office below he stopped long enough to secure a considerable
roll of bank-notes in exchange for a cheque. A little later, a hansom
deposited the couple at the door of the Asian Club, and Thorpe, in the
outer hallway of this institution, clicked his teeth in satisfaction at
the news that General Kervick was on the premises.

The General, having been found by a boy and brought down, extended
to his guests a hospitality which was none the less urbane for the
evidences of surprise with which it was seasoned. He concealed so
indifferently his inability to account for Tavender, that the anxious
Thorpe grew annoyed with him, but happily Tavender's perceptions were
less subtle. He gazed about him in his dim-eyed way with childlike
interest, and babbled cheerfully over his liquor. He had not been
inside a London club before, and his glimpse of the reading-room, where,
isolated, purple-faced, retired old Empire-makers sat snorting in the
silence, their gouty feet propped up on foot-rests, their white brows
scowling over the pages of French novels, particularly impressed him. It
was a new and halcyon vision of the way to spend one's declining years.
And the big smoking-room--where the leather cushions were so low and
so soft, and the connection between the bells and the waiters was so
efficient--that was even better.

Thorpe presently made an excuse for taking Kervick apart. "I brought
this old jackass here for a purpose," he said in low, gravely mandatory
tones. "He thinks he's got an appointment at 5:30 this afternoon--but
he's wrong. He hasn't. He's not going to have any appointment at
all--for a long time yet. I want you to get him drunk, there where he
sits, and then take him away with you, and get him drunker still, and
then take a train with him somewhere--any station but Charing Cross or
that line--and I don't care where you land with him--Scotland or Ireland
or France--whatever you like. Here's some money for you--and you can
write to me for more. I don't care what you say to him--make up any yarn
you like--only keep him pacified, and keep him away from London, and
don't let a living soul talk to him--till I give you the wo