rd. You'll
let me know where you are. I'll get away now--and mind, General, a good
deal depends on the way you please me in this thing."

The soldier's richly-florid face and intent, bulging blue eyes expressed
vivid comprehension. He nodded with eloquence as he slipped the notes
into his trousers pocket. "Absolutely," he murmured with martial
brevity, from under his white, tight moustache.

With only a vague word or two of meaningless explanation to Tavender,
Thorpe took his departure, and walked back to the hotel. From what he
had learned and surmised, it was not difficult to put the pieces of
the puzzle together. This ridiculous old fool, he remembered now, had
reproached himself, when he was in England before, for his uncivil
neglect of his brother-in-law. By some absurd chance, this damned
brother-in-law happened to be Gafferson. It was clear enough that, when
he returned to Mexico, Tavender had written to Gafferson, explaining
the unexpected pressure of business which had taken up all his time in
England. Probably he had been idiot enough to relate what he of course
regarded as the most wonderful piece of good news--how the worthless
concession he had been deluded into buying had been bought back from
him. As likely as not he had even identified the concession, and given
Thorpe's name as that of the man who had first impoverished and then
mysteriously enriched him. At all events, he had clearly mentioned that
he had a commission to report upon the Rubber Consols property, and
had said enough else to create the impression that there were criminal
secrets connected with its sale to the London Company. The rest was
easy. Gafferson, knowing Lord Plowden's relation to the Company, had
shown him Tavender's letter. Lord Plowden, meditating upon it, had seen
a way to be nasty--and had vindictively plunged into it. He had brought
Tavender from Mexico to London, to use him as a weapon. All this was as
obvious as the nose on one's face.

But a weapon for what? Thorpe, as this question put itself in his mind,
halted before a shop-window full of soft-hued silk fabrics, to muse upon
an answer. The delicate tints and surfaces of what was before his eyes
seemed somehow to connect themselves with the subject. Plowden himself
was delicately-tinted and refined of texture. Vindictiveness was too
plain and coarse an emotion to sway such a complicated and polished
organism. He reasoned it out, as he stood with lack-lustre gaze before