partly scratched away bore the legend '3d.' I had glanced at it once
or twice with no special interest.

'Well?' I said, turning over some yellow pages.

'Dollmann!' cried Davies. 'Dollmann wrote it.' I turned to the
title-page, and read: 'By Lieut. X--, R.N.' The name itself conveyed
nothing to me, but I began to understand. Davies went on: The name's
on the back, too--and I'm certain it's the last she looked at.'

'But how do you know?'

'And there's the man himself. Ass that I am not to have seen it
before! Look at the frontispiece.'

It was a sorry piece of illustration of the old-fashioned sort,
lacking definition and finish, but effective notwithstanding; for it
was evidently the reproduction, though a cheap and imperfect process,
of a photograph. It represented a small yacht at anchor below some
woods, with the owner standing on deck in his shirt sleeves: a
well-knit, powerful man, young, of middle height, clean shaved. There
appeared to be nothing remarkable about the face; the portrait being
on too small a scale, and the expression, such as it was, being of
the fixed 'photographic' character.

'How do you know him? You said he was fifty, with a greyish beard.'

'By the shape of his head; that hasn't changed. Look how it widens at
the top, and then flattens--sort of wedge shaped--with a high, steep
forehead; you'd hardly notice it in that' (the points were not very