"What like of man was he?" asked T. X.

The brief description the man gave sent a cold chill to the
Commissioner's heart.

"Kara for a ducat!" he said, and swore long and variously.

"Cadogan Square," he ordered.

His ring was answered promptly. Mr. Kara was out of town, had
indeed been out of town since Saturday. This much the man-servant
explained with a suspicious eye upon his visitors, remembering
that his predecessor had lost his job from a too confiding
friendliness with spurious electric fitters. He did not know when
Mr. Kara would return, perhaps it would be a long time and perhaps
a short time. He might come back that night or he might not.

"You are wasting your young life," said T. X. bitterly. "You
ought to be a fortune teller."

"This settles the matter," he said, in the cab on the way back.
"Find out the first train for Tavistock in the morning and wire
the George Hotel to have a car waiting."

"Why not go to-night?" suggested the other. "There is the
midnight train. It is rather slow, but it will get you there by
six or seven in the morning."

"Too late," he said, "unless you can invent a method of getting