didn't think, when I asked you about my old friend, I should
strike on such strange metal. Well, I must be off; good-day."

Villiers went away, thinking of his own conceit of the
Chinese boxes; here was quaint workmanship indeed.




IV

THE DISCOVERY IN PAUL STREET



A few months after Villiers' meeting with Herbert, Mr.
Clarke was sitting, as usual, by his after-dinner hearth,
resolutely guarding his fancies from wandering in the direction
of the bureau. For more than a week he had succeeded in keeping
away from the "Memoirs," and he cherished hopes of a complete
self-reformation; but, in spite of his endeavours, he could not
hush the wonder and the strange curiosity that the last case he
had written down had excited within him. He had put the case,
or rather the outline of it, conjecturally to a scientific
friend, who shook his head, and thought Clarke getting queer,
and on this particular evening Clarke was making an effort to
rationalize the story, when a sudden knock at the door roused
him from his meditations.

"Mr. Villiers to see you sir."