"And can you account for his coming to Asquith?" I asked innocently.

She was plainly embarrassed.

"I suppose I might account for it, Mr. Crocker," she replied. Then she
added, with something of an impulse, "After all, it is foolish of me not
to tell you. You probably know the Celebrity well enough to have learned
that he takes idiotic fancies to young women."

"Not always idiotic," I protested.

"You mean that the young women are not always idiotic, I suppose. No,
not always, but nearly always. I imagine he got the idea of coming to
Asquith," she went on with a change of manner, "because I chanced to
mention that I was coming out here on a visit."

"Oh," I remarked, and there words failed me.

Her mouth was twitching with merriment.

"I am afraid you will have to solve the rest of it for yourself, Mr.
Crocker," said she; "that is all of my contribution. My uncle tells me
you are the best lawyer in the country, and I am surprised that you are
so slow in getting at motives."

And I did attempt to solve it on my way back to Asquith. The conclusion
I settled to, everything weighed, was this: that the Celebrity had become
infatuated with Miss Thorn (I was far from blaming him for that) and had
followed her first to Epsom and now to Asquith. And he had chosen to