"I don't remember," she confessed, knitting her level brows. "The name
has a familiar ring, somehow. But about the valet?"

"Well, I was very intimate with his employer for a long time, though we
haven't met for several years. Rutton was a strange creature, a man of
extraordinary genius, who lived a friendless, solitary life--at least,
so far as I knew; I once lived with him in a little place he had in
Paris, for three months, and in all that time he never received a
letter or a caller. He was reticent about himself, and I never asked
any questions, of course, but in spite of the fact that he spoke
English like an Englishman and was a public school man, apparently, I
always believed he had a strain of Hungarian blood in him--or else
Italian or Spanish. I know that sounds pretty broad, but he was
enigmatic--a riddle I never managed to make much of. Aside from that he
was wonderful: a linguist, speaking a dozen European languages and more
Eastern tongues and dialects, I believe, than any other living man. We
met by accident in Berlin and were drawn together by our common
interest in Orientalism. Later, hearing I was in Paris, he hunted me up
and insisted that I stay with him there while finishing my big
book--the one whose title you know. His assistance to me then was
invaluable. After that I lost track of him."

"And the valet?"

"Oh, I'd forgotten Doggott. He was a Cockney, as silent and
self-contained as Rutton.... To get back to Nokomis: I met Doggott at
the station, called him by name, and he refused to admit knowing
me--said I must have mistaken him for his twin brother. I could tell by
his eyes that he lied, and it made me wonder. It's quite impossible
that Rutton should be in this neck of the woods; he was a man who