“Bless my soul, you are looking as fit as a fiddle!” he cried.  “Where have you been, and what have you been doing since I saw you last?”

“Nothing much,” I replied, “beyond trying to settle down in a reformed world.”

“Reformed world!” echoed Adderley.  “More like a ruined world it has seemed to me.”

He laughed loudly.  That he had already explored several bottles was palpable.

We were silent for a while, mentally weighing one another up, as it were.  Then: 

“Are you living in town?” asked Adderley.

“I am staying at the Carlton at the moment,” I replied.  “My chambers are in the hands of the decorators.  It’s awkward.  Interferes with my work.”

“Work!” cried Adderley.  “Work!  It’s a nasty word, Knox.  Are you doing anything now?”

“Nothing, until eight o’clock, when I have an appointment.”

“Come along to my place,” he suggested, “and have a cup of tea, or a whisky and soda if you prefer it.”

Probably I should have refused, but even as he spoke I was mentally translated to the lounge of the Hotel de l’Europe, and prompted by a very human curiosity I determined to accept his invitation.  I wondered if Fate had thrown an opportunity in my way of learning the end of the peculiar story which had been related on that occasion.

I accompanied Adderley to his chambers, which were within a stone’s throw of the spot where I had met him.  That this gift for making himself unpopular with all and sundry, high and low, had not deserted him, was illustrated by the attitude of the liftman as we entered the hall of the chambers.  He was barely civil to Adderley and even regarded myself with marked disfavour.

We were admitted by Adderley’s man, whom I had not seen before, but who was some kind of foreigner, I think a Portuguese.  It was characteristic of Adderley.  No Englishman would ever serve him for long, and there had been more than one man in his old Company who had openly avowed his intention of dealing with Adderley on the first available occasion.

His chambers were ornately furnished; indeed, the room in which we sat more closely resembled a scene from an Oscar Asche production than a normal man’s study.  There was something unreal about it all.  I have since thought that this unreality extended to the person of the man himself.  Grossly material, he yet possessed an aura of mystery, mystery of an unsavoury sort.  There was something furtive, secretive, about Adderley’s entire mode of life.

I had never felt at ease in his company, and now as I sat staring wonderingly at the strange and costly ornaments with which the room was overladen I bethought me of the object of my visit.  How I should have brought the conversation back to our Singapore days I know not, but a suitable opening was presently offered by Adderley himself.

“Do you ever see any of the old gang?” he inquired.