“Good evening, Mr. Ware!” he began.  “Could I have just a word with you?”

Philip nodded to Louis, who at once left the room.  The newcomer drew a little nearer.

“My name, sir,” he said, “is Dane—­Edward Dane.”

Philip bowed politely.  He was just a little annoyed at the intrusion, an annoyance which he failed altogether to conceal.

“What do you want with me?” he asked.  “I am expecting some friends to supper in about ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes will perhaps be sufficient for what I have to say,” the other promised.  “You don’t know me, then, Mr. Ware?”

“Never saw you before, to the best of my knowledge,” Philip replied nonchalantly.  “Are you a journalist?”

The man laid his hat upon a corner of the table.

“I am a detective,” he said, “attached to the Cherry Street headquarters.  Your last rooms, Mr. Ware, were in my beat.”

Philip nodded with some slight indication of interest.  He faced his ordeal with the courage of a man of steel.

“That so?” he remarked indifferently.  “Well, Mr. Dane, I have heard a good deal about you American detectives.  Pleased to meet you.  What can I do for you?”

The detective eyed Philip steadfastly.  There was just the shadow of something that looked like admiration in his hard, grey eyes.

“Well, Mr. Ware,” he said, “nothing that need disturb your supper party, I am sure.  Over in this country we sometimes do things in an unusual way.  That’s why I am paying you this visit.  I have been watching you for exactly three months and fourteen days.”

“Watching me?” Philip repeated.

“Precisely!  No idea why, I suppose?”

“Not the slightest.”

The detective glanced towards the clock.  Barely two minutes had passed.

“Well,” he explained, “I got on your tracks quick enough when you skipped from the Waldorf and blossomed out in a second-rate tenement house as Merton Ware.”

“So I was at the Waldorf, was I?” Philip murmured.

“You crossed from Liverpool on the Elletania,” the man continued, “registered at the Waldorf as Mr. Douglas Romilly of the Douglas Romilly Shoe Company, went to your room, changed your clothes, and disappeared.  Of course, a disappearance of that sort,” he went on tolerantly, “might be possible in London.  In New York, to even attempt it is farcical.”

“Dear me,” remarked Philip, “this is very interesting.  Let me ask you this question, though.  If you were so sure of your facts, why didn’t you arrest me at once instead of just watching me?”

The man’s eyes were like gimlets.  He seemed as though he were trying, with curious and professional intensity, to read the thoughts in Philip’s brain.

“There is no criminal charge against Douglas Romilly that I know of,” he said.

“There’s a considerable reward offered for his discovery,” Philip reminded him.