“Mr. Joicey rests at this time of day,” he explained.  “I hope you quite understand the difficulty.”

“I quite understand,” replied Coryndon, “but I think he will see me.”

There was a pause.  The young man did not wish to contradict him, but he felt that he knew the ways and hours of the Head of the Firm very much better than a mere stranger arriving on foot just as the Bank was due to close for the day.  He wondered who Coryndon was, and what his very pressing business could possibly be, but even in his wildest flights of fancy, and, with the thermometer at 112 deg., flights of fancy do not carry far, he never even dimly guessed at anything the least degree connected with the truth.

The Bearer came down the wide scenic stairway and said that his master would see Mr. Coryndon at once.  The young man with the smooth manner faded off into dark shadows with an accentuation of impersonal civility, and Coryndon walked up the echoing staircase by the front of the hall, down a corridor, down another flight of stairs, and into the private suite of rooms sacred to the use of the head of the banking firm, and used only in part by the celibate Joicey.

Joicey was standing by a table, looking at Coryndon’s card and twisting it between his fingers.  He recognized his visitor when he glanced at him, and showed some surprise.  The room was in twilight, as all the outside chicks were down, and there was a lingering faint perfume of something sweet and cloying in the air.  Joicey looked sulky and irritated, and he motioned Coryndon to a chair without seating himself.

“Well,” he said brusquely, “what’s this about Rydal?” He pointed with a blunt finger to the card that he had thrown on to the table.

“That,” said Coryndon, also indicating the card, “is merely a means towards an end.  I have the good fortune to find you not only in your house, but able to receive me.”

The colour mounted to Joicey’s heavy face, and his temper rose with it.

“Then you mean to tell me—­” He broke off and stared at Coryndon, and gave a rough laugh.  “You’re Hartley’s globe-trotting acquaintance, aren’t you?  Well, Hartley happens to be a friend of mine, and it is just as well for you that he is.  Tell me your business, and I will overlook your intrusion on his account.”

Something inside Coryndon’s brain tightened like a string of a violin tuned up to concert-pitch.

“In one respect you are wrong,” he said amiably, and without the smallest show of heat.  “I am, as you say, Hartley’s friend, but I must disown any connection with globe-trotting, as you call it.  I am in the Secret Service of the Indian Government.”

“Oh, are you?” Joicey tore up the card and threw it into a basket beside the writing-table.

“It may interest you to know,” went on Coryndon easily, “that my visit to you is not altogether prompted by idle curiosity.”  He smiled reflectively.  “No, I feel sure that you will not call it that.”