There was a knock at the door and Angrave appeared.  Apparently he had forgotten Shopland’s presence, for he ushered in another visitor.

“Sir Timothy Brast to see you, sir,” he announced.

The moment was one of trial to every one, admirably borne.  Shopland remained in his chair, with only a casual glance at the newcomer.  Francis rose to his feet with a half-stifled expression of anger at the clumsiness of his clerk.  Sir Timothy, well-shaven and groomed, attired in a perfectly-fitting suit of grey flannel, nodded to Francis in friendly fashion and laid his Homburg hat upon the table with the air of a familiar.

“My dear Ledsam,” he said, “I do hope that you will excuse this early call.  I could only have been an hour behind you on the road.  I dare say you can guess what I have come to see you about.  Can we have a word together?”

“Certainly,” was the ready reply.  “You remember my friend Shopland, Sir Timothy?  It was Mr. Shopland who arrested young Fairfax that night at Soto’s.”

“I remember him perfectly,” Sir Timothy declared.  “I fancied, directly I entered, that your face was familiar,” he added, turning to Shopland.  “I am rather ashamed of myself about that night.  My little outburst must have sounded almost ridiculous to you two.  To tell you the truth, I quite failed at that time to give Mr. Ledsam credit for gifts which I have since discovered him to possess.”

“Mr. Shopland and I are now discussing another matter,” Francis went on, pushing a box of cigarettes towards Sir Timothy, who was leaning against the table in an easy attitude.  “Don’t go, Shopland, for a minute.  We were consulting together about the disappearance of a young man, Reggie Wilmore, the brother of a friend of mine—­Andrew Wilmore, the novelist.”

“Disappearance?” Sir Timothy repeated, as he lit a cigarette.  “That is rather a vague term.”

“The young man has been missing from home for over a week,” Francis said, “and left no trace whatever of his whereabouts.  He was not in financial trouble, he does not seem to have been entangled with any young woman, he had not quarrelled with his people, and he seems to have been on the best of terms with the principal at the house of business where he was employed.  His disappearance, therefore, is, to say the least of it, mysterious.”

Sir Timothy assented gravely.

“The lack of motive to which you allude,” he pointed out, “makes the case interesting.  Still, one must remember that London is certainly the city of modern mysteries.  If a new ’Arabian Nights’ were written, it might well be about London.  I dare say Mr. Shopland will agree with me,” he continued, turning courteously towards the detective, “that disappearances of this sort are not nearly so uncommon as the uninitiated would believe.  For one that is reported in the papers, there are half-a-dozen which are not.  Your late Chief Commissioner, by-the-bye,” he added meditatively, “once a very intimate friend of mine, was my informant.”