"To think," Harvey Grimm muttered to himself, "that I stole way down to Letchowiski's and lived in terror of my life, with that rat of a Brodie dogging my footsteps, and all the time I might have fitted up a laboratory and have done my work at home!" "That would never have done," De Floge objected. "By the decision of the Belgian courts--German inspired, of course, but still according to the law of the land--the whole of the jewels are, in a way, stolen property. Still--it is not the sort of theft that counts." Harvey Grimm looked out of the windows. There was a queer sort of plaintive happiness dawning in his face. "It's London all right," he murmured, "the Strand, too.... I never thought to see them again--not till I was an old man, at any rate. Where are we going?" "The Milan for luncheon," De Floge replied, "where you will meet some friends. I have more wonders to tell you. Will you hear them first or wait till you have had a cocktail?" "More wonders," Harvey Grimm murmured, "and this is the city which lacks the spirit of adventure! I think," he went on, as they stepped out of the car and walked towards the smoke-room, "you must leave this to me. There is just one concoction--I can't call it by a name. I must speak to Coley. What a cigarette!" he went on. "For six days----" "I know," De Floge interrupted. "I am sorry. We will try and make up for it." They drank a cocktail together, and the sense of unreality began to fall away. Once more the earth was firm beneath Harvey Grimm's feet. "The money I have wasted!" he groaned. "Why, I had a young actor establishing alibis for me all the time I was away! ... Where's Aaron?" "Just back from the North Sea with my sister," De Floge replied. "He will tell you a story that will make your hair stand on end." "And the poet?" "Down with an Officers' Training Corps. He is coming up to lunch, if he can get off." Harvey Grimm glanced at the clock. His companion interpreted his thoughts. "You have an hour," he said. "A shave and a bath," the other murmured ecstatically. "And the corner table as you come in, in the grill-room," De Floge added. "We will all meet there at one-thirty...." Some time before the hour had elapsed Harvey Grimm was entirely his usual self. Shaved and bathed, clad in one of his favourite blue serge suits, patent shoes and spotless gaiters, a bunch of violets in his buttonhole, a sense of stupefied but immeasurable satisfaction radiating from him, he took his place at the round luncheon table, between Aaron Rodd and Henriette, and raised the glass of amber liquid which he found waiting there, to his lips. De Floge, however, checked him. "My friends," he said, "but wait. Here is Mr. Cresswell." The poet came to them with outstretched hands.