The business flourished. I made no secret of being in the perfumery trade. I had moved into a larger room at my boarding-house. I had bought boots, some new linen, and most of my things were out of pawn. Then, presently, here and there, I began to notice things I did not like. Rumours reached me. Hints were dropped, sometimes more than hints, that made me wonder and look over my shoulder a little. No member of my immediate circle at this time was of too sweet origin nor of too stainless habits, yet from these came the rumours and the hints. I had better “keep my eyes peeled,” and the rest...! One man in particular who warned me was an elderly, shrewd German, friend of Brodie’s, and himself a mystery. His occupation was unknown, however, even to Brodie; he hid it carefully away; he led a double life, protecting himself with the utmost skill and caution behind a screen of detail none of us ever pierced. “Von” Schmidt, as he styled himself, was educated; also he had a heart; for once, when I was in a state of collapse from hunger, he brought oysters for me at great trouble to himself, having to go out on a rainy night and bring them some distance along the street; from which moment, though the unpleasant mystery about him intrigued and cautioned me, I became his friend. We talked German together. His one desire, he confided to me, was to marry a rich woman, and once he clumsily proposed to arrange a rich marriage for myself if I would give him a--commission on results! His personality is worth this brief description, perhaps, since it sheds light, incidentally, upon the world I lived in. Always most carefully dressed, he occupied a single room in a well-appointed house in East 22nd Street, talking airily of a bedroom on the floor above, of a bathroom I was sure he never used, and complaining apologetically of “this awful house I’m in for the moment.” His pose was that of an aristocrat, proud and resigned among untoward circumstances, and it was through no mistake of his own that this humbug did not impose on me. I just knew it was all bunkum. His actual business, I felt sure, was unsavoury, though Brodie, having once discovered artificial flowers in his coat pocket, thought he was a floor-walker in some big store. Various suspicious details confirmed me later in the belief that his real occupation was blackmailing.