Doctor Guelpa was a man of medium build and apparently about forty years old. He looked like a foreigner. His complexion was medium, also, and his head was crowned with a bushy growth of reddish-brown hair, while his lower features were covered with a mustache and a profuse crinkly beard of the same obtrusive hue. He wore spectacles with tortoise-shell rims and bows, the lenses of which were unusually thick, and he blinked frequently in a way denoting near-sightedness and a slight nervous affection. He spoke with a slight foreign accent, moreover, but was a man of pleasing address and evident gentility. Nick turned almost immediately to Clayton, however, saying while he took a chair: “That we may lose no time, as you say, we will get right at this matter. I have sent for two of my assistants. While waiting for them, Clayton, I wish to hear your side of the story.” “There is no side of it, Nick,” Clayton earnestly answered. “I am outside of the whole business, barring the assertions of others that I figure in the case, I deny that emphatically. I know nothing about the crime, for such it is, of course.” “You were in your private office when it was committed?” questioned Nick, intently regarding him. “Yes, certainly, as I have stated.” “In company with----” “I don’t know with whom,” Clayton interrupted. “I entered my office about half past ten, intending to write several personal letters. I had been there only a few moments when the door was opened, that leading into the hall corridor, and an elderly, well-dressed man stepped in and asked me to spare him a few minutes upon important business.” “A stranger?” “Yes. He mentioned his name, but I did not note it carefully and I cannot now recall it.” “What did he want?” “I asked him of what his business consisted, and he said that he wanted to confer with me about special hotel rates and accommodations for a wealthy Persian prince, for whom he stated he was acting as an agent, and who is coming to America incognito with his wife and a retinue of servants.” “You then consented to talk with him?” “Yes. I suspected nothing, of course, and the proposition appealed to me,” Clayton explained. “I invited him to be seated, and we entered into a discussion on the matter. He appeared well informed and questioned me along various lines bearing upon the subject, at the same time making numerous entries in a notebook of the terms and other details that I mentioned.” “I see.” “I anticipated that I might obtain a desirable and profitable patron,” Clayton added. “Our interview lasted about twenty minutes, I should say, and he then thanked me and departed, stating that he would see me again.” “And then?”