He would have passed them by, and did in fact come level with them, when one walked across the road, leaving his companion--though that hardly seems the term to apply to one who had been so bruised and exhausted that he was hanging on to the railings--to recover as best he could. It was then that Mr. Reeder saw that one of the contestants was Mr. John Southers. He was husky and apologetic. “I’m terribly sorry to have made a fuss like this,” he said. “I hope my father didn’t hear me. This fellow is intolerable.” The intolerable man on the other side of the street was moving slowly towards where a car was parked by the sidewalk. They watched him in silence as he got in, and, turning the car violently, went off towards the Lewisham High Road, and, from the direction he took, London. “I’ve been to a dance,” said the young man, a little inconsequently. “I hope,” said Mr. Reeder with the greatest gentleness, “that you enjoyed yourself.” Mr. Southers did not seem disposed at the moment to offer a fuller explanation. As they neared Reeder’s gate he said: “Thank God, Anna was inside before it started! He has been beastly rude to me all the evening. As a matter of fact, she asked me to call and take her home, otherwise I shouldn’t have met him.” There had been a dance somewhere in the City, at a livery hall. Anna had gone with Mr. Clive Desboyne, but the circumstances under which Johnny called for her were only vaguely detailed. Nor did Mr. Reeder hear what was the immediate cause of the quarrel which had set two respectable young men at fisticuffs in the reputable suburban thoroughfare. To say that he was uninterested would not be true. The matter, however, was hardly pressing. He hoped that both parties to the little fracas might have forgotten the cause of their quarrel by the following morning. He did not see Johnny again for the remainder of the week. Mr. Reeder went about his business, and it is doubtful whether Johnny occupied as much as five minutes of his thoughts, until the case of Joe Attymar came into his purview. He was again called to Scotland Yard on a consultation. He found Gaylor and the Chief Constable together, and they were examining a very dingy-looking letter which had come to the Yard in the course of the day. “Sit down, Reeder,” said the chief. “Do you know a man called Attymar?” Mr. Reeder shook his head. He had never heard of Joe Attymar. “This is a thing we could do ourselves without any bother at all,” interrupted the chief, “but there are all sorts of complications which I won’t bother you with. We believe there’s a member of the staff of one of the Legations in this business, and naturally we want this fact to come out accidentally, and not as the result of any direct investigation by the police.”