“He had been practising for weeks--ever since he knew that the Committee would meet in that room--tossing peanuts into the square opening of a parrot cage, placed at the same height from the floor as the ventilator over Mr. Anderson’s doorway! He had practised until he could do it twelve times without missing. He had nerves like piano wires, yet he was a deadly anxious man; and he knew that a woman cannot catch! “But she caught--or, if she dropped it, no one saw her pick it up. “Gentlemen, these Hindus are very clever, but talking of their cleverness makes one very thirsty. I think I heard Mr. Anderson make some cooling speech about a bottle of wine!” SIXTH EPISODE. CASE OF THE WHISPERING POPLARS I One afternoon Moris Klaw walked into my office and announced that “owing to alterations” he had temporarily suspended business at the Wapping emporium, and thus had found time to give me a call. I always welcomed a chat with that extraordinary man, and although I could conceive of no really useful “alteration” to his unsavoury establishment other than that of setting fire to it, I made no inquiries, but placed an easy chair for him and offered a cigar. Moris Klaw removed his caped overcoat and dropped it upon the floor. Upon this sartorial wreckage he disposed his flat-topped brown bowler and from it extracted the inevitable scent spray. He sprayed his dome-like brow and bedewed his toneless beard with verbena. “So refreshing,” he explained; “a custom of the Romans, Mr. Searles. It is a very warm day.” I admitted that this was so. “My daughter Isis,” continued Klaw, “has taken advantage of the alterations and decorations to run over so far as Paris.” I made some commonplace remark, and we drifted into a conversation upon a daring robbery which at that time was flooding the press with copy. We were so engaged when, to my great surprise (for I had thought him at least a thousand miles away), Shan Haufmann was announced. As my old American friend entered, Moris Klaw modestly arose to depart. But I detained him and made the two acquainted. Haufmann hailed Klaw cordially, exhibiting none of the ill-bred surprise which so often greeted my eccentric acquaintance of singular aspect. Haufmann had all that bonhomie which overlooks the clothes and welcomes the man. He glanced apologetically at his right hand which hung in a sling. “Can’t shake, Mr. Klaw,” said the big American, a good-humoured smile on his tanned, clean-shaven face. “I stopped some lead awhile back and my right is still off duty.” Naturally I was anxious at once to know how he had come by the hurt; and he briefly explained that in the discharge of certain official duties he had run foul of a bad gang, two of whom he had been instrumental in convicting of murder, whilst the third had shot him in the arm and escaped.