It was two hours later that the first memory of those murmuring midnight voices came back to me. The words I had overheard seemed to have been buried in my mind like seeds in the ground. Then here and there a green shoot of suspicion emerged. The more I thought it over, the more disturbed I became. Yet I warned myself that I could be sure of nothing. The one tangibility was the repeated word, "Van Tuyl." And there at least was something on which I could focus my attention. I went to the telephone and called up Beatrice Van Tuyl. Years before we had played water polo and catboated on the Sound together. I realized, as I heard that young matron's cheery voice over the telephone wire, that I would have to pick my steps with care. "I say, Beatrice, are you possibly in need of a butler?" I began as offhandedly as I was able. "Out of a place, Witter dear?" was the chuckling inquiry that came to me. "No, I'm not, but I know of a good man," was my mendacious reply. "And I rather thought--" "My dear Witter," said the voice over the wire, "we've a _jewel_ of a man up here. He's English, you know. And I'm beginning to suspect he's been with royalty. Jim's always wanted to stick pins in his legs to see if he really isn't petrified." "What's his name?" "Just what it ought to be---the most appropriate name of Wilkins." "How long have you had him?" "Oh, weeks and weeks!" Only a New York householder could understand the tone of triumph in that retort. "And you're sure of him in every way?" "Of course we're sure of him. He's been a Gibraltar of dependability." "Where did you get him from?" "From Morristown. He was at the Whippeny Club out there before he came to us." "The Whippeny Club!" I cried, for the name struck like a bullet on the metal of memory. "Don't you think," the voice over the wire was saying, "that you'd better come up for dinner to-night and inspect the paragon at close range? And you might talk to us a little, between whiles." "I'd love to," was my very prompt reply. "Then do," said Beatrice Van Tuyl. "A little after seven." And a little after seven I duly rang the Van Tuyls' door-bell and was duly admitted to that orderly and well-appointed Seventy-third Street house, so like a thousand other orderly and well-appointed New York houses hidden behind their unchanging masks of brown and gray.