"Saul Arthur Mann?" she repeated, "I seem to know that name. Mann, Mann!
Where have I heard it?"
"Well," said he, with that fierce and fleeting little smile which rarely
lit his face for a second, "if you don't know him he knows you; he knows
everybody."
"Oh, I remember! He is 'The Man Who Knows!'"
It was his turn to be astonished.
"Where in the world have you heard of him?"
Briefly she retailed her experience, and when she came to describe the
omniscient Mr. Mann--"A crank," growled Mr. Minute. "I was hoping there
was something in it."
"Surely, uncle, there must be something in it," said the girl seriously.
"A man of the standing of the chief commissioner would not speak about
him as Sir George did unless he had very excellent reason."
"Tell me some more about what you saw," he said. "I seem to remember the
report of the inquest. The dead man was unknown and has not been
identified."
She described, as well as she could remember, her meeting with the
knowledgable Mr. Mann. She had to be tactful because she wished to tell
the story without betraying the fact that she had been with Frank. But
she might have saved herself the trouble, because when she was halfway
through the narrative he interrupted her.
"I gather you were not by yourself," he grumbled. "Master Frank was
somewhere handy, I suppose?"
She laughed.
"I met him quite by accident," she said demurely.
"Naturally," said John Minute.
"Oh, uncle, and there was a man whom Frank knew! You probably know
him--Constable Wiseman."
John Minute unfolded his napkin, stirred his soup, and grunted.
"Wiseman is a stupid ass," he said briefly. "The mere fact that he was
mixed up in the affair is sufficient explanation as to why the dead man
remains unknown. I know Constable Wiseman very well," he said. "He has
summoned me twice--once for doing a little pistol-shooting in the garden
just as an object lesson to all tramps, and once--confound him!--for a
smoking chimney. Oh, yes, I know Constable Wiseman."
Apparently the thought of Constable Wiseman filled his mind through two
courses, for he did not speak until he set his fish knife and fork
together and muttered something about a "silly, meddling jackass!"
He was very silent throughout the meal, his mind being divided between
two subjects. Uppermost, though of least importance, was the personality
of Saul Arthur Mann. Him he mentally viewed with suspicion and
apprehension. It was an irritation even to suggest that there might be
secret places in his own life which could be flooded with the light of
this man's knowledge, and he resolved to beard "The Man Who Knows" in
his den that afternoon and challenge him by inference to produce all the
information he had concerning his past.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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