Doris was flustered. Her Romney face held a look of scare. “Oh, here is Mr. Grant!” she said, striving vainly to speak with composure. The little man pierced Grant with an extraordinarily penetrating glance from very bright and deeply-recessed black eyes. “Ah, Mr. Grant, is it!” he chirped pleasantly. “Good morning! So _you’re_ the villain of the piece, are you?” Chapter VI. Scotland Yard Takes a Hand It was a singular greeting, to say the least, and the person who uttered it was quite as remarkable as his queer method of expressing himself seemed to indicate. Grant, though in a fume of hot anger, had the good sense to choke back the first impetuous reprimand trembling on his lips. In fact, wrath quickly subsided into blank incredulity. He saw before him, not the conventional detective who might be described as a superior Robinson—not even the sinewy, sharp-eyed, and well-spoken type of man whom he had once heard giving evidence in a famous jewel-robbery case—but rather one whom he would have expected to meet in the bar of a certain well-known restaurant in Maiden Lane, a corner of old London where literally all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. During his theatrical experiences he had come across scores of such men, dapper little fellows, wizened of face yet curiously youthful in manner; but they, each and all, were labeled “low comedian.” Certainly, a rare intelligence gleamed from this man’s eyes, but that is an attribute not often lacking in humorists who command high salaries because of their facility in laughter-making. This man, too, had the wide, thin-lipped, mobile mouth of the actor. His ivory-white, wrinkled forehead and cheeks, the bluish tint on jaws and chin, his voice, his perky air, the very tilt of his straw hat, were eloquent of the footlights. Even his opening words, bizarre and cheerfully impertinent, smacked of “comic relief.” “I figure prominently in this particular ‘piece,’” snapped Grant. “May I ask your name, sir?” “A wise precaution with suspicious characters,” rejoined the other, smiling. Grant was suddenly reminded of a Japanese grinning at a joke, but he bent over a card which the stranger had whisked out of a waistcoat pocket. He read: Mr. Charles F. Furneaux, _Criminal Investigation Department_, New Scotland Yard, S.W. He could not control himself. He gazed at Mr. Charles F. Furneaux with a surprise that was not altogether flattering. “Did the Commissioner of Police send _you_ in response to my telegram?” he said. “That is what lawyers call a leading question,” came the prompt retort. “And I hate lawyers. They darken understanding, and set honest men at loggerheads.” “But it happens to be very much to the point at this moment.”