"I was just setting out for Scotland Yard this morning, when Tomlin, the valet, rang me up and said he had found a card in the waistcoat of the dress clothes that Charles had worn the night before he left. It had a name on it like Konalevsky, and it struck me that they might know something about the business at the Russian Embassy. Well, I went round there, and the long and short of it was that I found there was a fellow of that name among the clerks. I saw him, and he said he had gone to see Mr. Pitt-Heron two days before with a letter from some Embassy chap. Unfortunately, the man in question had gone off to New York next day, but Konalevsky told me one thing which helped to clear up matters. It seemed that the letter had been one of those passports that Embassies give to their friends--a higher-powered sort than the ordinary make--and Konalevsky gathered from something he had heard that Charles was aiming for Moscow." Tommy paused to let his news sink in. "Well, that was good enough for me. I'm off to-morrow to run him to ground." "But why shouldn't a man go to Moscow if he wants?" I said feebly. "You don't understand," said the sage Tommy. "You don't know old Charles as I know him. He's got into a queer set, and there's no knowing what mischief he's up to. He's perfectly capable of starting a revolution in Armenia or somewhere merely to see how it feels like to be a revolutionary. That's the damned thing about the artistic temperament. Anyhow, he's got to chuck it. I won't have Ethel scared to death by his whims. I am going to hale him back from Moscow, even if I have to pretend he's an escaped lunatic. He's probably like enough one by this time if he has taken no clothes." I have forgotten what I said, but it was some plea for caution. I could not see the reason for these heroics. Pitt-Heron did not interest me greatly, and the notion of Tommy as a defender of the hearth amused me. I thought that he was working on very slight evidence and would probably make a fool of himself. "It's only another of the man's fads," I said. "He never could do things like an ordinary mortal. What possible trouble could there be? Money?" "Rich as Croesus," said Tommy. "A woman?" "Blind as a bat to female beauty." "The wrong side of the law?" "Don't think so. He could settle any ordinary scrape with a cheque." "Then I give it up. Whatever it is it looks as if Pitt-Heron would have a companion in misfortune before you are done with the business. I'm all for your taking a holiday, for at present you are a nuisance to your friends and a disgrace to your country's legislature. But for goodness' sake curb your passion for romance. They don't like it in Russia."