"Ours!" I echoed. "You mean you and your accomplices?" "Call them so, if you wish," he laughed. "I, unfortunately, am not in a position to enlighten you upon the actual reason I invoked your aid." "And your action has only brought upon me a great misfortune--bitter despair, and the loss of the woman I loved!" I cried, dismayed. "Ah!" he said. "You judge me a little too hastily, Mr. Holford. It is your failing, Mr. Holford, that you are given to rushing to premature conclusions. That is always fatal in any delicate negotiation. When you've had my experience--that of a traveller and thorough-going cosmopolitan--you will learn how to repress your own opinions until they are fully and entirely corroborated." I looked into the grey face of the clever adventurer, and there saw craft, cunning, and an ingenuity that was superhuman. A look was in his eyes such as I had never before seen in those of any human being. "But I am in search of my wife!" I cried frantically. "I am in no mood to hear this philosophy of yours." "Well--how do you know she is not here--in London?" he asked, waving his thin hand towards the window where showed the glimmering lights of the Thames bank. To the right, where I stood, I could see the gleam of electric light from the summit of Big Ben, showing that the House, which had assembled only a few days before, was sitting late after the Christmas recess. "I suppose you wish to mislead me into the idea that she is back again in London, hiding from me, eh?" I exclaimed resentfully. "No, Mr. Kirk, I tell you plainly that I've had enough of this tragic comedy of yours, I've watched you this evening with your precious friends, Flynn and Langton." "And, pray, why should I not possess friends?" he asked, looking at me with some surprise. "To me Langton denied all knowledge of you." "Well--and am I to be blamed for Langton's pretended ignorance?" "No; but it shows me that you are not dealing with me in a straightforward manner!" I declared, without mincing words. But the strange old fellow only laughed. "My dear sir," he said a few moments afterwards, "I can quite understand your distrust of me, therefore it is as well that I hesitated to place a further confidence in you. You might have betrayed it." "Betrayed it!" I echoed angrily. "Have you not betrayed me? Is it not due to you, and you alone, that my wife is missing?" "That I emphatically deny, my dear sir," he replied, still quite unperturbed. "But why let us discuss it? Any denial of mine you'll regard as false. It's a great pity that my judgment led me to seek your aid. Had you carried out my request and refrained from prying into matters which did not concern you, you might have found it to your distinct advantage." "You mean that I should have profited pecuniarily by concealing the fact that Professor Greer is dead and that an impostor has assumed his identity? You intended that I also should be an accomplice of the assassin!"