"That man is a thief in disguise," he shouted. "You will find burglar's tools in his pocket and a revolver. He came into the room where I was guarding my master's property, pretended to have mistaken the room, and tried to slip in behind me. I was too quick for him. He has followed us from Russia, that man. My master will tell you." The manager, who had been lingering in the background, came down the stairs. "The man's story may be true," he said. "Two of the maids saw him hanging about. They heard the altercation, and there is a chloroformed handkerchief in the sitting room." "I have a valuable box there," Kinlosti explained, "which it is my servant's duty to guard. It contains property which belongs to the dead." "All the same," one of the bystanders observed, "one does not treat even a thief like that. The man's neck is probably broken." Kinlosti seemed to have lost his nervousness in this minute of crisis. "I beg," he said to the manager, "that you will await the doctor's verdict before you send for the police. If the man is not seriously injured, he got no more than his deserts. It was John's duty to guard what he was guarding with his life." "Here is the doctor," the manager announced. Half a dozen of us followed the manager and the doctor back to the room where we had carried the injured man. When we opened the door, however, we were faced with a great surprise. There was a current of cold air, the window was wide open, the sofa was empty! To all appearance, a miracle had happened. We examined the ground below the window and found traces of where a man had stepped out. To those of us who had seen the fall, the thing grew more wonderful the more we thought of it. "I think," the doctor pronounced, "that this is more a case for the police." Kinlosti shook his head. "I do not think," he said drily, "that the police of Bath are likely to be of much service in this matter." "You have a suspicion, perhaps?" the manager asked. Kinlosti smiled a little bitterly. "I know the people who have been following me," he replied, "who would follow me around the world until I am quit of my trust. They are Jugo-Slav Jews, boneless and bloodless as the worm that you cut in two only to find of dual life. No Bath policeman will ever lay hands upon that seemingly reverend gentleman." "At the same time," the manager said a little stiffly, "I shall give information. It appears that he wrote for a room a week ago, from a vicarage near London, and signed himself 'The Reverend Edward Cummings.'" "You will find that vicarage a myth," Kinlosti observed, "as much a myth as the Reverend Edward Cummings himself."