"I didn't suggest that." Then, after a pause during which he smoked on vigorously, he suddenly asked, "Well now, be frank, Ralph, whom do you really suspect?" I was silent. Truth to tell, his question entirely nonplussed me. I had suspicions--distinct suspicions--that certain persons surrounding me were acting in accord towards some sinister end, but which of those persons were culpable I certainly could not determine. It was that very circumstance which was puzzling me to the point of distraction. "Ah!" I replied. "That's the worst of it. I know that the whole affair seems quite absurd, but I must admit that I can't fix suspicion upon anyone in particular." Jevons laughed outright. "In that case, my dear Boyd, you ought really to see the folly of the thing." "Perhaps I ought, but I don't," I answered, facing him with my back to the fire. "To you, my most intimate friend, I've explained, in strictest confidence, the matter which is puzzling me. I live in hourly dread of some catastrophe the nature of which I'm utterly at a loss to determine. Can you define intuition?" My question held him in pensive silence. His manner changed as he looked me straight in the face. Unlike his usual careless self--for his was a curious character of the semi-Bohemian order and Savage Club type--he grew serious and thoughtful, regarding me with critical gaze after removing his pipe from his lips. "Well," he exclaimed at last. "I'll tell you what it is, Boyd. This intuition, or whatever you may call it, is an infernally bad thing for you. I'm your friend--one of your best and most devoted friends, old chap--and if there's anything in it, I'll render you whatever help I can." "Thank you, Ambler," I said gratefully, taking his hand. "I have told you all this to-night in order to enlist your sympathy, although I scarcely liked to ask your aid. Your life is a busy one--busier even than my own, perhaps--and you have no desire to be bothered with my personal affairs." "On the contrary, old fellow," he said. "Remember that in mystery I'm in my element." "I know," I replied. "But at present there is no mystery--only suspicion." What Ambler Jevons had asserted was a fact. He was an investigator of mysteries, making it his hobby just as other men take to collecting curios or pictures. About his personal appearance there was nothing very remarkable. When pre-occupied he had an abrupt, rather brusque manner, but at all other times he was a very easy-going man of the world, possessor of an ample income left him by his aunt, and this he augmented by carrying on, in partnership with an elder man, a profitable tea-blending business in Mark Lane.