“The Emperor himself forbade the disclosure,” he said. “In China in those days, the Divine Sun of Heaven controlled not alone the destinies by the memories of men.” Tillizinni rose to go. “One last question,” he asked. “Do you intend publishing the information you have at any future date?” “I do not,” said the Ambassador briefly. Tillizinni had occasion to go into the red drawing-room, where he had left his hat and walking-stick. A man was sitting waiting--a tall, good-looking man, jaunty enough in spite of the poverty of his attire. “Captain Talham, I believe,” said Tillizinni, and the other rose. “You are the gentleman who searched my luggage at King’s Cross cloak-room,” said Captain Talham, without resentment, and the detective laughed aloud. “That is a confession which I should not care to make,” he said. “How do you know your luggage had been searched?” “I have had some experience,” said the other coolly, “and it may interest you to know that, since your search, a more conscientious search-party took away the whole of my baggage and has, so far, failed to replace it.” Tillizinni was genuinely concerned. This strange man had a tender spot in his heart for the needy and it needed no second glance at the man from China to discover his straitened circumstances. He drew a chair forward. “I am interested in this,” he said. “Perhaps I can help you.” Captain Talham raised a dignified and protesting hand. “The normal mind,” he said “rejects without hesitation the instinct of rebellion against recognised authority. Undisciplined resentment toward social safeguards imposed by society for its own protection is aluvistic. I appreciate the necessity for the examination you made and regard as admirable the choice of agent which the government has made. Moreover, since I am directly and frankly interested in discovering the location of Mount Li, and came to this country by the same ship as certain documents revealing that location, your suspicion was pardonable.” He said all this, scarcely pausing to take breath. Tillizinni’s face, schooled to conceal his emotion, displayed no hint of his sensations. Had this man been listening at the door of the study, that he should take up the threads of the Ambassador’s discourse? Talham seemed to divine the working of the Italian’s mind, and smiled. “I gather you have been discussing the matter with Chu-hsi-han. I gather that because you did not make your call till after the publication of his article, and because I have reason for knowing that that article has excited a great deal of interest in circles with which you are probably unacquainted--the Society of Good Intention, for example.” There was something in his tone which at once interested and nettled Tillizinni. The stranger had put him on his mettle, too, challenged his knowledge of forces. Yet the Italian was too big a man to allow pique to stand in his way of acquiring information. He was not too clever to learn.