About a year later I read in a newspaper a curious story. A man had jumped overboard in mid-Channel and another had immediately gone over after him. It was supposed to be a gallant attempt at rescue, and the statement of a passenger that he saw the rescuer grip the other man by the throat as if to choke him was not credited. The men bore different names, but in personal appearance were remarkably like one another. The phrase used was, “They might have been brothers.” A description of the appearance left little doubt in my mind, and I could fully believe that passenger’s story. V THE SPIRITS OF HANFORD GARDENS The windfall which came to me from my adventure with “The Man behind the Door” tempted me to engage some help in the domestic work of my little flat. I cooked admirably, but I did other things less well and they bored me; so I talked to my baker, a man of genial and mature wisdom, and he said that I couldn’t do better than take Minnie Saxe if I could get her. So I set out to engage Minnie Saxe; and in the end Minnie Saxe engaged me. She was a girl of sixteen, as flat as a board, with a small bun of sand-coloured hair, a mouth like a steel vice, and an eye like a gimlet. Given the sex and the opportunities she would have been Napoleon. As it was, she was a manager, given up to managing everything and everybody, including her own weak-kneed father. To see her was to know that she was capable, but I thought I ought to put the usual questions as to previous experience and character. She waived them aside. “You don’t want to trouble about that, miss. I’m all right. If I say I’ll do for you, I will, and you won’t ’ave no fault to find. Now then, what do you do for yerself--I mean, for a livin’?” “Well,” I said, “I have some independent means.” “I see--money of yer own.” “Yes, though not much. Then I had thoughts of some business. Lately I’ve been writing a little--stories for a magazine.” “I see, miss. Unsettled. Well, church or chapel?” I fenced with that question discreetly, and she came off it at once to tell me, almost threateningly, that I couldn’t have my breakfast before eight. I said that even so late an hour as nine would suit me. “And what time should I ’ave finished doin’ of you up if you didn’t breakfast afore nine? That wouldn’t do neither. Well, I shall be there soon after seven. You’ll ’ave your breakfast at eight and I shall go as soon as I’m through with what’s wanted. I may look in in the evening again, but that ’ull be accordin’. And my money will be four shillin’ a week. I can but try it.”