personality was almost a dual one, though not consciously so; his passion
for crime investigation was distinct--in outward seeming, at all
events--from his polished West End life of wealthy ease. Grave,
self-contained, and inscrutable, he slipped from one to the other with an
effortless regularity, and the fashionable folk with whom he mixed in his
leisured bachelor existence in the West End, apart from knowing him as
the famous Crewe, had even less knowledge of the real man behind his
suave exterior than the clients who visited his inquiry rooms in Holborn
to confide in him their stories of suffering, shame, or crimes committed
against them. His commissionaire and body-servant, Stork, had once, in a
rare--almost unique--convivial moment, declared to the caretaker of the
building that he knew no more about his master after ten years than he
did the first day he entered his service. He was deep beyond all belief,
was Stork's opinion, delivered with reluctant admiration.

Although Crewe did not allow the externals of his two existences to
become involved, his chief interest in life was in his work. He had
originally taken up detective work more as a relief from the boredom of
his lot as a wealthy young man, leading an aimless, useless life with
others of his class, than by deliberate choice of his vocation. His
initial successes surprised him; then the work absorbed him and became
his life's career. He had achieved some memorable successes and he had
made a few failures, but the failures belonged to the earlier portion of
his career, before he had learnt to trust thoroughly in his own great
gifts of intuition and insight, and that uncanny imagination which
sometimes carried him successfully through when all else failed.

Serious devotees of chess knew the name of Crewe in another capacity--as
the name of a man who might have aspired to great deeds if he had but
taken the game as his life's career. He had flashed across the chess