six months previously, in Australia and Tasmania. If that were so, then
how did he come to have so large a circle of friends, or at any rate of
acquaintances--acquaintances, too, of such distinction and high
position? Was it possible he could in a few months have come to know all
these peers and peeresses and baronets and knights, distinguished
musicians and actors and actresses, leading members of the learned
professions, and all the rest of the Society crowd who had thronged his
house that evening?

Suddenly something I had been told at the club an hour or so before
flashed back into my mind. Another club member besides Easterton had, it
seemed, become acquainted with Gastrell through Gastrell's calling at
the wrong house--by mistake.

A coincidence? Possibly. And yet--

I sucked meditatively at my pipe.

Suddenly the telephone rang. Easterton was speaking.

"What!" I exclaimed, in answer to the startling information he gave me.
"When did he disappear?"

"Where was he last seen?"

"No, he has not been here. I haven't seen him since Gastrell's
reception."

"Oh, yes, I saw you there."