He did not fear an interview. The unexpected always happens, and the unexpectant one is generally at a disadvantage.

Loide felt that. Felt that, in the language of[Pg 57] Depew's country, he would be "upper dog" in the interview.

[Pg 57]

And then he set his wits to work—how to discover George Depew's whereabouts.

And meanwhile, in the same compass, within the radius of the city of London, another man was thinking—thinking with the same strained look on his face, too.

He was standing looking out of the window of a room in Finsbury Circus, standing there gnawing what was left of the nails of his hand, and watching but for one man's advent—the postman.

He was not looking for the telegraph boy—he knew it was too late for that—but a letter from his brother.

It had been arranged between them that the moment Arthur reached Queenstown in safety he should despatch a wire with the two words "All serene" if things were so.

And in case he should be asleep when the boat was off Queenstown, he had asked the purser to give him a call.

No such wire reached the dentist, hence his own disturbed serenity.

He waited and waited for it till he worked himself into such a state of nervousness—he had not his brother's iron will—that he shook from head to foot.[Pg 58]

[Pg 58]

That no one in need of dental attention visited him that day was fortunate for the man with the aching tooth.

A trembling hand is not the best kind with which to grip forceps.

As the day passed by and nothing came, the dentist became positively ill. He drank all that was left of the bottle of brandy, and for the first time in his life went home the worse for it.

His wife was surprised, amazed, shocked. That was, perhaps, as well.

In her offended dignity she stood aloof from him. It was better so.

Long before breakfast in the morning he had left the house. He wanted to be in Finsbury Circus before the postman, 

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