change, a fine lace handkerchief, unmarked, and the return half of a first-class ticket to London. Nothing much there to go upon.
Such were the details published broadcast by the Daily Budget, and "Find the Man in the Brown Suit" was their daily war-cry. On an average about five hundred people wrote daily to announce their success in the quest, and tall young men with well-tanned faces cursed the day when their tailors had persuaded them to a brown suit. The accident in the Tube, dismissed as a coincidence, faded out of the public mind.
Was it a coincidence? I was not so sure. No doubt I was prejudiced—the Tube incident was my own pet mystery—but there certainly seemed to me to be a connection of some kind between the two fatalities. In each there was a man with a tanned face—evidently an Englishman living abroad, and there were other things. It was the consideration of these other things that finally impelled me to what I considered a dashing step. I presented myself at Scotland Yard and demanded to see whoever was in charge of the Mill House case.
My request took some time to understand, as I had inadvertently selected the department for lost umbrellas, but eventually I was ushered into a small room and presented to Detective Inspector Meadows.
Inspector Meadows was a small man with a ginger head and what I considered a peculiarly irritating manner. A satellite, also in plain clothes, sat unobtrusively in a corner.
"Good morning," I said nervously.
"Good morning. Will you take a seat? I understand you've something to tell me that you think may be of use to us."
His tone seemed to indicate that such a thing was unlikely in the extreme. I felt my temper stirred.
