This was too much for Mallett’s gravity, and he hastily took up an evening paper to hide his smiles. Here he found that although now three days old, the “Mystery of Daylesford Gardens” still retained enough vitality to keep itself in the headlines, though fresh sensations had crowded it off the front page. He read with interest of an entirely mythical “police dash” to Birmingham, from which important results were understood to have been obtained; and had just embarked on an article by the City Editor on the probable effects of the London and Imperial liquidation which puzzled his unmathematical brains a good deal more even than Renshaw’s accountants had done, when a name uttered by the same loud-voiced man caught his ear and riveted his attention.

“Bernie Gaveston is on the train,” he said. “I saw him get into the next carriage.”

“Who?” asked someone.

“Bernie—Lord Bernard Gaveston. You know who I mean?”

“Oh! Yes, of course,” was the answer. Then, respectfully: “Do you know him?”

“Rather! Matter of fact, he was staying at Gleneagles the same time as we were last year. I used to see him nearly every day.”

“You never mentioned it before,” said the elderly man from his corner.

“Well, of course, I didn’t see much of him—not to speak to, I mean. He had his own crowd there with him. But I was always running into him, in the bar and so on. I thought he seemed a nice sort of chap. Funny thing is, I haven’t set eyes on him since, and now here he is in the next carriage. Shows what a small place the world is, doesn’t it?”

Mallett chuckled quietly behind his paper. The idea of this underbred little man claiming acquaintance with the famous Lord Bernard Gaveston amused him hugely. For Lord Bernard was, as every reader of the illustrated weeklies knew, a celebrity of the first order. It was difficult to know exactly why. He had never done anything particularly startling—never gone into Parliament or, like his unlucky brother, into the City. He had been content to remain an ornament to Society, and done it very well. He had written a couple of not very successful plays and composed some not very distinguished music. But his clothes were the despair and admiration of every young man who aspired to be well dressed, his appearance at a new restaurant or night-club was the guarantee of its success, his photograph was almost as familiar to the public as that of the most boomed débutante—in a word he was News, with a capital N, and there were very few young men of whom that could be said.