“My confidential secretary, Miss Robinson,” said Tommy. “Now, sir, perhaps you will state your business? Beyond the fact that it is urgent, that you came here in a taxi, and that you have lately been in the Arctic—or possibly the Antarctic, I know nothing.”
The visitor stared at him in amazement.
“But this is marvellous,” he cried. “I thought detectives only did such things in books! Your office boy did not even give you my name!”
Tommy sighed deprecatingly.
“Tut tut, all that was very easy,” he said. “The rays of the midnight sun within the Arctic circle have a peculiar action upon the skin—the actinic rays have certain properties. I am writing a little monograph on the subject shortly. But all this is wide of the point. What is it that has brought you to me in such distress of mind?”
“To begin with, Mr. Blunt, my name is Gabriel Stavansson—”
“Ah! of course,” said Tommy. “The well known explorer. You have recently returned from the region of the North Pole, I believe?”
“I landed in England three days ago. A friend who was cruising in Northern waters brought me back on his yacht. Otherwise I should not have got back for another fortnight. Now I must tell you, Mr. Blunt, that before I started on this last expedition two years ago, I had the great good fortune to become engaged to Mrs. Maurice Leigh Gordon—”
Tommy interrupted.
“ Mrs. Leigh Gordon was, before her marriage—”
“The Honorable Hermione Crane, second daughter of Lord Lanchester,” reeled off Tuppence glibly.