A week after Madame had vanished down my lift for the last time, Dawson—in the make-up with which I was most familiar—called upon me at my office. He also came to say good-bye, for a turn of the official wheel had come, and he was ordered south to resume his duties at the Yard. He was, he told me, taking a last tour of inspection to make certain that the Secret Service net, which he had designed and laid, would be deftly worked by the hands of his subordinates. "I shall not be sorry," said he, "to get back to my deserted family and to be once more the plain man Dawson whom God made."
"You have so many different incarnations," I observed, "that I wonder the original has not escaped your memory."
He smiled. "If I had forgotten," said he, "my wife would soon remind me. She always insists that she married a certain man Dawson and declines to recognise any other."
"So if I come south to visit you, I shall see the original?"
"You will."
"Thanks," said I; "I will come at the earliest opportunity."
"I don't say that if you call at the Yard you will see quite the same person whom you will meet at Acacia Villas, Primrose Road, Tooting."
"That would be too much to expect. But under any guise, Dawson, I am always sure of knowing you."
"Yes, confound you. I would give six months' pay to know how you do it."
"You shall know some day, and without any bribery. Now that you are here, talk, talk, talk. I want to get the taste of those rotten letters of yours out of my mouth."