The detective pencilled an address on his card, and threw it across the table. "My private office, where we won't be disturbed," said he. "Eighty Craven-street, Strand. Come at four o'clock this afternoon. By the way, you might then be able to give me some information about the idol there."
"I'll try," said Darrel. "My friend lives near the British Museum, so I shall have time to run up and see him. But there is one thing you are not certain of yet."
"Sir," replied Mr. Torry drily, "there are many things of which I am not certain. But this special thing----"
"You don't know if the individual who killed the woman at Cleopatra's Needle is male or female."
"A male--a man, I'll stake my professional reputation on it."
"Why are you so sure?"
"Why?" echoed the detective, "because the woman ran too great a risk in committing the murder--she would only risk so much for a man."
CHAPTER IV.
[THE DEAD MAN'S NAME]
Doing is better than dreaming; and a year of experience is worth a century of theorising. All his life Darrel had sat in his study laboriously weaving romances out of such material as he had collected in his wanderings. Now, by a happy chance of fortune, he was about to step out of his ideal world into actual life, and take an active part in a real story. Already fate had laid the foundation of an intricate plot; and it was his business to work out to a fit conclusion the criminal problem presented to him. In his own mind Darrel considered the task impossible.