He considered, knitting his brows.
"You're sure you're right in saying he is unusually tall?" he inquired at last.
"Absolutely," I replied.
"That's a pity," he said, "because otherwise it might be Sir Gerald Orpington. Only he's short. Still, he was in Parliament right enough. But, of course, if it was a tall man it's not Orpington."
He considered again.
"You say," he remarked, "that he had been in Persia? Now old Jack Beresford is tall enough and has plenty of hair, but I swear he's never been to Persia, and of course he hasn't a son at all. It's very odd. Describe him again."
I described my man again, and he followed every point on his fingers.
"Well," he said, "I could have sworn I knew every man who ever fished at Blank, but this fellow—— Oh, wait a minute! You say he is tall and bulky and had travelled, and his son was in the Boer War, and he has been in Parliament? Why, it must be old Carstairs. And yet it can't be. Carstairs was never married and was never in Parliament."
He pondered again.
Then he said, "You're sure it wasn't a clean-shaven bald man with a single eyeglass?"