The master was middle-aged, about the same height and weight as his
valet. He wore a full dark beard, something after the style of the
early eighties of last century. His was also a serious countenance,
tanned, dignified too; but his eyes were no match for his valet's; too
dreamy, introspective. Screwed in his left eye was a monocle down from
which flowed a broad ribbon. In public he always wore it; no one about
the hotel had as yet seen him without it, and he had been a guest there
for more than a fortnight.

He drank nothing in the way of liquor, though his man occasionally
wandered into the bar and ordered a stout or an ale. After dinner the
valet's time appeared to be his own; for he went out nearly every
night. He seemed very much interested in shop-windows, especially
those which were filled with curios. Mr. Thornden frequently went to
the theater, but invariably alone.

Thus, they attracted little or no attention among the clerks and bell
boys and waiters who had, in the course of the year, waited upon the
wants of a royal duke and a grand duke, to say nothing of a maharajah,
who was still at the hotel. An ordinary touring Englishman was, then,
nothing more than that.

Until one day a newspaper reporter glanced carelessly through the hotel
register. The only thing which escapes the newspaper man is the art of
saving; otherwise he is omnipotent. He sees things, anticipates
events, and often prearranges them; smells war if the secretary of the
navy is seen to run for a street-car, is intimately acquainted with
"the official in the position to know" and "the man higher up," "the
gentleman on the inside," and other anonymous but famous individuals.
He is tireless, impervious to rebuff, also relentless; as an
investigator of crime he is the keenest hound of them all; often he
does more than expose, he prevents. He is the Warwick of modern times;
he makes and unmakes kings, sceptral and financial.