Mr Sheppard did not speculate. He gave the impression that he had stopped thinking when he had made sufficient money to retire from his profession.

    Andy recalled the great architect as a round-faced man, but was uncertain whether he had a moustache or was cleanshaven.

    He wore a large gold stud, flat, and resembling a button. It had a small black stone in the centre. It was the only hint of his personality that Andy could ever recollect.

    "The fact is, gentlemen," said Mr Merrivan, lowering his voice as if he were revealing a great secret, "beautiful as this place is, and charming as the community is and always will be, I am sure, I have planned an existence even more—ah—serene. Do you know Lake Como, Dr Macleod?"

    Andy knew it rather well.

    "I have purchased a villa—the Villa Frescoli—a little place where I hope to find even greater happiness than has been my lot at Beverley."

    Andy was thoughtful. The Villa Frescoli, so far from being a little place, was a palace, and Mr Merrivan was not the kind of man who would boast; a big white marble palace, he remembered, because the title of villa had seemed so inadequate to him when it had been pointed out.

    There was a woman in the party that day on the lake, a woman with a practical housekeeping mind.

    "They call it a villa," she said, "but it would require a staff of a hundred servants to run it."

    She had been over the place, which had been built for a Russian Grand Duke.

    Mr Merrivan assumed a new interest in Andy Macleod's eyes. He had spent the evening wondering whether the Nelsons would drop in after dinner, for such was the practice amongst members of the 'community'. But life ran much more conventionally than he had supposed, and, really there had been no reason why he should expect it to run otherwise. Neighbours did not call on one another. Beverley Green kept itself to itself.

    Mr Sheppard left early, and, at the invitation of his host, Andy took his coffee into what Mr Merriman called his 'den'. He found himself in the room where Merrivan and Wilmot had been when he had overheard their conversation on the previous night. In some respects it was a remarkable apartment. It was long, and also appeared narrower than it was. It ran from the front to the back of the house, and was lighted from both ends by two tall windows. In the very centre was a big carved fireplace, which would have been more in keeping with a baronial hall, and it was probably due to this feature that the room seemed out of proportion and the ceiling unusually low.

    Oak panelling covered the walls, and the first thing Andy noticed was the absence of books. Evidently Mr Merrivan was not a literary man and made no attempt to deceive a casual caller into believing that he was. The pictures on the wall were mostly etchings, and very valuable. Andy noticed some priceless examples of Zohn's works, and Mr Merrivan pointed out to him, with justifiable pride, a cartoon of Leonardo da Vinci.

    For the fireplace he apologised. He had bought it from the executors of Stockley Castle. The coats of arms of the Stockleys appeared on the entablature. The furniture was good and modern—two deep settees fitted into the window recesses, and besides Mr Merrivan's desk, which was in that portion of the room at the front of the house, there was a long table at the other end, a beautifully carved cabinet of Eastern origin, and a sprinkling of most comfortable armchairs.

    "I am a simple person with simple tastes," said Mr Merrivan complacently. "My nephew thinks that the apartment is more like an office. Well, I have been very comfortable in offices. You smoke, doctor?"

    Andy selected a cigar from the silver case that was pushed towards him.

    "Do you find our community restful?"

    Andy smiled.

    "It is a delightful backwater," he said, and Mr Merrivan purred.

    "I take a great deal of credit upon myself for its creation," he said. "I acquired these houses one by one. Some of them are very old, though you may not think so, and it was I who laid out Beverley Green as you now see it, I sold every house and made not a penny profit, sir, not a penny," he shook his head.

    Andy was surprised.

    "That was unbusinesslike of you."

    "Not a all, not at all," said Mr Merrivan, shaking his head. "The idea is to get the right kind of people here. I am afraid they are not all quite the right kind. People are not all they seem, and character deteriorates. But in contrast to your own active life, doctor, Beverley Green must be very restful."

    They passed on to a discussion of crime and criminals, a discussion which, in the main, took the form of questions on the part of Mr Merrivan and answers, long and short, according to the interest he had in the particular object of Mr Merrivan's research, from Andy.

    "Have you ever met in your travels," Mr Merrivan hesitated, "a man named Abraham Selim?"

    "Somebody else was asking me that very question," said Andy.