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brushes and my oils.’
    Adam turned his back on the painting of King Pellinore and made his way towards the small rosewood table in the corner of the studio where the painter kept a cut glass decanter of whisky.
    ‘Actually, I have no wish to argue with you. I have enough to puzzle my poor head at present. The lady who disappeared is not the only mystery I have encountered. I seem to have stumbled
into another of late.’
    ‘Well, waste no time in setting it before me, Carver. I have a devilish liking for mysteries. Especially those which involve beautiful young damsels in possible distress.’
    ‘Unfortunately, this one does not. Do you mind if I pour myself a drink?’
    Jardine made a gesture to indicate that his friend should help himself to the contents of the decanter. Adam, splashing a generous measure of spirits into the glass, first raised it towards the
artist in a mock toast and then drank from it.
    ‘The circumstances surrounding it have been plaguing my mind for the last few days. It began with a gentleman, unknown to me, calling at my club more than a week ago.’
    As Jardine nodded and made small noises of surprise or encouragement, Adam unfolded events at the Speke dinner and the story his odd neighbour at the table had told him. When he had finished,
the painter remained silent, stroking his beard like an actor playing the part of a man in deep thought.
    ‘I do believe I know this fellow Creech,’ he said at last.
    Adam looked across at his friend in surprise.
    ‘Yes, I am almost certain it must be he who came calling upon me the other day in search of a painting to buy. He said he had been recommended to visit my humble studios by Burne-Jones.
This surprised me since I don’t suppose I have exchanged ten words with Burne-Jones in my entire life. It pains me to admit this but the name of Cosmo Jardine probably means as little to him
as the name of, let us say, Adam Carver.’
    ‘Your days of anonymity are doubtless numbered, Jardine. Your fame will soon spread beyond the boundaries of Chelsea.’
    The artist bowed his head in ironic acknowledgement of the compliment.
    ‘However, I am about to deepen your little mystery rather than solve it. The man who came to me was exactly as you describe him. The telling detail of the crescent moon scar on the brow
surely proves it was he. And yet he was not calling himself Creech.’
    ‘He was not?’
    ‘No,’ Jardine said, ‘he introduced himself to me as a Dr Sinclair, recently returned to London after a long period spent healing the expatriate sick in Florence. I had no
reason to doubt him. Of course, he knew nothing of art. Even though he had lived in Florence, it was clear that he could not tell a Whistler from a Watteau. But then, few of my few patrons could.
In the event, he failed to join the select list of those who have acknowledged the genius of Cosmo Jardine with pounds, shillings and pence. He bought nothing.’
    ‘But why was he calling upon you at all?’
    ‘There is, I suppose, the smallest of possibilities that he was doing what he claimed to be doing. Looking to purchase a painting from one of London’s most promising
artists.’
    ‘While calling himself Dr Sinclair, the physician returned from Italian exile?’
    ‘Perhaps he really is Sinclair. Perhaps it is Creech that is the assumed name.’
    ‘No,’ Adam said, ‘there is not the slightest of chances that he could become a member of the Marco Polo under a false name. It is difficult enough for a man to gain admittance
under his real one.’
    ‘Well, the problem has me floored.’ Jardine was losing interest in the question of his caller’s identity, his eyes returning to the picture propped on his easel. ‘I would
not have minded him calling himself the Earl of Derby or Giuseppe Garibaldi or even the Daring Young Man on his Flying Trapeze if only he had bought one of my paintings.’
    ‘Things are bad?’
    ‘Atrocious. I am suffering from a chronic atrophy of the