'I see you feel as I do,' he said. 'Yes, it's a bad story. For my man was a fellow that nobody could have to do with, a really damnable man; and the person that drew the cheque is the very pink of the proprieties, celebrated too, and (what makes it worse) one of your fellows who do what they call good. Black-mail, I suppose; an honest man paying through the nose for some of the capers of his youth. Black-Mail House is what I call that place with the door, in consequence. Though even that, you know, is far from explaining all,' he added, and with the words fell silent and contemplative.

'And you don't know if the drawer of the cheque lives there?' I asked him, drawing him from his reverie.

'A likely place, isn't it?' returned Mister Enfield. 'But I happen to have noticed his address; he lives in some square or other.'

'And you never asked about the - place with the door?' I asked, trying to keep the urgency from my voice.

'No, sir: I had a delicacy,' was the reply. 'I feel very strongly about putting questions; it partakes too much of the style of the day of judgment. You start a question, and it's like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others; and presently some bland old bird (the last you would have thought of) is knocked on the head in his own back-garden and the family have to change their name. No, sir, I make it a rule of mine: the more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask.'

'A very good rule, too,' I replied, almost by rote, for I was stunned by the import of the story.