The Golden Rose by Fred M. White — Read

"Well, my jolly sea dog," the little man said in a deep bass voice, "and how are you this evening? Nice sort of weather, isn't it? What were you saying about me just now? But I can guess. You were praising my intellect and beauty to this gentleman."

Pawson growled and looked uncomfortable. Lethbridge made a furtive study of the queer specimen of humanity by his side. He could see that there was something foreign, a certain Oriental air about the man, though his English was good and his manner insular. He had a vague impression that he had seen this creature before. Might not there be some connexion between Murshee and those small footprints which he had seen more than once in his own garden? Here was a man who was wearing dainty patent leather shoes on remarkably small feet. Here was a man who, for some reason or another, discarded socks as if he were accustomed in more unconventional moods to walk about with bare feet. Lethbridge knew that sailors who spend most of their time in tropical climates wear no footgear, and he had it on the authority of Pawson that Murshee had passed the best part of his life along with Sir Montagu Goshe in the Persian Gulf. Again, he did not fail to recall the fact that the man who had been hanging about his place wore no shoes or stockings. It was but natural to assume that this man and Murshee were one and the same person.