The Leopard's Spots by Fred M. White — Read

Stagg turned his steps in the direction of Regent-street, where presently he dropped into a certain famous photographic establishment in that great thoroughfare. To the obliging assistant behind the counter he produced the snapshot with the desire that it should be enlarged to some twenty times its original size, and expressed a hope that it might be forwarded on to him at his private address in the course of a day or two. This being satisfactorily arranged, Stagg hailed a taxi and went off in the direction of his club, where he felt justified in indulging in a most luxurious and carefully-thought-out lunch Then, over a cup of coffee and a liqueur and a big Corona cigar, he sat in the almost deserted smoking-room going over recent events in his mind.

He was really beginning to see his way now; he was getting a series of intricate and tangled webs into his hands and laying them out in a form that began presently to resolve itself into a clear pattern. He knew certain things now that would have deeply interested the authorities of Scotland Yard, but all these things he resolved to keep to himself till such time as they could be disclosed to his own great advantage. But the really big discovery he had made, or thought he had made, was so vast and stupendous that he hardly dared to fix it in his own mind. But all the details were fairly clear, and it seemed to him that he had only to wait upon events with patience until the prize fell into his hands like a ripe plum.