ABSTRACT
The club was practically deserted save for one or two old cronies. Everyone had gone to country houses, Ray Raymond was spending Christmas with Vera's father at Portsmouth, and in view of the message author had received he felt dull and alone. Ray had been in Bremen, and the two men had, they found, many mutual friends. Otto Engler is quite a good fellow. Engler was a well-dressed, rather elegant man of forty, whose fair beard was well trimmed, whose eyes were full of fire, and who rather prided himself upon being something of a lady-killer. He was in London in connection with an important financial scheme in which his brother and a German merchant in London, named Griesbach, were interested. He and his brother Wilhelm were over on a visit to the merchant, who, he told me, had offices in Coleman Street, and who lived in Lonsdale Road, Barnes.
