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The members must have seen Saunders Rook scores of times before that fateful evening, but had you asked any of them to describe him, the reply doubtless would have been:

“Oh, yes, Saunders Rook. I believe there is such a fellow around the club. Let me see. No, I don’t think he’s very tall or very short or very dark or very light. In fact, I don’t believe he’s very anything.”

How and when he had become a member of the club no one knew, and presumably no one had ever been concerned about knowing. Perhaps he was a friend of a friend of a member now deceased. He dined at the club four or five times a week and paid his bills. No one remembered having seen his face anywhere else. The Heterogeneous Club is proud of the range and brilliance of its talk but until this night it had never discussed Saunders Rook. After this night it could talk of little else.

Saunders Rook was not a glum, sullen, aloof soul; he was not unnoticed by choice; evening after evening he was on the edge of the circle of talk, listening, as politely attentive as a well-trained collie. He may even have ventured on one or two occasions to come out with something positive; but if he ever did so, it made no impression on the members of the club, and they were a not unimpressionable lot.