In the short story Magnolia Blossom, Vincent Easton is an orange grower from the Transvaal in South Africa. While in London, he meets Theo, the wife of a businessman Richard Darrell. They fall in love and he asks her to run away with him, and to his surprise, she agrees.
As part of the many twists in the story, Theo subsequently reads that her husband's firm Hobson, Jekyll & Lucas is facing financial ruin and decides to go back to him to help. But that is not the end of Easton's involvement for it transpires that he has been commissioned to some dubious property transactions by Theo's husband in South Africa and as a result held certain documents which could open Richard to criminal prosecution for fraud.