"I suppose because I am a fool," he answered bitterly.

She shook her head.

"No!" she declared, "that is not the reason."

He moved a step nearer to her.

"If I were to admit my folly," he said, "what difference would it make—if I were to tell you that I did it to save you—the inconvenience of an examination into the motive for your presence in Morris Barnes' rooms that night—what then?"

"It was generous of you," she declared softly. "I ought to thank you."

"I want no thanks," he answered, almost roughly. "I want to know that I was justified in what I did. I want you to tell me what you were doing there alone in the rooms of such a man, with a stolen key. And I want you to tell me what you know about his death."

"Is that all?" she asked.

"Isn't it enough?" he declared savagely. "It is enough to be making an old man of me, anyhow."

"You have a right to ask these questions," she admitted slowly, "and I have no right to refuse to answer them."

"None at all," he declared. "You shall answer them."

There was a moment's silence. She leaned a little further back against the sideboard. Her eyes were fixed upon his, but her face was inscrutable.

"I cannot," she said slowly. "I can tell you nothing."

Wrayson was speechless for a moment. It was not only the words themselves, but the note of absolute finality with which they were uttered, which staggered him. Then he found himself laughing, a sound so unnatural and ominous that, for the first time, fear shone in the girl's eyes.

"Don't," she cried, and her hands flashed towards him for a moment as though the sight of him hurt her. "Don't be angry! Have pity on me instead."

His nerves, already overwrought, gave way.

"Pity on a murderess, a thief!" he cried. "Not I! I have suffered enough for my folly. I will go and tell the truth to-morrow. It was you who killed him. You did it in the cab and stole back to his rooms to rob—afterwards. Horrible! Horrible!"

Her face hardened. His lack of self-control seemed to stimulate her.

"Have it so," she declared. "I never asked you for your silence. If you repent it, go and make the best bargain you can with the law. They will let you off cheaply in exchange for your information!"

He walked the length of the room and back. Anything to escape from her eyes. Already he hated the words which he had spoken. When he faced her again he was master of himself.

"Listen," he said; "I was a little overwrought. I spoke wildly. I have no right to make such an accusation. But—"

She held out her hand as though to stop him, but he went steadily on.

"But I have a right to demand that you tell me the truth as to what you were doing in Barnes' rooms that night, and what you know of his death. Remember that but for me you would have had to tell your story to a less sympathetic audience."

"I never forget it," she answered, and for the first time her change to a more natural tone helped him to believe in himself and his own judgment. "If you want me to tell you how grateful I am, I might try, but it would be a very hard task."

"All that I ask of you," he pleaded, "is that you tell me enough to convince me that my silence was justified. Tell me at least that you had no knowledge of or share in that man's death!"

"I cannot do that," she answered.

He took a quick step backwards. The horror once more was chilling his blood, floating before his eyes.

"You cannot!" he repeated hoarsely.

"No! I knew that the man was in danger of his life," she went on, calmly. "On the whole, I think that he deserved to die. I do not mind telling you this, though. I would have saved him if I could."

He drew a great breath of relief.

"You had nothing to do with his actual death, then?"

"Nothing whatever," she declared.

"It was all I asked you, this," he cried reproachfully. "Why could you not have told me before?"

She shook her head.

"You asked me other things," she answered calmly. "So much of the truth you shall know, at any rate. I have pleaded not guilty to the material action of drawing that cord around the worthless neck of the man whom you knew as Morris Barnes. I plead guilty to knowing why he was murdered, even if I do not know the actual person who committed the deed, and I admit that I was in his rooms for the purpose of robbery. That is all I can tell you."

He drew a little nearer to her.

"Enough! Do you know what it is that you have said? What are you? Who are you?"

She shrugged her shoulders. Somehow, from her side at least, the tragical note which had trembled throughout their interview had passed away. She helped herself to soda water from a siphon on the sideboard.

"You appear, somewhat to my surprise," she remarked, "to know that. I wonder at poor little Edith giving me away."

"All that I know is that you are living here under a false name," he declared.

She shook her head.

"My mother's," she told him. "The discarded daughter always has a right to that, you know."

Her eyes mocked him. He felt himself helpless. This was the opportunity for which he had longed, and it had come to him in vain. He recognized the fact that his defeat was imminent. She was too strong for him.

"I am disappointed," he said, a little wearily. "You will not let me believe in you."

"Why should you wish to?" she asked quickly

Almost immediately she bit her lip, as though she regretted the words, which had escaped her almost involuntarily. But he was ready enough with his answer.

"I cannot tell you that," he said gravely. "I never thought of myself as a particularly emotional person. In fact, I have always rather prided myself on my common sense. That night I think that I went a little mad. Your appearance, you see, was so unusual."

She nodded.

"I must have been rather a shock to you," she admitted.

She watched him closely. The fire in his eyes was not yet quenched.

"Yes!" he said, "you were a shock. And the worst of it is—that you remain one!"

"Ah!"

"You mean to keep me at arm's length," he said slowly, "to tell me as little as possible, and get rid of me. I am not sure that I am willing."

She only raised her eyebrows. She said nothing.

"You have told me nothing of the things I want to know," he cried passionately. "Who and what are you? What place do you hold in the world?"

"None," she answered quietly. "I am an outcast."

He glanced around him.

"You are rich!"

"On the contrary," she assured him, "I am nearly a pauper."

"How do you live, then?" he asked breathlessly.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Why do you ask me these questions?" she said. "I cannot answer them. Whatever my life may be, I live it to myself."

He leaned a little towards her. His breath was coming quickly, and she, too, caught something of the nervous excitement of his manner.

"There are better things," he began.

"Not for me," she interrupted quickly. "I tell you that I am an outcast. Of you, I ask only that you go away—now—before the Baroness returns, and do your best to blot out the memory of that one night from your life. Remember only that you did a generous action. Remember that, and no more."

"Too late," he answered; "I cannot do it."

"You are a man," she answered, "and you say that?"

"It is because I am a man, and you are what you are, that I cannot," he answered slowly.

There was a moment's breathless silence. Only he fancied that her face had somehow grown softer.

"You must not talk like that," she said. "You do not know what you are saying—who or what I am. Listen! I think I hear the Baroness."

She leaned a little forward, and the madness fired his blood. Half stupefied, she yielded to his embrace, her lips rested upon his, her frightened eyes were half closed. His arms held her like a vise, he could feel her heart throbbing madly against his. How long they remained like it he never knew—who can measure the hours spent in Paradise! She flung him from her at last, taking him by surprise with a sudden burst of energy, and before he could stop her she had left the room. In her place, the Baroness was standing upon the threshold, dressed in a wonderful blue wrapper, and with a cigarette between her teeth. She burst into a little peal of laughter as she looked into his distraught face.

"For an Englishman," she remarked, "you are a little rapid in your love affairs, my dear Mr. Wrayson, is it not so? So she has left you plante la!"

"I—was mad," Wrayson muttered.

The Baroness helped herself to whisky and soda.

"Come again and make your peace, my friend," she said. "You will see no more of her to-night."

Wrayson accepted the hint and went.



CHAPTER XI

FALSE SENTIMENT

With his nerves strung to their utmost point of tension Wrayson walked homeward with the unseeing eyes and mechanical footsteps of a man unable as yet fully to collect his scattered senses. But for him the events of the evening were not yet over. He had no sooner turned the key in the latch of his door and entered his sitting-room, than he became aware of the fact that he had a visitor. The air was fragrant with tobacco smoke; a man rose deliberately from the easy-chair, and, throwing the ash from his cigarette into the fire, turned to greet him. Wrayson was so astonished that he could only gasp out his name.

"Heneage!" he exclaimed.

Heneage nodded. Of the two, he was by far the more at his ease.

"I wanted to see you, Wrayson," he said, "and I persuaded your housekeeper—with some difficulty—to let me wait for your arrival. Can you spare me a few minutes?"

"Of course," Wrayson answered. "Sit down. Will you have anything?"

Heneage shook his head.

"Not just now, thanks!"

Wrayson took off his hat and coat, threw them upon the table, and lit a cigarette.

"Well," he said, "what is it?"

"I have come," Heneage said quietly, "to offer you some very good advice. You are run down, and you look it. You need a change. I should recommend a sea voyage, the longer the better. They say that your paper is making a lot of money. Why not a voyage round the world?"

"What the devil do you mean?" Wrayson asked.

Heneage flicked off the ash from his cigarette, and looked for a moment thoughtfully into the fire.

"Three weeks ago last Thursday, I think it was," he began, reflectively, "I had supper with Austin at the Green Room Club, after the theatre. He persuaded me, rather against my will, I remember, for I was tired that night, to go home with him and make a fourth at bridge. Austin's flat, as you know, is just below here, on the Albert Road."

Wrayson stopped smoking. The cigarette burned unheeded between his fingers. His eyes were fixed upon his visitor.

"Go on," he said.

"We played five rubbers," Heneage continued, still looking into the fire; "it may have been six. I left somewhere in the small hours of the morning, and walked along the Albert Road on the unlit side of the street. As I passed the corner here, I saw a hansom waiting before your door, and you—with somebody else, standing on the pavement."

"Anything else?" Wrayson demanded.

"No!" Heneage answered. "I saw you, I saw the lady, and I saw the cab. It was a cold morning, and I am not naturally a curious person. I hurried on."

Wrayson picked up the cigarette, which had fallen from his fingers, and sat down. He could scarcely believe that this was not a dream—that it was indeed Stephen Heneage who sat opposite to him, Heneage the impenetrable, whose calm, measured words left no indication whatever as to his motive in making this amazing revelation.

"You are naturally wondering," Heneage continued, "why, having seen what I did see, I kept silence. I followed your lead, because I fancied, in the first place, that the presence of that young lady was a personal affair of your own, and that she could have no possible connection with the tragedy itself. You were evidently disposed to shield her and yourself at the same time. I considered your attitude reasonable, if a little dangerous. No man is obliged to give himself away in matters of this sort, and I am no scandalmonger. The situation, however, has undergone a change."

Wrayson looked up quickly.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"To-night," Heneage said calmly, "I recognized your nocturnal visitor with the Baroness de Sturm.

"And what of that?" Wrayson demanded.

Heneage, who was leaning back in his chair, looking into the fire with half closed eyes, straightened himself, and turned directly towards his companion.

"How much do you know about the Baroness de Sturm?" he asked.

"Nothing at all," Wrayson answered. "I met her for the first time to-night."

Heneage looked back into the fire.

"Ah!" he murmured. "I thought that it might be so. The young lady is perhaps an old friend?"

"I cannot discuss her," Wrayson answered. "I can only say that I will answer for her innocence as regards any complicity in the murder of Morris Barnes."

Heneage nodded sympathetically.

"Still," he remarked, "the man was murdered."

"I suppose so," Wrayson admitted.

"And in a most mysterious manner," Heneage continued. "You have gathered, I dare say, from your knowledge of me, that these affairs always interest me immensely. I am almost as great a crank as the Colonel. I have been thinking over this case a great deal, but I must confess that up to to-night I have not been able to see a gleam of daylight. I had dismissed the young lady from my mind. Now, however, I cannot do so."

"Simply because you saw her with the Baroness de Sturm?" Wrayson asked.

"They are living together," Heneage reminded him, "a condition which naturally makes for a certain amount of intimacy."

"Do you know anything against the Baroness?" Wrayson demanded.

"Against her?" Heneage repeated thoughtfully. "Well, that depends."

"Do you mean to insinuate that she is an adventuress?" Wrayson asked bluntly.

"Certainly not," Heneage replied. "She is a representative of one of the oldest families in Europe, a persona grata at the Court of her country, and an intimate friend of Queen Helena's. She is by no means an adventuress."

"Then why," Wrayson asked, "should you attach such significance to the fact of her friendship with Miss Deveney?"

"Because," Heneage remarked, lighting another cigarette, "I happen to know that the Baroness is at present under the strictest police surveillance!"

Wrayson started. Heneage's first statement had reassured him: his later one was simply terrifying. He stared at his visitor in dumb alarm.

"I came to know of this in rather a curious way," Heneage continued. "My information, in fact, came direct from her own country. She is being watched with extraordinary care, in connection with some affair of which I must confess that I know nothing. She is staying in London, a city which I happen to know she detests, without any ostensible reason. Of all parts, she has chosen Battersea as a place of residence. It is her companion whom I saw leaving your flat at three o'clock on the morning of Barnes' murder. I am bound to say, Wrayson, that I find these facts interesting."

"Why have you come to me?" Wrayson asked. "What are you going to do about them?"

"I am going to set myself the task of solving the mystery of Morris Barnes' death," Heneage answered calmly. "If I succeed, I am very much afraid that, directly or indirectly, the presence of Miss Deveney in the flats that night will become known."

"And you advise me, therefore," Wrayson remarked, "to take a voyage—in plain words, to clear out."

"Exactly," Heneage agreed.

Wrayson threw his cigarette angrily into the fire.

"What the devil business is it of yours?" he demanded.

Heneage looked at him steadily.

"Wrayson," he said, "I am sorry that you should use that tone with me. I am no moralist. I admit frankly that I take this matter up because my personal tastes prompt me to. But murder, however great the provocation, is an indefensible thing."

"I am not seeking to justify it," Wrayson declared.

"I am glad to hear that," Heneage answered. "I cannot believe, either, that you would shield any one directly or indirectly connected with such a crime. I am going to ask you, therefore, to tell me what Miss Deveney was doing in these flats on that particular evening."

Wrayson was silent. In the light of what he had just been told about the Baroness, he knew very well how Heneage would regard the truth. Of course, she was innocent, innocent of the deed itself and of all knowledge of it. But Heneage did not know her; he would be hard to convince. So Wrayson shook his head.

"I can tell you nothing," he said. "I admit frankly my sympathies are not with you. I should not say a word likely to bring even inconvenience upon Miss Deveney."

"Dare you tell me," Heneage asked calmly, "that her visit was to you? No! I thought not," he added, as Wrayson remained silent. "I believe that that young lady could solve the mystery of Morris Barnes' death, if she chose."

Then Wrayson had an idea. At any rate, the disclosure would do no harm.

"Do you know who Miss Deveney is?" he asked.

Heneage looked across at him quickly.

"Do you?"

"Yes! She is the eldest daughter of the Colonel!"

"Our Colonel?" Heneage exclaimed.

Wrayson nodded.

"Her real name is Miss Fitzmaurice," he said. "Her mother's name was Deveney."

Heneage looked incredulous.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked.

"Absolutely," Wrayson answered. "I saw her picture the day of the garden party, and I recognized her at once. There is no doubt about it whatever. She and the Baroness were schoolfellows in Brussels. There is no mystery about their friendship at all."

Heneage was thoughtful for several moments.

"This is interesting," he said at last, "but it does not, of course, affect the situation."

"You mean that you will go on just the same?" Wrayson demanded.

"Certainly! And it rests with you to say whether you will be on my side or theirs," Heneage declared. "If you are on mine, you will tell me what Miss Deveney was doing in these flats on that night of all others. If you are on theirs, you will go and warn them that I am determined to solve the mystery of Morris Barnes' death—at all costs."

"I had no idea," Wrayson remarked quietly, "that you were ambitious to shine as an amateur policeman."

"We all have our hobbies," Heneage answered. "Take the Colonel, for instance, the most harmless, the most good-natured man who ever lived. Nothing in the world fascinates him so much as the details of a tragedy like this, however gruesome they may be. I have seen him handle a murderer's knife as though he loved it. His favourite museum is the professional Chamber of Horrors in Scotland Yard. My own interests run in a slightly different direction. I like to look at an affair of this sort as a chess problem, and to set myself to solve it. I like to make a silent study of all the characters around, to search for motives and dissect evidence. Human nature has its secrets, and very wonderful secrets too."

"I once," Wrayson said thoughtfully, "saw a man tracked down by bloodhounds. My sympathies were with the man."

Heneage nodded.

"Your view of life," he remarked, "was always a sentimental one."

"No correct view," Wrayson declared, "can ignore sentiment."

"Granted; but it must be true sentiment, not false," Heneage said. "This sentiment which interferes with justice is false sentiment."

"Justice is altogether an arbitrary, a relative phrase," Wrayson declared. "I know no more about the case of Morris Barnes than you do. I knew the man by sight and repute, and I knew the manner of his life, and it seems to me a likely thing that there is more human justice about his death than in the punishing the person who compassed it."

"There are cases of that sort," Heneage admitted. "That is the advantage of being an amateur, like myself. My discoveries, if I make any, are my own. I am not bound to publish them."

Wrayson smiled a little bitterly.

"You would be less than human if you didn't," he said.

Heneage rose to his feet and began putting on his coat. Wrayson remained in his seat, without offering to help him.

"So I may take it, I suppose," he said, as he moved towards the door, "that my visit to you is a failure?"

"I have not the slightest idea of running away, if that is what you mean," Wrayson answered. "I am obliged to you for your warning, but what I did I am prepared to stand by."

"I am sorry," Heneage answered. "Good night!"



CHAPTER XII

TIDINGS FROM THE CAPE

Wrayson paused for a moment in his work to answer the telephone which stood upon his table.

"What is it?" he asked sharply.

His manager spoke to him from the offices below.

"Sorry to disturb you, sir, but there is a young man here who won't go away without seeing you. His name is Barnes, and he says that he has just arrived from South Africa."

It was a busy morning with Wrayson, for in an hour or so the paper went to press, but he did not hesitate for a moment.

"I will see him," he declared. "Bring him up yourself."

Wrayson laid down the telephone. Morris Barnes had come from South Africa. It was a common name enough, and yet, from the first, he was sure that this was some relative. What was the object of his visit? The ideas chased one another through his brain. Was he, too, an avenger?

There was a knock at the door, and the clerk from downstairs ushered in his visitor. Wrayson could scarcely repress a start. It was a younger edition of Morris Barnes who stood there, with an ingratiating smile upon his pale face, a trifle more Semitic in appearance, perhaps, but in other respects the likeness was almost startling. It extended even to the clothes, for Wrayson recognized with a start a purple and white tie of particularly loud pattern. The cut of his coat, the glossiness of his hat and boots, too, were all strikingly reminiscent of the dead man.

His visitor was becoming nervous under Wrayson's close scrutiny. His manner betrayed a curious mixture of diffidence and assurance. He seemed overanxious to create a favourable impression.

"I took the liberty of coming to see you, Mr. Wrayson" he said, twisting his hat round in his hand. "My name is Barnes, Sydney Barnes. Morris Barnes was my brother."

Wrayson pointed to a chair, into which his visitor subsided with exaggerated expressions of gratitude. He had very small black eyes, set very close together, and he blinked continually. The more Wrayson studied him, the less prepossessing he found him.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Barnes?" he asked quietly.

"I have just come from Cape Town," the young man said. "Such a shock it was to me—about my poor brother! Oh! such a shock!"

"How did you hear about it?" Wrayson asked.

"Just a newspaper—I read an account of it all. It did give me a turn and no mistake. Directly I'd finished, I went and booked my passage on the Dunottar Castle. I had a very fair berth over there—two quid a week, but I felt I must come home at once. Fact is," he continued, looking down at his trousers, "I had no time to get my own togs together. I was so anxious, you see. That's why I'm wearing some of poor Morris's."

"Are you the only relative?" Wrayson asked.

"'Pon my sam, I am," the other answered with emphasis. "We hadn't a relation in the world. Father and mother died ten years ago, and Morris and I were the only two. Anything that poor Morris possessed belongs to me, sure! There's no one else to claim a farthing's worth. You must know that yourself, Mr. Wrayson, eh?"

"If, as you say, you are the only relative, your brother's effects, of course, belong to you," Wrayson answered.

"It's a sure thing," the young man declared. "I've been to the landlord of the flat, and he gave me up the keys at once. There's only one quarter's rent owing. Pretty stiff though—isn't it? Fifty pounds!"

"Your brother's was a furnished flat, I believe," Wrayson answered. "That makes a difference, of course."

The young man's face fell.

"Then the furniture wasn't his?" he remarked.

Wrayson shook his head.

"No! the furniture belongs to the landlord. There will be an inventory, of course, and you will be able to find out if anything was your brother's."

It was obvious that Mr. Sydney Barnes had not as yet entered upon the purpose of his visit. He fidgeted for a moment or two with his hat, and looked up at Wrayson, only to look nervously away again. To set him more at his ease, Wrayson lit a cigarette and passed the box over.

"Thank you, Mr. Wrayson! Thank you, sir!" his visitor exclaimed. "You see I'm a smoker," he added, holding up his yellow-stained forefinger. "That is, I smoke when I can afford to. Things have been pretty dicky out in South Africa lately, you know. Terrible hard it has been to make a living."

"Your brother was supposed to have done pretty well out there," Wrayson remarked, more for the sake of keeping the conversation alive than anything. The effect of his words, however, was electrical. Mr. Sydney Barnes leaned over from his chair, and his little black eyes twinkled like polished beads.

"Mr. Wrayson," he declared, "a week before he sailed for England, Morris was on his uppers! He was caught in Johannesburg when the war broke out, and he had to stay there. When he turned up in Cape Town again, his own mother wouldn't have known him. He was in rags—he'd come down on a freight—he hadn't a scrap of luggage, or a copper to his name. That was Morris when he came to me in Cape Town!"

Wrayson was listening attentively; he almost feared to let his visitor see how interested he was.

"He was fair done in!" the young man continued. "He never had the pluck of a chicken, and the night he found me in Cape Town he cried like a baby. He had lost everything, he said. It was no use staying in the country any longer. He was wild to get back to England. And yet, do you know, sir, all the time I had the idea that he was keeping something back from me. And he was! He was, too! The—!"

He stopped short. The vindictiveness of his countenance supplied the epithet.

"You'll excuse me if I'm a bit excited, Mr. Wrayson," he continued. "I'll leave you to judge how I've been served when you hear all. He got over me, and I lent him nearly half of my savings, and he started back to England. He took this flat at two hundred pounds a year the very week he got back, and he's lived, from what I can hear, like a lord ever since. Will you believe this, sir! He sent back the money he borrowed from me a quid at a time, and wrote me to say he was saving it with great difficulty—out of his salary of three pounds a week. When he'd paid back the lot, I never heard another line from him. I was doing rotten myself, and he knew well enough that I should have been over first steamer if I'd known about his two hundred a year flat, and all the rest of it. What do you think of my brother, sir, eh? What do you think of him? Treated me nicely, didn't he? Nine pounds ten it was I lent him, and nine pounds ten was all I had back, and here he was living like a duke, and lying to me about his three pounds a week; and there was I hawkering groceries on a barrow, selling sham diamonds, any blooming thing to get a mouthful to eat. Nice sort of brother that, eh? What?"

Wrayson repressed an inclination to smile. There was something grimly humourous about his visitor's indignation.

"You must remember," he said, "that your brother is dead, and that his death itself was a terrible one. Besides, even if you have had to wait for a little time, you are his heir now."

The young man was breathing hard. The perspiration stood out in little beads upon his forehead. He showed his teeth a little. He was becoming more and more unpleasant to look upon as his excitement increased.

"Look here, Mr. Wrayson!" he exclaimed. "I'm coming to that. I've been through his things. Clothes! I never saw such a collection. All from a West End tailor, too! And boots! Patent, with white tops; pumps, everything slap up! Heaven knows what he must have spent upon his clothes. Bills from restaurants, too; why, he seems to have thought nothing of spending a quid or two on a dinner or a supper. Photographs of ladies, little notes asking him to tea; why, between you and me, Mr. Wrayson, sir, he was living like a prince! And look here!"

He rose to his feet and planked down a bank-book on the desk in front of Wrayson.

"Look here, sir," he declared. "Every three months, within a day or two, cash—five hundred pounds. Here you are. Here's the last: March 27—cash, L500! Look back! January 1—By cash L500! October 2—cash, L500! There you are, right back to the very day he arrived in England. And he left South Africa with ten bob of mine in his pocket, after he'd paid his passage! and from what I can hear, he never did a day's work after he landed. And me over there working thirteen and fourteen hours a day, and half the time stony-broke! There's a brother for you! Cain was a fool to him!"

"But you must remember that after all you are going to reap the benefit of it now," Wrayson remarked.

"Ah! but am I?" the young man exclaimed fiercely. "That's what I want to know. Look here! I've been through every letter and every scrap of paper I can find, I've been to the bank and to his few pals, and strike me dead if I can find where that five hundred pounds came from every three months! It was in gold always; he must have gone and changed it somewhere—five hundred golden sovereigns every three months, and I can't find where they came from!"

"Have you been to a solicitor?" Wrayson asked.

"Not yet," the young man answered. "I don't see what good he'll be when I do. Morris was always one of the close sort, and I can't fancy him spending much over lawyers."

"What made you come to me?" Wrayson inquired.

"Well, the caretaker at the flat told me that you and Morris used to speak now and then, and I'm trying every one. I'm afraid he wasn't quite classy enough for you to have palled up with, but I thought he might have let something slip perhaps."

Wrayson shook his head.

"He never spoke to me of his affairs," he said. "He always seemed to have plenty of money, though."

"Doesn't the bank-book prove it?" the young man exclaimed excitedly. "Every one who knew anything about him says the same. There was I half starved in Cape Town, and here was he spending two thousand a year. Beast, he was! I'll find out where it came from if it takes me a lifetime."

Wrayson leaned back in his chair. Nothing since the events of that night itself had appealed to him more than the coming of this young man and his strange story.

"I am sorry that I have no information to give you," he said. "On the other hand, if I can help you in any other way I shall be very glad."

"What should you advise me to do?" the young man asked.

"I should like to think the matter over carefully," Wrayson answered. "What are your engagements for to-day? Can you lunch with me?"

"I have no engagements," his visitor answered eagerly. "When and what time?"

Wrayson repressed a smile.

"I shall be ready in twenty minutes," he answered. "We will go out together if you don't mind waiting."

"I'm on," Mr. Sydney Barnes declared, crossing his legs. "Don't you hurry on my account. I'll wait as long as you like."



CHAPTER XIII

SEARCHING THE CHAMBERS

Wrayson took his guest to a popular restaurant, where there was music and a five-course luncheon for three and six. Their conversation during the earlier part of the meal was limited, for Mr. Sydney Barnes showed himself possessed of an appetite which his host contemplated with respectful admiration. His sallow cheeks became flushed and his nervousness had subsided, long before the arrival of the coffee.

"I say, this is all right, this place is," he said, leaning back in his chair with a large cigar between his teeth. "Jolly expensive, I suppose, isn't it?"

Wrayson smiled.

"It depends," he answered. "I don't suppose your brother would have found it so. A bachelor can do himself pretty well on two thousand a year."

"I only hope I get hold of it," Mr. Sydney Barnes declared fervently. "This is the way I should like to live, this is."

"I hope you will," Wrayson answered. "An income of that sort could scarcely disappear into thin air, could it? By the bye, Mr. Barnes, that reminds me of a very important circumstance which, up to now, we have not mentioned. I mean the way your brother met with his death."

The young man nodded thoughtfully.

"Ah!" he remarked, "he was murdered, wasn't he? Some one must have owed him a nasty grudge. Morris always was a one to make enemies."

"I don't know whether the same thing has occurred to you," Wrayson continued, "but I can't help wondering whether there may not have been some connection between his death and that mysterious income of his."

"I've thought of that myself," the young man declared. "All the same, I can't see what he could have carried about with him worth two thousand a year."

"Exactly," Wrayson answered, "but you see the matter stands like this. He was in receipt of about L500 every three months, as his bank-book proves. This sum would represent five per cent interest on forty thousand pounds. Now, considering your brother's position when he left you at Cape Town, and the fact that you cannot discover at his bankers or elsewhere any documents alluding to property or shares of any sort, one can scarcely help dismissing the hypothesis that this payment was the result of dividends or interest. At any rate, let us put that out of the question for the moment. Your brother received five hundred pounds every three months from some one. People don't give money away for nothing nowadays, you know. From whom and for what services did he receive that money?"

Mr. Sydney Barnes looked puzzled.

"Ask me another," he remarked facetiously.

"You do not know of any secrets, I suppose, which your brother may have stumbled into possession of?"

"Not I! He went about with his eyes open and his mouth closed, but I never heard of his having that sort of luck."

"He could not have had any adventures on the steamer, for he came back steerage," Wrayson continued thoughtfully, "and he was in funds almost from the moment he landed in England. I am afraid, Mr. Barnes, that he must have been deceiving you in Cape Town."

"If I could only have a dozen words with him!" the young man muttered savagely.

"It would be useful," Wrayson admitted, "but, unfortunately, it is out of the question. Either he was deceiving you, or he was in possession of something which turned out far more valuable than he had imagined."

"If so, where is it?" Mr. Sydney Barnes demanded. "If it was worth that to him, it may be to me."

"Exactly," Wrayson remarked, "but the question of your brother's murder comes in there. People don't commit a crime like that for nothing, you know. If it was information which your brother had, it died with him. If it was documents, they were probably stolen by the person who killed him."

"Come, that's cheerful," the young man declared ruefully. "If you're guessing right, where do I come in?"

"I'm afraid you don't come in," Wrayson answered; "but remember I am only following out a surmise. Have you looked through your brother's papers carefully?"

"I've gone through 'em all," Mr. Sydney Barnes answered, "but, of course, I was looking for scrip or a memorandum of investments, or something of that sort. Perhaps if a clever chap like you were to go through them, you might come across a clue."

"It seems hard to believe that he shouldn't have left something of the sort behind him," Wrayson answered. "It might be only an address, or a name, or anything."

"Will you come round with me and see?" Mr. Barnes demanded eagerly. "It wouldn't take you long. You're welcome to see everything there is there."

Wrayson called for the bill.

"Very well" he said, "we will take a hansom round there at once."

They left the place a few minutes later, and drove to Battersea.

"There's a quarter to run, the landlord says, so I'm staying here," Barnes explained, as he unlocked the front door. "I can't afford a servant or anything of that sort of course, but I shall just sleep here."

The rooms had a ghostly and unkempt appearance. The atmosphere of the sitting-room was stuffy and redolent of stale tobacco smoke. Wrayson's first action was to throw open the window.

"There isn't a sign of a paper anywhere, except in that desk," the young man remarked. "You'll find things in a mess, but whatever was there is there now. I've destroyed nothing."

Wrayson seated himself before the desk, and began a careful search. There were restaurant bills without number, and a variety of ladies' cards, more or less soiled. There were Empire and Alhambra programmes, a bundle of racing wires, and an account from a bookmaker showing a small debit balance. There were other miscellaneous bills, a plaintive epistle from a lady signing herself Flora, and begging for the loan of a fiver for a week, and an invitation to tea from a spinster who called herself Poppy. Amongst all this mass of miscellaneous documents there were only three which Wrayson laid on one side for further consideration. One of these was a note, dated from the Adelphi a few days before the tragedy, and written in a stiff, legal hand. It contained only a few lines:

"DEAR SIR,—

"My client will be happy to meet you at any time on Thursday you may be pleased to appoint, either here or at your own address. Please reply, making an appointment, by return of post.

"Yours faithfully,

"W. BENTHAM."

The second document was also in the shape of a letter from a firm of private detective agents and was dated only a day earlier than the lawyer's letter. It ran as follows:

"MY DEAR SIR,—

"In reply to your inquiry, our charges for watching a single person in London only are three guineas a day, including all expenses. For that sum we can guarantee that the person with whose movements you desire to keep in touch will be closely shadowed from roof to roof, so long as the person remains within seven miles of Charing Cross. A daily report will be made to you, and should legal proceedings ensue from any information procured by us, you may rely upon any witness whom we might place in the box.

"Trusting to hear from you,

"We are, yours sincerely,

"McKENNA & FOULDS."

The third document which Wrayson had preserved was the Cunard sailing list for the current month, the plan of a steamer which sailed within a week of the murder, and a few lines from the steamship office respecting accommodation.

"These, at any rate, will give you something to do," Wrayson remarked. "You can go to the lawyer and find out who his client was who desired to see your brother. There is a chance there! You can go to McKenna & Foulds and find out who it was whom he wanted shadowed, and you can go to the Cunard office and see whether he really intended sailing for America."

Mr. Sydney Barnes looked a little doubtful.

"I suppose," he suggested timidly, "you couldn't spare the time to go round to these places with me? You see, I'm not much class over here, even in Morris's togs. They'd take more notice of you, being a gentleman. Good God! what's that?"

Both men had started, for the sound was unexpected. Some one was fitting a latch-key into the door!



CHAPTER XIV

THE DEAD MAN'S BROTHER

At the sight of the two men who awaited her entrance, the Baroness stopped short. Whatever alarm or surprise she may have felt at their presence was effectually concealed from them by the thick veil which she wore, through which her features were undistinguishable. As though purposely, she left to them the onus of speech.

Wrayson took a quick step towards her.

"Baroness!" he exclaimed. "What are you—I beg your pardon, but what are you doing here?"

She raised her veil and looked at them both attentively. In her hand she still held the latch-key by means of which she entered.

"Do you know," she answered quietly, "I was just going to ask you the same thing."

"Our presence is easily explained," Wrayson answered. "This is Mr. Sydney Barnes, the brother of the Mr. Barnes who used to live here. He is keeping the flat on for a short time."

The Baroness was surprised, and showed it. Without a moment's hesitation, however, she accepted Wrayson's words as an introduction to the young man, and held out her hand to him with a brilliant smile.

"I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Barnes," she said, "even under such painful circumstances. I knew your brother very well, and I have heard him speak of you."

Mr. Sydney Barnes did not attempt to conceal his surprise. He shook hands with the Baroness, however, and regarded her with undisguised admiration.

"Well, this licks me!" he exclaimed frankly. "Do you mean to say that you were a friend of Morris's?"

"Certainly," the Baroness answered. "Why not?"

"Oh! I don't know," the young man declared. "I'm getting past being surprised at anything. I suppose it's the oof that makes the difference. A friend of Morris's, you said. Why, perhaps—" He hesitated, and glanced towards Wrayson.

"There is no harm in asking the Baroness, at any rate," Wrayson said. "The fact of the matter is," he continued, turning towards her, "that Mr. Sydney Barnes here finds himself in a somewhat extraordinary position. He is the sole relative and heir of his brother, and he has come over here from South Africa, naturally enough, to take possession of his effects. Now there is no doubt, from his bank-book, and his manner of life, that Morris Barnes was possessed of a considerable income. According to his bank-book it was L2,000 a year."

The Baroness nodded thoughtfully.

"He told me once that he was worth as much as that," she remarked,

"Exactly, but the curious part of the affair is that, up to the present, Mr. Sydney Barnes has been unable to discover the slightest trace of any investments or any sum of money whatever. Now can you help us? Did Morris Barnes ever happen to mention to you in what direction his capital was invested? Did he ever give you any idea at all as to the source of his income?"

The Baroness stood quite still, as though lost in thought. Wrayson watched her with a curious sense of fascination. He knew very well that the subtle brain of the woman was occupied in no fruitless attempt at reminiscence; he was convinced that the Baroness had never exchanged a single word with Morris Barnes in her life. She was thinking her way through this problem—how best to make use of this unexpected tool. Their eyes met and she smiled faintly. She judged rightly that Wrayson, at any rate, was not deceived.

"I cannot give you any definite information," she said at last, "but—"

She hesitated, and the young man's eagerness escaped all bounds.

"But what?" he cried, leaning breathlessly towards her. "You know something! What is it? Go on! Go on!"

"I think that if I can remember it," she continued, "I can tell you the name of the solicitor whom he employed."

The young man dashed his fist upon the table. He was pale almost to the lips.

"By God! you must remember it," he cried. "Don't say you've forgotten. It's most important. Two thousand a year!—pounds! Think!"

She turned towards Wrayson. She wished to conciliate him, but the young man was not a pleasant sight.

"It was something like Benton," she suggested.

Wrayson glanced downward at one of the three documents which he had preserved.

"Bentham!" he exclaimed. "Was that it?"

The face of the Baroness cleared at once.

"Of course it was! How stupid of me to have forgotten. His offices are somewhere in the Adelphi."

Barnes caught up his hat.

"Where is that?" he exclaimed. "I'm off."

Wrayson held out his hand.

"Wait a moment," he said. "There is no hurry for an hour or so. This affair may not be quite so simple, after all."

"Why not?" the young man demanded fiercely. "It's my money, isn't it? I can take out letters of administration. It belongs to me. He'll have to give it up."

"In the long run I should say that he will—if he has it," Wrayson answered. "But before you go to him, remember this. He has seen the account of your brother's death. He did not appear at the inquest. He has taken no steps to discover his next of kin. Both of these proceedings were part of his natural duty."

"Mr. Wrayson is quite right," the Baroness remarked. "Mr. Bentham has not behaved as an honest man. He will have to be treated firmly but carefully. You are a little excited just now. Wait for an hour or so, and perhaps Mr. Wrayson will go with you."

Barnes turned towards him eagerly, and Wrayson nodded.

"Yes! I'll go," he said. "I know Mr. Bentham slightly. He once paid me rather a curious visit. But never mind that now."

"Was it in connection with this affair?" the Baroness asked him quietly.

Wrayson affected not to hear. He passed his cigarette case to Barnes, who was stamping up and down the room, muttering to himself.

"Look here, you'd better have a smoke and calm down, young man," he said. "It's no use going to see Bentham in a state like this."

The young man threw himself into a chair. Suddenly he sat up again, and addressed the Baroness.

"I say," he exclaimed, "how is it that you have a key to this flat? What did you come here for this afternoon?"

The Baroness laughed softly.

"Well, I got the key from the landlord a few days ago. I told him that I might take the flat, and he told me to come in and look at it and return the key—which you see I haven't done. To be quite honest with you, though, I had another reason for coming here."

The young man looked at her with mingled suspicion and admiration. She had raised her veil now, and even Wrayson was aware that he had scarcely realized how beautiful a woman she was. Her tailor-made gown of dark green cloth fitted her to perfection; she was turned out with all that delightful perfection of detail which seems to be the Frenchwoman's heritage. Her smile, half pathetic, half appealing, was certainly sufficient to turn the head of a dozen young men such as Sydney Barnes.

"I have told you," she continued, "that your brother and I used to be very good friends. I wrote him now and then some rather foolish letters. He promised to destroy them, but—men are so foolish, you know, sometimes—I was never quite sure that he had kept his word, and I meant to take this opportunity of looking for myself that he had not left them about. You do not blame me, Mr. Sydney? You are not cross?"

He kept his eyes upon her as though fascinated.

"No!" he said. "No! I mean of course not."

"These letters," she continued, "you have not seen them, Mr. Sydney? No? Or you, Mr. Wrayson?"

"We have not come across any letters at all answering to that description," Wrayson assured her.

The Baroness glanced across at Barnes, who was certainly regarding her in somewhat peculiar fashion.

"Why does Mr. Sydney look at me like that?" she asked, with a little shrug of the shoulders. "He does not think that I came here to steal? Why, Mr. Sydney," she added, "I am very, very much richer than ever your brother was."

"Richer—than he was! Richer than two thousand a year!" he gasped.

The Baroness laughed softly but heartily. She stole a sidelong glance at Wrayson.

"Why, my dear young man," she said, "it costs me—oh! quite as much as that each year to dress."

Barnes looked at her as though she were something holy. When he spoke, there was awe in his tone. The problem which had formed itself in his thoughts demanded expression.

"And you say that you were a pal—I mean a friend of Morris's? You wrote him letters?"

The Baroness smiled.

"Why not?" she exclaimed. "Women have queer tastes, you know. We like all sorts of men. I think I must ask Mr. Wrayson to bring you in to tea one afternoon. Would you like to come?"

"Yes!" he answered.

She nodded a farewell and turned to Wrayson.

"As for you," she said under her breath, "you had better come soon if you want to make your peace with Louise."

"May I come this afternoon?" he asked.

She nodded, and held out her exquisitely gloved hand.

"I knew you were going to be an ally" she murmured under her breath. "Don't let the others get hold of him."

She was gone before Wrayson could ask for an explanation. The others! If only he could discover who they were.

He turned back into the room.

"Do you mind coming down into my flat for a moment, Barnes?" he asked. "I want to telephone to the office before I go out with you again."

The young man followed him heavily. He seemed a little dazed. In Wrayson's sitting-room, he stood looking about him as though appraising the value of the curios, pictures, and engravings with which the apartment was crowded. Wrayson, while waiting for his call, watched him curiously. In his present state his vulgarity was perhaps less glaringly apparent, but his lack of attractiveness was accentuated. His ears seemed to have grown larger, his pinched, Semitic features more repulsive, and his complexion sallower. He was pitchforked into a world of which he knew nothing, and he seemed stunned by his first contact with it. Only one thing remained—the greed in his eyes. They seemed to have grown narrower and brighter with desire.

He did not speak until they were in the cab. Then he turned to Wrayson.

"I say," he exclaimed, "what was her name?"

Wrayson smiled.

"The Baroness de Sturm," he answered.

"Baroness! Real Baroness! All O.K., I suppose?"

"Without a doubt," Wrayson answered.

"And Morris knew her—she wrote letters to him," he continued, "a woman—like that."

He was silent for several moments. It was obvious that his opinion of his brother was rising rapidly. His tone had become almost reverential.

"I've got to find where that money is," he said abruptly. "If I go through fire and water to get it, I'll have it! I'll keep on Morris's flat. I'll go to his tailor! I'll—you're laughing at me. But I mean it! I've had enough of grubbing along on nothing a week, and living in the gutters. I want a bit of Morris's luck."

Wrayson put his head out of the cab. The young man's face was not pleasant to look at.

"We are there," he said. "Come along."



CHAPTER XV

THE LAWYER'S SUGGESTION

The offices of Mr. Bentham were situated at the extreme end of a dingy, depressing looking street which ran from the Adelphi to the Embankment Gardens. It was a street of private hotels which no one had ever heard of, and where apparently no one ever stayed. A few cranky institutions, existing under the excuse of charity, had their offices there, and a firm of publishers, whose glory was of the past, still dragged out their uncomfortable and profitless existence in a building whose dusty windows and smoke-stained walls sufficiently proclaimed their fast approaching extinction. They found the name of Mr. Bentham upon a rusty brass plate outside the last building in the street, with the additional intimation that his offices were upon the first floor. There they found him, without clerks, without even an errand boy, in a large bare apartment overlooking the embankment. The room was darkened by the branches of one of a row of elm trees, and the windows themselves were curtainless. There was no carpet upon the floor, no paper upon the walls, no rows of tin boxes, none of the usual surroundings of a lawyer's office. The solicitor, who had bidden them enter, did not at first offer them any salutation. He paused in a letter which he was writing and his eyes rested for a moment upon Wrayson, and for a second or two longer upon his companion.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Bentham!" Wrayson said. "My name is Wrayson—you remember me, I daresay."

"I remember you certainly, Mr. Wrayson," the lawyer answered. His eyes were resting once more upon Sydney Barnes.

"This," Wrayson explained, "is Mr. Sydney Barnes, a brother of the Mr. Morris Barnes, who was, I believe, a client of yours."

"Scarcely," the lawyer murmured, "a client of mine, although I must confess that I was anxious to secure him as one. Possibly if he had lived a few more hours, the epithet would have been in order."

Wrayson nodded.

"From a letter which we found in Mr. Barnes' desk," he remarked, "we concluded that some business was pending between you. Hence our visit."

Mr. Bentham betrayed no sign of interest or curiosity of any sort.

"I regret," he said, "that I cannot offer you chairs. I am not accustomed to receive my clients here. If you care to be seated upon that form, pray do so."

Wrayson glanced at the form and declined. Sydney Barnes seemed scarcely to have heard the invitation. His eyes were glued upon the lawyer's face.

"Will you tell me precisely," Mr. Bentham said, "in what way I can be of service to you?"

"I want to know where my brother's money is," Barnes declared, stepping a little forward. "Two thousand a year he had. We've seen it in his bank-book. Five hundred pounds every quarter day! And we can't find a copper! You were his lawyer, or were going to be. You must have known something about his position."

Mr. Bentham looked straight ahead with still, impassive face. No trace of the excitement in Sydney Barnes' face was reflected in his features.

"Two thousand a year," he repeated calmly. "It was really as much as that, was it? Your brother had, I believe, once mentioned the amount to me. I had no idea, though, that it was quite so large."

"I am his heir," the young man declared feverishly. "I'll take my oath there's no one else. I'm going to take out letters of administration. He hadn't another relation on God's earth."

Mr. Bentham regarded the young man thoughtfully.

"Have you any idea, Mr. Barnes," he asked, "as to the source of this income?"

"Of course I haven't," Barnes answered. "That's why we're here. You must know something about it."

"Your brother was not my client," the lawyer said slowly. "If his death had not been quite so sudden, I think that he might have been. As it is, I know very little of his affairs. I am afraid that I can be of very little use to you."

"You must know something," Barnes declared doggedly. "You must tell us what you do know."

"Your brother was," Mr. Bentham said, "a very remarkable man. Has it never occurred to you, Mr. Barnes, that this two thousand a year might have been money received in payment of services rendered—might have been, in short, in the nature of a salary?"

"Not likely," Barnes answered, contemptuously. "Morris did no work at all. He did nothing but just enjoy himself and spend money."

"Nothing but enjoy himself and spend money," Mr. Bentham repeated. "Ah! Did you see a great deal of your brother during the last few years?"

"I saw nothing of him at all. I was out in South Africa. I have only just got back. Not but that I'd been here long ago," the young man added, with a note of exasperation in his tone, "if I'd had any idea of the luck he was in. Why, I lent him a bit to come back with, though I was only earning thirty bob a week, and the brute only sent it me back in bits, and not a farthing over."

"That was not considerate of him," Mr. Bentham agreed—"not at all considerate. Your brother had the command of considerable sums of money. In fact, Mr. Barnes, I may tell you, without any breach of confidence, I think that if he had kept his appointment with me on the night when he was murdered, I was prepared, on behalf of my client, to hand him a cheque for ten thousand pounds!"

Barnes struck the table before him with his clenched fist.

"For what?" he cried, hysterically. "Ten thousand pounds for what?"

"Your brother," Mr. Bentham said calmly, "was possessed of securities which were worth that much or even more to my client."

"And where are they now?" Barnes gasped.

"I do not know," Mr. Bentham answered. "If you can find them, I think it very likely that my client might make you a similar offer."

It was the first ray of hope. Barnes moistened his dry lips with his tongue, and drew a long breath.

"Securities!" he muttered. "What sort of securities?"

"There, unfortunately," Mr. Bentham said, "I am unable to help you. I am an agent only in the matter. They were securities which my client was anxious to buy, and your brother was not unwilling to sell for cash, notwithstanding the income which they were bringing him in."

"But how can I look for them, if I don't know what they are?" Barnes protested.

"There are difficulties, certainly," the lawyer admitted, carefully polishing his spectacles with the corner of a silk handkerchief; "but, then, as you have doubtless surmised, the whole situation is a difficult one."

"You can get to know," Barnes exclaimed. "Your client would tell you."

Mr. Bentham sighed gently.

"Of course," he said, "I am only quoting my own opinion, but I do not think that my client would do anything of the sort. These securities happen to be of a somewhat secret nature. Your brother was in a position to make an exceedingly clever use of them. It appears incidentally to have cost him his life, but there are risks, of course, in every profession."

Barnes stared at him with wide-open eyes. He seemed, for the moment, struck dumb. Wrayson, who had been silent during the greater part of the conversation, turned towards the lawyer.

"You believe, then," he asked, "that Morris Barnes was murdered for the sake of these securities?"

"I believe—nothing," the lawyer answered. "It is not my business to believe. Mr. Morris Barnes was in the receipt of an income of two thousand a year, which we might call dividend upon these securities. My client, through me, made Mr. Barnes a cash offer to buy them outright, and although I must admit that Mr. Barnes had not closed with us, yet I believe that he was on the point of doing so. He had doubtless had it brought home to him that there was a certain amount of danger associated with his position generally. The night on which my client arrived in England was the night upon which Mr. Morris Barnes was murdered. The inference to be drawn from this circumstance I can leave, I am sure, to the common sense of you two gentlemen."

"First, then," Wrayson said, "it would appear that he was murdered by the people who were paying him two thousand a year, and who were acting in opposition to your client!"

Mr. Bentham shrugged his shoulder gently.

"It does not sound unreasonable," he admitted.

"And secondly," Wrayson continued, "if that was so, he was probably robbed of these securities at the same time."

"Now that, also," Mr. Bentham said smoothly, "sounds reasonable. But, as a matter of fact," he continued, looking down upon the table, "there are certain indications which go to disprove it. My personal opinion is that the assassin—granted that there was an assassin, and granted that he was acting on behalf of the parties we have referred to—met with a disappointment."

"In plain words," Wrayson interrupted, "you mean that the other side have not possessed themselves of the securities?"

"They certainly have not," Mr. Bentham declared. "They still remain—the property by inheritance of this young gentleman here—Mr. Sydney Barnes, I believe."

His tone was so even, so expressionless, that its slightest changes were noticeable. It seemed to Wrayson that a faint note of sarcasm had crept into these last few words. Mr. Barnes himself, however, was quite oblivious of it. His yellow-stained fingers were spread out upon the table. He leaned over towards the lawyer. His under lip protruded, his deep-set eyes seemed closer than ever together. He was grimly, tragically in earnest.

"Look here," he said. "What can I do to get hold of 'em? I don't care what it is. I'm game! I'll deal with your man—the cash client. I'll give you a commission, see! Five per cent on all I get. How's that? I'll play fair. Now chuck away all this mystery. What were these securities? Where shall I start looking for them?"

Mr. Bentham regarded him with stony face. "There are certain points," he said, "upon which I cannot enlighten you. My duty to my client forbids it. I cannot describe to you the nature of those securities. I cannot suggest where you should look for them. All that I can say is that they are still to be found, and that my client is still a buyer."

The young man turned to Wrayson. His face was twitching with some emotion, probably anger.

"Did you ever hear such bally rot!" he exclaimed. "He knows all about these securities all right. They belong to me. He ought to be made to tell."

Wrayson shrugged his shoulders.

"It does seem rather a wild-goose chase, doesn't it?" he remarked. "Can't you tell him a little more, Mr. Bentham?"

Mr. Bentham sighed, as though his impotence were a matter of sincere regret to him.

"The only advice I can offer Mr. Barnes," he said, "is that he induce you to aid him in his search. Between you, I should never be surprised to hear of your success."

"And why," Wrayson asked, "should you consider me such a useful ally?"

Mr. Bentham looked at him steadily for a moment.

"You appear to me," he said, "to be a young man of intelligence—and you know how to keep your own counsel. I should consider Mr. Barnes very fortunate if you could make up your mind to aid him in his search."

"It is not my affair," Wrayson answered stiffly. "I could not possibly pledge myself to enter upon such a wild-goose chase."

Mr. Bentham turned over some papers which lay upon the table before him. He had apparently had enough of the conversation.

"You must not call it exactly that, Mr. Wrayson," he said. "Mr. Barnes' success in his quest would probably result in an act of justice to society. To you personally, I should imagine it would be expressly interesting."

"What do you mean?" Wrayson asked, quickly.

The lawyer looked at him calmly.

"It should solve the mystery of Morris Barnes' murder!" he answered.

Wrayson touched his companion on the shoulder.

"I think that we might as well go," he said. "Mr. Bentham does not mean to tell us anything more."

Barnes moved slowly towards the door, but with reluctance manifested in his sullen face and manner.

"I don't know how I'm going to set about this job," he said, turning once more towards the lawyer. "I shall do what I can, but you haven't seen the last of me, yet, Mr. Bentham. If I fail, I shall come back to you."

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. He was already absorbed in other work.



CHAPTER XVI

A DINNER IN THE STRAND

Wrayson was conscious, from the moment they left Mr. Bentham's office, of a change in the deportment of the young man who walked by his side. A variety of evil passions had developed one at least more tolerable—he was learning the lesson of self-restraint. He did not speak until they reached the corner of the street.

"Where can we get a drink?" he asked, almost abruptly. "I want some brandy."

Wrayson took him to a bar close by. They sat in a quiet corner.

"I want to ask you something," he said, leaning halfway over the little table between them. "How much do you know about the lady who came into my brother's flat when we were there?"

The direct significance of the question startled Wrayson. This young man was beginning to think.

"How much do I know of her?" he repeated. "Very little."

"She is really a Baroness—not one of these faked-up ones?"

"She is undoubtedly the Baroness de Sturm," Wrayson answered, a little stiffly.

"And she has plenty of coin?"

"Certainly," Wrayson answered. "She is a great lady, I believe, in her own country."

Barnes struck the table softly with the flat of his hand. His eyes were searching for his answer in Wrayson's face, almost before the words had left his lips.

"Do you believe then," he asked, "that a woman like that wrote love-letters to Morris? You knew Morris. He was what those sort of people call a bounder. Same as me! If he knew her at all it was a wonder. I can't believe in the love-letters."

Wrayson shrugged his shoulders.

"The whole affair," he declared, "everything connected with your brother, is so mysterious that I really don't know what to say."

"You knew Morris," the young man persisted. "You know the Baroness. Set 'em down side by side. They don't go, eh? You know that. Morris could tog himself up as much as he liked, and he was always a good 'un at that when he had the brass, but he'd never be able to make himself her sort. And if she's a real lady, and wasn't after the brass, then I don't believe that she ever wrote him love-letters. What?"

Wrayson said nothing. The young man held out his empty glass to a waiter.

"More brandy," he ordered briefly. "Look here, Mr. Wrayson," he added, adopting once more his mysterious manner, "those love-letters don't go! What did the Baroness want in my brother's flat? She struck me dumb when I first saw her. I admit it. I'd have swallowed anything. More fool me! I tell you, though, I'm not having any more. Will you come along with me to her house now, and see if we can't make her tell us the truth?"

Wrayson shook his head deliberately.

"Mr. Barnes," he said, "I am sorry to disappoint you, and I sympathize very much with your position, but you mustn't take it for granted that I am, shall we say, your ally in this matter. I haven't either the time or the patience to give to investigations of this sort. I have done what I could for you, and I will give you what advice I can, or help you in any way, if you care to come and see me. But you mustn't count on anything else."

Barnes' face dropped. He was obviously disappointed.

"You won't come and see the Baroness with me even?" he asked.

"I think not," Wrayson answered. "To tell you the truth, I don't think that it would be of any use. Even if your suspicions are correct—and you scarcely know what you suspect, do you?—the Baroness is much too clever a woman to allow herself to be pumped by either you or me."

Wrayson felt himself subjected for several moments to the scrutinizing stare of those blinking, unpleasant eyes.

"You're not taking her side against me, are you?" Barnes asked distrustfully.

"Certainly not," Wrayson answered impatiently. "You must be reasonable, my young friend. I have done what I can to put you in the way of helping yourself, but I am a busy man. I have my own affairs to look after, and I can't afford to play the part of a twentieth-century Don Quixote."

"I understand," the young man said slowly. "You are going to turn me up."

"You are putting a very foolish construction upon what I have said," Wrayson answered irritably. "I have gone out of my way to help you, but, frankly, I think that yours is a wild-goose chase."

Barnes rose to his feet and finished his brandy.

"I don't believe it," he declared. "I'm going to have that two thousand a year, if I have to take that man Bentham by the throat and strangle the truth out of him. If I can't find out without, I'll make him tell me the truth if I swing for it. By God, I will!"

They left the place together and walked towards the corner of the street.

"I shouldn't do anything rash, if I were you," Wrayson said. "I fancy you'd find Bentham a pretty tough sort to tackle. You must excuse me now. I am going into the club for a few minutes."

"How are you, Wrayson?" a quiet voice asked behind.

Wrayson turned round abruptly. It was Stephen Heneage who had greeted him—the one man whom, at that moment, he was least anxious to meet of any person in the world. Already he could see that Heneage was taking quiet but earnest note of his companion.

Wrayson nodded a little abruptly and left Barnes without any further farewell.

"Coming round to the club?" he asked.

Heneage assented, and glanced carelessly behind at Barnes, who was walking slowly in the opposite direction.

"Who's your friend?" he asked. "You shook him off a little suddenly, didn't you?"

"He is not a friend," Wrayson answered, "and I was trying to get rid of him when you came up. He is nobody of any account."

Heneage shook his head thoughtfully.

"It won't do, Wrayson," he said. "That young man possessed a cast of features which are positively unmistakable."

"What do you mean?" Wrayson demanded.

"I mean that he was a relation, and a near relation, too, I should imagine, of our deceased friend Morris Barnes," Heneage answered coolly. "I shall be obliged to make that young man's acquaintance."

"Damn you and your prying!" Wrayson exclaimed angrily. "I wish—"

He stopped abruptly. Heneage was already retracing his steps.

Wrayson, after a moment's indecision, went on to the club, and made his way at once to the billiard-room. The Colonel was sitting in his usual corner chair, watching a game of pool, beaming upon everybody with his fatherly smile, encouraging the man who met with ill luck, and applauding the successful shots. He was surrounded by his cronies, but he held out his hand to Wrayson, who leaned against the wall by his side and waited for his opportunity.

"Colonel," he said at last in his ear, taking advantage of the applause which followed a successful shot, "I want half an hour's talk with you, quite by ourselves. Can you slip away and come and dine with me somewhere?"

The Colonel looked dubious.

"I'm afraid they won't like it," he answered. "Freddy and George are here, and Tempest's coming in later."

"I can't help it," Wrayson answered. "You can guess what it's about. It's a serious matter."

The Colonel sighed.

"We might find an opportunity later on," he suggested.

"It won't do," Wrayson answered. "I want to get right away from here. I wouldn't bother you if it wasn't necessary."

"I'm sure you wouldn't," the Colonel admitted. "We'll slip away quietly when this game is over. It won't be long. Good shot, Freddy! Sixpence, you divide!"

They found themselves in the Strand about half an hour later.

"Where shall we go?" Wrayson asked. "Somewhere quiet."

"Across the way," the Colonel answered. "We shan't see any one we know there."

Wrayson nodded, and they crossed the street and entered Luigi's. It was early for diners, and they found a small table in a retired corner. Wrayson ordered the dinner, and then leaned across the table towards his guest.

"It's that Barnes matter, Colonel," he said quietly. "Heneage has taken it up and means going into it thoroughly. He saw me letting out your daughter that night."

The Colonel was in the act of helping himself to hors d'oeuvre. His fork remained suspended for a moment in the air. Then he set it down with trembling fingers. The cheery light had faded from his face. He seemed suddenly older. His voice sounded unnatural.

"Heneage!" he repeated, sharply. "Stephen Heneage! What affair is it of his?"

"None," Wrayson answered. "He likes that sort of thing, that's all. He saw—your daughter with a lady—the Baroness de Sturm, and the seeing them together, after he had watched her come out of the flat that night, seemed to suggest something to him. He warned me that he had made up his mind to solve the mystery of Morris Barnes' murder; he advised me, in fact, to clear out. And now, since then—"

The waiter brought the soup. Wrayson broke off and talked for a moment or two to the maitre d'hotel, who had paused at their table. Presently, when they were alone, he went on.

"Since then, a young brother of Barnes has turned up from South Africa. There was some mystery about Morris Barnes and the source of his income. The brother is just as determined to solve this as Heneage seems to be to discover the—the murderer! They will work together, and I am afraid! Not for myself! You know for whom."

The Colonel was very grave. He ate slowly, and he seemed to be thinking.

"There is one man, a solicitor named Bentham," Wrayson continued, "who I believe knows everything. But I do not think that even Heneage will be able to make him speak. His connection with the affair is on behalf of a mysterious client. Young Barnes and I went to see him this afternoon, but beyond encouraging the boy to search for the source of his brother's income, he wouldn't open his mouth."

"A solicitor named Bentham," the Colonel repeated mechanically. "Ah!"

"Do you know him?" Wrayson asked.

"I have heard of him," the Colonel answered. "A most disreputable person, I believe. He has offices in the Adelphi."

Wrayson nodded.

"And whatever his business is," he continued, "it isn't the ordinary business of a solicitor. He has no clerks—not even an office boy!"

The Colonel poured himself out a glass of wine.

"No clerks—not even an office boy! It all agrees with what I have heard. A bad lot, Wrayson, I am afraid—a thoroughly bad lot. Are you sure that up to now he has kept his own counsel?"

"I am sure of it," Wrayson answered.

The Colonel seemed in some measure to have recovered himself. He looked Wrayson in the face, and though grave, his expression was decidedly more natural.

"Herbert," he asked, sinking his voice almost to a whisper, "who do you believe murdered Morris Barnes?"

"God knows," Wrayson answered.

"Do you believe—that—my daughter had any hand in it?"

"No!" Wrayson declared fiercely.

The Colonel was silent for a moment. He seemed to be contemplating the label on the bottle of claret which reposed in its cradle by their side.

"And yet," he said thoughtfully, "she would necessarily be involved in any disclosures which were made."

"And so should I," Wrayson declared. "And those two, Sydney Barnes and Heneage, mean to bring about disclosures. That is why I felt that I must talk to some one about this. Colonel, can't you get your daughter to tell us the whole truth—what she was doing in Barnes' flat that night, and all the rest of it? We should be forewarned then!"

The Colonel covered his face with his hand for a moment. The question obviously distressed him.

"I can't, Herbert," he said, in a low tone. "You would scarcely think, would you, that I was the sort of man to live on irreconcilable terms with one of my own family? But there it is. Don't think hardly of her. It is more the fault of circumstances than her fault. But I couldn't go to see her—and she wouldn't come to see me."

Wrayson sighed.

"It is like the rest of this cursed mystery, utterly incomprehensible," he declared. "I shall never—"

With his glass half raised to his lips, he paused suddenly in his sentence. His face became a study in the expression of a boundless amazement. His eyes were fastened upon the figures of two people on their way up the room, preceded by the smiling maitre d'hotel. Some words, or rather an exclamation, broke incoherently from his lips. He set down his glass hurriedly, and a stain of red wine crept unheeded across the tablecloth.

"Look," he whispered hoarsely,—"look!"



CHAPTER XVII

A CONFESSION OF LOVE

The Colonel turned bodily round in his chair. The couple to whom Wrayson had drawn his attention were certainly incongruous enough to attract notice anywhere. The man was lank, elderly, and of severe appearance. He was bald, he had slight side-whiskers, he wore spectacles, and his face was devoid of expression. He was dressed in plain dinner clothes of old-fashioned cut. The tails of his coat were much too short, his collar belonged to a departed generation, and his tie was ready made. In a small Scotch town he might have passed muster readily enough as the clergyman or lawyer of the place. As a diner at Luigi's, ushered up the room to the soft strains of "La Mattchiche," and followed by such a companion, he was almost ridiculously out of place. If anything, she was the more noticeable of the two to the casual observer. Her hair was dazzlingly yellow, and arranged with all the stiffness of the coiffeur's art. She wore a dress of black sequins, cut perilously low, and shorn a little by wear of its pristine splendour. Her complexion was as artificial as her high-pitched voice; her very presence seemed to exude perfumes of the patchouli type. She was the sort of person concerning whom the veriest novice in such matters could have made no mistake. Yet her companion seemed wholly unembarrassed. He handed her the menu and looked calmly around the room.

"Who are those people?" the Colonel asked. "Rather a queer combination, aren't they?"

"The man is Bentham, the lawyer," Wrayson answered. His eyes were fixed upon the lady, who seemed not at all indisposed to become the object of any stray attention.

"That Bentham!" the Colonel repeated, under his breath. "But what on earth—where the mischief could he pick up a companion like that?"

Wrayson scarcely heard him. He had withdrawn his eyes from the lady with an effort.

"I have seen that woman somewhere," he said thoughtfully—"somewhere where she seemed quite as much out of place as she does here. Lately, too."

"H'm!" the Colonel remarked, leaning back in his chair to allow the waiter to serve him. "She's not the sort of person you'd be likely to forget either, is she?"

"And, by Heavens, I haven't!" Wrayson declared, suddenly laying down his knife and fork. "I remember her now. It was at the inquest—Barnes' inquest. She was one of the two women at whose flat he called on his way home. What on earth is Bentham doing with her?"

"You think," the Colonel remarked quietly, "that there is some connection—"

"Of course there is," Wrayson interrupted. "Does that old fossil look like the sort to take such a creature about for nothing? Colonel, he doesn't know himself—where those securities are! He's brought that woman here to pump her!"

The Colonel passed his hand across his forehead.

"I am getting a little confused," he murmured.

"And I," Wrayson declared, with barely suppressed excitement, "am beginning to see at least the shadow of daylight. If only you had some influence with your daughter, Colonel!"

The Colonel looked at him steadfastly. Wrayson wondered whether it was the light, or whether indeed his friend had aged so much during the last few months.

"I have no influence over my daughter, Wrayson," he said. "I thought that I had already explained that. And, Herbert," he added, leaning over the table, "why don't you let this matter alone? It doesn't concern you. You are more likely to do harm than good by meddling with it. There may be interests involved greater than you know of; you may find understanding a good deal more dangerous than ignorance. It isn't your affair, anyhow. Take my advice! Let it alone!"

"I wish I could," Wrayson answered, with a little sigh. "Frankly, I would if I could, but it fascinates me."

"All that I have heard of it," the Colonel remarked wearily, "sounds sordid enough."

Wrayson nodded.

"I think," he said, "that it is the sense of personal contact in a case like this which stirs the blood. I have memories about that night, Colonel, which I couldn't describe to you—or any one. And now this young brother coming on the scene seems to bring the dead man to life again. He's one of the worst type of young bounders I ever came into contact with. A creature without sentiment or feeling of any sort—nothing but an almost ravenous cupidity. He's wearing his brother's clothes now—thinks nothing of it! He hasn't a single regret. I haven't heard a single decent word pass his lips. But he wants the money. Nothing else! The money!"

"Do you believe," the Colonel asked, "that he will get it?"

"Who can tell?" Wrayson answered. "That Morris Barnes was in possession of valuables of some sort, everything goes to prove. Just think of the number of people who have shown their interest in him. There is Bentham and his mysterious client, the Baroness de Sturm and your daughter, and—the person who murdered him. Apparently, even though he lost his life, Barnes was too clever for them, for his precious belongings must still be undiscovered."

The Colonel finished his wine and leaned back in his chair.

"I am tired of this subject," he said. "I should like to get back to the club."

Wrayson called for the bill a little unwillingly. He was, in a sense, disappointed at the Colonel's attitude.

"Very well," he said, "we will bury it. But before we do so, there is one thing I have had it in my mind to say—for some time. I want to say it now. It is about your daughter, Colonel!"

The Colonel looked at him curiously.

"My daughter?" he repeated, under his breath.

Wrayson leaned a little forward. Something new had come into his face. This was the first time he had suffered such words to pass his lips—almost the first time he had suffered such thoughts to form themselves in his mind.

"I never looked upon myself," he said quietly, "as a particularly impulsive person. Yet it was an impulse which prompted me to conceal the truth as to her presence in the flat buildings that night. It was a serious thing to do, and somehow I fancy that the end is not yet."

"Why did you do it?" the Colonel asked. "You did not know who she was. It could not have been that."

"Why did I do it?" Wrayson repeated. "I can't tell you. I only know that I should do it again and again if the need came. If I told you exactly how I felt, it would sound like rot. But I'm going to ask you that question."

"Well?"

The Colonel's grey eyebrows were drawn together. His eyes were keen and bright. So he might have looked in time of stress; but he was not in the least like the genial idol of the Sheridan billiard-room.

"If I came to you to-morrow," Wrayson said, "and told you that I had met at last the woman whom I wished to make my wife, and that woman was your daughter, what should you say?"

"I should be glad," the Colonel answered simply.

"You and she are, for some unhappy reason, not on speaking terms. That—"

"Good God!" the Colonel interrupted, "whom do you mean? Whom are you talking about?"

"About your daughter—whom I shielded—the companion of the Baroness de Sturm. Your daughter Louise."

The Colonel raised his trembling fingers to his forehead. His voice quivered ominously.

"Of course! Of course! God help me, I thought you meant Edith! I never thought of Louise. And Edith has spoken of you lately."

"I found your younger daughter charming," Wrayson said seriously, "but it was of your daughter Louise I was speaking. I thought that you would understand that."

"My daughter—whom you found—in Morris Barnes' flat—that night?"

"Exactly," Wrayson answered, "and my question is this. I cannot ask you why you and she parted, but at least you can tell me if you know of any reason why I should not ask her to be my wife."

The Colonel was silent.

"No!" he said at last, "there is no reason. But she would not consent. I am sure of that."

"We will let it go at that," Wrayson answered. "Come!"

He had chosen his moment for rising so as to pass down the room almost at the same time as Mr. Bentham and his strange companion. Prolific of smiles and somewhat elephantine graces, the lady's darkened eyes met Wrayson's boldly, and finding there some encouragement, she even favoured him with a backward glance. In the vestibule he slipped a half-crown into the attendant's hand.

"See if you can hear the address that lady gives her cabman," he whispered.

The boy nodded, and hurried out after them. Wrayson kept the Colonel back under the pretence of lighting a fresh cigar. When at last they strolled forward, they met the boy returning. He touched his hat to Wrayson.

"Alhambra, sir!" he said, quietly. "Gone off alone, sir, in a hansom. Gentleman walked."

The Colonel kept silence until they were in the street.

"Coming to the club?" he asked, a little abruptly.

"No!" Wrayson answered.

"You are going after that woman?" the Colonel exclaimed.

"I am going to the Alhambra," Wrayson answered. "I can't help it. It sounds foolish, I suppose, but this affair fascinates me. It works on my nerves somehow. I must go."

The Colonel turned on his heel. Without another word, he crossed the Strand, leaving Wrayson standing upon the pavement. Wrayson, with a little sigh, turned westwards.



CHAPTER XVIII

AN AMATEUR DETECTIVE

Wrayson easily discovered the object of his search. She was seated upon a lounge in the promenade, her ample charms lavishly displayed, and her blackened eyes mutely questioning the passers-by. She welcomed Wrayson with a smile which she meant to be inviting, albeit she was a little suspicious. Men of Wrayson's stamp and appearance were not often such easy victims.

"Saw you at Luigi's, didn't I?" he asked, hat in hand.

She nodded, and made room for him to sit down by her side.

"Did you see the old stick I was with?" she asked. "I don't know why I was fool enough to go out with him. Trying to pump me about poor old Barney, too, all the time. Just as though I couldn't see through him."

"Old Barney!" Wrayson repeated, a little perplexed.

She laughed coarsely.

"Oh! come, that won't do!" she declared. "I'm almost sure you're on the same lay yourself. Didn't I see you at the inquest?—Morris Barnes' inquest, of course? You know whom I mean right enough."

"I know whom you mean now," Wrayson admitted. "Yes! I was there. Queer affair, wasn't it?"

The lady nodded.

"I should like a liqueur," she remarked, with apparent irrelevance. "Benedictine!"

They were seated in front of a small table, and were at times the object of expectant contemplation on the part of a magnificent individual in livery and knee-breeches. Wrayson summoned him and ordered two Benedictines.

"Now I don't mind telling you," the lady continued, leaning over towards him confidentially, "that I'm dead off that old man who came prying round and took me out to dinner, to pump me about poor Barney! He didn't get much out of me. For one thing, I don't know much. But the little I do know I'd sooner tell you than him."

"You're very kind," Wrayson murmured. "He used to come to these places a good deal, didn't he?"

She nodded assent.

"He was always either here or at the Empire. He wasn't a bad sort, Barney, although he was just like all the rest of them, close with his money when he was sober, and chucking it about when he'd had a drop too much. What did you want to know about him in particular?"

"Well, for one thing," Wrayson answered, "where he got his money from."

She shook her head.

"He was always very close about that," she said. "The only story I ever heard him tell was that he'd made it mining in South Africa."

"You have really heard him say that?" Wrayson asked.

"Half a dozen times," she declared.

"That proves, at any rate," he remarked thoughtfully, "that there was some mystery about his income, because I happen to know that he came back from South Africa a pauper."

"Very likely," she remarked. "Barney was always the sort who would rather tell a lie than the truth."

"Did he say anything to you that night about being in any kind of danger?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"No! I don't think so. I didn't take particular notice of what he said, because he was a bit squiffy. I believe he mentioned some thing about a business appointment that night, but I really didn't take much notice."

"You didn't tell them anything about that at the inquest," Wrayson remarked.

"I know I didn't," she admitted. "You see, I was so knocked over, and I really didn't remember anything clearly, that I thought it was best to say nothing at all. They'd only have been trying to ferret things out of me that I couldn't have told them."

"I think that you were very wise," Wrayson said. "You don't happen to remember anything else that he said, I suppose?"

"No! except that he seemed a little depressed. But there's something else about Barney that I always suspected, that I've never heard mentioned yet. Mind you, it may be true or it may not, but I always suspected it."

"What was that?" Wrayson demanded.

"I believe that he was married," she declared impressively.

"Married!"

Wrayson looked incredulous. It certainly did not seem probable.

"Where is his wife then?" he asked. "Why hasn't she turned up to claim his effects? Besides, he lived alone. He was my neighbour, you know. His brother has taken possession of his flat."

The lady rather enjoyed the impression she had made. She was not averse, either, to being seen in so prominent a place in confidential talk with a man of Wrayson's appearance. It might not be directly remunerative, but it was likely to do her good.

"He showed me a photograph once," she continued. "A baby-faced chit of a girl it was, but he was evidently very proud of it. A little girl of his down in the country, he told me. Then, do you know this? He was never in London for Sunday. Every week-end he went off somewhere; and I never heard of any one who ever saw him or knew where he went to."

"This is very interesting," Wrayson admitted; "but if he was married, surely his wife would have turned up by now!"

"Why should she?" the lady answered. "Don't you see that she very likely has what all you gentlemen seem to be so anxious about—his income?"

"By Jove!" Wrayson exclaimed softly. "Of course, if there was anything mysterious about the source of it, all the more reason for her to keep dark."

"Well, that's what I've had in my mind," she declared, summoning the waiter. "I'll take another liqueur, if you don't mind."

Wrayson nodded. His thoughts were travelling fast.

"Did you tell Mr. Bentham this?" he asked.

"Not I," she answered. "The old fool got about as much out of me as he deserved—and that's nothing."

"I'm sure I'm very much obliged," Wrayson answered, drawing out his pocketbook. "I wonder if I might be allowed—?"

He glanced at her inquiringly. She nodded. "I'm not proud," she declared.

* * * * *

"As an amateur detective," Wrayson remarked to himself, as he strolled homewards, "I am beginning rather to fancy myself. And yet—"

His thoughts had stolen away. He forgot Morris Barnes and the sordid mystery of which he was the centre. He remembered only the compelling cause which was driving him towards the solution of it. The night was warm, and he walked slowly, his hands behind him, and ever before his eyes the shadowy image of the girl who had brought so many strange sensations into his somewhat uneventful life. Would he ever see her, he wondered, without the light of trouble in her eyes, with colour in her cheeks, and joy in her tone? He thought of her violet-rimmed eyes, her hesitating manner, her air always as of one who walked hand in hand with fear. She was not meant for these things! Her lips and eyes were made for laughter; she was, after all, only a girl. If he could but lift the cloud! And then he looked upwards and saw her—leaning from the little iron balcony, and looking out into the cool night.

He half stopped. She did not move. It was too dark to see her features, but as he looked upwards a strange idea came to him. Was it a gesture or some unspoken summons which travelled down to him through the semi-darkness? He only knew, as he turned and entered the flat, that a new chapter of his life was opening itself out before him.



CHAPTER XIX

DESPERATE WOOING

Wrayson felt, from the moment he crossed the threshold of the room, that he had entered an atmosphere charged with elusive emotion. He was not sure of himself or of her as she turned slowly to greet him. Only he was at once conscious that something of that change in her which he had prophetically imagined was already shining out of her eyes. She was at once more natural and further removed from him.

"I am glad," she said simply. "I wanted to say good-bye to you."

He was stunned for a moment. He had not imagined this.

She nodded.

"Good-bye!" he repeated. "You are going away?"

"To-morrow. Oh! I am glad. You don't know how glad I am."

She swept past him and sank into an easy-chair. She wore a black velveteen evening dress, cut rather high, without ornament or relief of any sort, and her neck gleamed like polished ivory from which creeps always a subtle shade of pink. Her hair was parted in the middle and brushed back in little waves, her eyes were full of fire, and her face was no longer passive. Beautiful she had seemed to him before, but beautiful with a sort of impersonal perfection. She was beautiful now in her own right, the beauty of a woman whom nature has claimed for her own, who acknowledges her heritage. The fear-frozen subjectivity in which he had yet found enough to fascinate him had passed away. He felt that she was a stranger.

"Always," she murmured, "I shall think of London as the city of dreadful memories. I should like to be going to set my face eastwards or westwards until I was so far away that even memory had perished. But that is just where the bonds tell, isn't it?"

"There are many who can make the bonds elastic," he answered. "It is only a question of going far enough."

"Alas!" she answered, "a few hundred miles are all that are granted to me. And London is like a terrible octopus. Its arms stretch over the sea."

"A few hundred miles," he repeated, with obvious relief. "Northward or southward, or eastward or westward?"

"Southward," she answered. "The other side of the Channel. That, at least, is something. I always like to feel that there is sea between me and a place which I—loathe!"

"Is London so hateful to you, then?" he asked.

"Perhaps I should not have said that," she answered. "Say a place of which I am afraid!"

He looked across at her. He, too, in obedience to a gesture from her, was seated.

"Come," he said, "we will not talk of London, then. Tell me where you are going."

She shook her head.

"To a little Paradise I know of."

"Paradise," he reminded her, "was meant for two."

"There will be two of us," she answered, smiling.

He felt his heart thump against his ribs.

"Then if one wanted to play the part of intruder?"

She shook her head.

"The third person in Paradise was always very much de trop," she reminded him.

"It depends upon the people who are already there," he protested.

"My friend," she said, "is in search of solitude, absolute and complete."

He shook his head.

"Such a place does not exist," he declared confidently. "Your friend might as well have stayed at home."

"She relies upon me to procure it for her," she said.

A rare smile flashed from Wrayson's lips.

"You can't imagine what a relief her sex is to me!" he exclaimed.

"I don't know why," she answered pensively. "Do you know anything about the North of France, Mr. Wrayson?"

"Not much," he answered. "I hope to know more presently."

Her eyes laughed across at him.

"You know what I said about the third person in Paradise?"

"I can't admit your Paradise," he said.

"You are a heretic," she answered. "It is a matter of sex, of course."

"Naturally! Paradise is so relative. It may be the halo thrown round a court in the city or a rose garden in the country, any place where love is!"

"And may I not love my friend!" she demanded.

"You may love me," he answered, the passion suddenly vibrating in his tone. "I will be more faithful than any friend. I will build Paradise for you—wherever you will! I will build the walls so high that no harm or any fear shall pass them."

She waved him back. Something of the old look, which he hated so to see, was in her face.

"You must not talk to me like this, Mr. Wrayson," she said. "Indeed you must not."

"Why not?" he demanded. "If there is a reason I will know it."

She looked him steadily in the eyes.

"Can't you imagine one for yourself?" she asked.

He laughed scornfully.

"You don't understand," he said. "There is only one reason in the world that I would admit—I don't even know that I would accept that. The other things don't count. They don't exist."

She looked at him a little incredulously. She was still sitting, and he was standing now before her. Her fingers rested lightly upon the arms of her chair, she was leaning slightly forward as though watching for something in his face.

"Tell me that there is another man," he cried, "that you don't care for me, that you never could care for me, and I will go away and you shall never see my face again. But nothing short of that will drive me from you."

He spoke quickly, his tone was full of nervous passion. It never occurred to her to doubt him.

"You can be what else you like," he continued, "thief, adventuress—murderess! So long as there is no other man! Come to me and I will take you away from it all."

She laughed very softly, and his pulses thrilled at the sound, for there was no note of mockery there; it was the laugh of a woman who listens to hidden music.

"You are a bold lover," she murmured. "Have you been reading romances lately? Do you know that it is the twentieth century, and I have seen you three times? You don't know what you say. You can't mean it."

"By Heaven, I do!" he cried, and for one exquisite moment he held her in his arms. Then she freed herself with a sudden start. She had lost her composure. Her cheeks were flushed.

"Don't!" she cried, sharply. "Remember our first meeting. I am not the sort of person you imagine. I never can be. There are reasons—"

He swept them aside. Something seemed to tell him that if he did not succeed with her now, his opportunity would be gone forever.

"I will listen to none of them," he declared, standing between her and the door. "They don't matter! Nothing matters! I choose you for my wife, and I will have you. I wouldn't care if you came to me from a prison. Better give in, Louise. I shan't let you escape."

She had indeed something of the look of a beautiful hunted animal as she leaned a little towards him, her eyes riveted upon his, her lips a little parted, her bosom rising and falling quickly. She was taken completely by surprise. She had not given Wrayson credit for such strength of mind or purpose. She had believed entirely in her own mastery over him, for any such assault as he was now making. And she was learning the truth. Love that makes a woman weak lends strength to the man. Their positions were becoming reversed. It was he who was dictating to her.

"I am going away," she said nervously. "You will forget me. You must forget me."

"You shall not go away," he answered, "unless I know where. Don't be afraid. You can keep your secrets, whatever they are. I want to know nothing. Go on exactly with the life you are leading, if it pleases you. I shan't interfere. But you are going to be my wife, and you shall not leave London without telling me about it."

"I am leaving London," she faltered, "to-morrow."

"I was thinking," he remarked, calmly, "of taking a little holiday myself."

She laughed uneasily.

"You are absurd," she declared, "and you must go away. Really! The Baroness will be home directly. I would rather, I would very much rather that she did not find you here."

He held out his arms to her. His eyes were bright with the joy of conquest.

"I will go, Louise," he answered, "but first I will have my answer—and no answer save one will do!"