"Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix Comme s'ouvre les fleurs Aux baisers de l'aurore, Mais O! Mon bien aime Pour mieux secher mes pleurs Que ta voix parle encore, Dis moi qu'a Dalila Tu reviens pour jamais. Redis a ma tendresse Les serments d'autrefois Les serments que j'aimais. Ah, reponds a ma tendresse, Ah, verse-moi l'ivresse!"

"How gorgeous!" I exclaimed, straining my ears in a vain attempt to hear better. "Who is it?"

"Kirkby-Lunn," my companion answered quickly. "Are you fond—"

She stopped. Her face was partly turned. I saw a glance of recognition flash into her eyes and vanish instantly. Following the direction of her glance, my gaze rested upon the strange, striking woman I had seen but once but could not possibly forget. Mrs. Gastrell had just entered, and with her, to my astonishment, Jack Osborne. It was Jasmine Gastrell with whom my companion had exchanged that momentary glance of recognition.

"Are you fond of music?" Mrs. Stapleton asked, looking at me again.

"Very," I answered absently, "of music that is music."

For my attention had become suddenly distracted. How came this woman to be here, this woman who called herself Gastrell's wife? Lord Easterton was somewhere about, for I had seen him in the crowd. Such a striking woman would be sure to attract his attention, he would inquire who she was, he might even ask Gastrell, and then what would happen? What would Gastrell say? Was the woman actually his wife, or was she—

Mechanically I conversed with my companion for a minute or two longer, then suddenly she suggested that we should go.

"And let some of these starving people take our table," she added, as she prepared to rise.

Osborne and his singularly lovely companion were now seated at a table only a few yards off. His back was turned to us, and I had not caught Mrs. Gastrell's glance.

"D'you know who that is, that woman who has just come in?" I inquired carelessly, indicating her as I rose.

"That?" Mrs. Stapleton answered, looking full at her, and this time their eyes met in a cold stare. "No, I have no idea."

I confess that this flat untruth, spoken with such absolute sang-froid, somewhat disconcerted me. For I could not be in the least doubt that I had distinctly seen the two women greet each other with that brief glance of mutual recognition.



CHAPTER VI

THE HOUSE IN GRAFTON STREET

One afternoon, some days later, I was sitting in my flat in South Molton Street, smoking a pipe and carelessly skimming an evening paper, when my man brought me some letters which had just arrived.

Several I tossed aside unopened—I recognized the handwritings and was in no haste to absorb the contents of epistles from acquaintances whose company, at the best of times, "bored me stiff," as some Americans say. But the letter was there that I had expected in the morning, and at once I tore it open.

Dulcie wrote chiefly about herself—which was all I wanted to hear—about her father and "Aunt Hannah," while two pages she devoted to her little brother Dick, of whom she was inordinately fond.

Dick, she said, had shown the utmost pluck and endurance throughout his painful convalescence after his rough-and-tumble with the burglars. She told me how he had from the first sat up in bed with his "honourable wounds" upon him, bandaged and swathed, joking and making light of the occurrence now, as perhaps only the best breed of English schoolboy knows how. One thing still puzzled both little Dick and herself, and for that matter the whole family, she said—who could the woman be to whom the thieves had alluded? No word, added Dulcie, had as yet been forthcoming as to the whereabouts of any of the valuables stolen on that memorable day, either family jewels or plate, and the detectives at Scotland Yard acknowledged that so far matters were at a deadlock.

Further on in her newsy letter Dulcie made mention of the fascinating widow staying at the Rook Hotel in Newbury, and of her wish to know her better. She added incidentally that Mrs. Stapleton had been away since the day after the meet at Holt Manor, and that no one knew where she was staying. She hoped she would soon be back, she said, as she wished so much to renew her acquaintance, and to strengthen it. Dulcie then spoke of her Aunt Hannah, who had been particularly amusing and crochety of late, but added that she was really such a "dear" at heart that people all loved her when they came to know her well. "My dear," she wrote, "Aunt Hannah has surpassed herself lately. You know what vigorous likes and dislikes she takes, all of a sudden? Well, now Auntie has conceived an inordinate aversion for poor Mrs. Stapleton, and seems inclined not only to give her the cold shoulder, but to hound her down by saying the nastiest things about her, just as the other people in the county did when she first came to live among us. I rather believe that she had this feeling all along, more or less, but now she seems positively to hate her—though she confesses that she doesn't know why she does! Isn't that like Auntie? And now she has been asking me never to notice Mrs. Stapleton, and not to speak to her again when she returns, in fact to drop the acquaintance entirely—and that just as we have called, and I've tried to be nice to her out hunting, and we've had her to dine; I told you how taken father was with her, and how he took her all over the house and showed her simply everything. I really don't see why I should draw back now. Nor does father. As a matter of fact, I don't see how we can—it has gone too far—and just to satisfy one of dear old Auntie's whims! She has a good many, as you know, Mike. There is just this one thing, however, that sometimes one of her unaccountable whims or dislikes turns out to have been well grounded."

My darling then went on to speak of her father and of the happiness our engagement afforded him, happiness tempered, as she could not help knowing, by the sorrow her leaving him would bring to him, for the most wonderful confidence and companionship existed between father and daughter. This sadness, Dulcie went on, came out almost pathetically in her father's even added tenderness to her—he whose tenderness and affection had always been such a wonderful thing to her since her earliest childhood. But now, she said, her father sometimes followed her about the house and grounds when she had been absent from him for a short time, seeking occasion for talks with her, giving her his confidence, and consulting her wishes on matters about the gardens and stables in a way that was quite touching. It was as though, now that the parting was so soon to take place, he could not get enough of his only daughter's company, as if the old man clung to her more than ever before.

The closely-written sheets dropped from my hand on to my knee. "Ah, my own little girl," I thought, "who wouldn't miss you—sadly, yes, terribly? Your delightful presence, the truth and honour that seem to be manifest in your smallest gesture, in every glance from your clear eyes; the companionship of your fearless intellect cutting through conventionalities like a knife, arriving at the right point with the unerring instinct of a woman, yet with the naivete of a child."

Memories crowded in upon me, memories of all my happy days with Dulcie in the country—in the hunting field, in the gardens about her home, of afternoons spent among the books and prints and pictures in her father's quiet, book-lined library at Holt, of the evenings in the drawing-room at the piano, of hours of pleasant talk in the beautiful conservatories and on the grassy terraces, and by the lake-side below the tennis lawn. What, I thought, would life be like when at last I had her always with me, brightening my life, filling my own home—our home—with laughter and with the music of her voice! Again and again she rose to my enthralled vision, and ever she was Youth and Love, the vision crowned with the wonder of her nebulous, brown-gold hair as she gazed at me out of her sweet, clear eyes in which I seemed still to read unfathomable purity and truth.

It is a terrible thing to be in love. Some savage races there are which hold to the belief that the spirits of lovers changing places, give rise to the feverish mental upheaval which we prosaically term "falling in love," the spirits being restless at their enforced imprisonment and unsatisfied until they have returned each to its appointed sphere. Now that I have recovered from the affliction I sometimes wonder if it might not with advantage be treated as ordinary maladies and some passions are—with the aid of drugs. Perhaps some day it will be. Certainly it soon will be if the eugenists get their way.

And, thinking of the letter I had just read, which now lay folded in my pocket, my memory drifted backward. For since the day I had met Jack Osborne at Brooks's on his return from Nigeria, many incidents had occurred which puzzled me. Trifling incidents individually, no doubt, yet significant when considered in the concrete. There was the incident, for instance, of Sir Harry Dawson's declaring in a letter written to Lord Easterton from the Riviera that he had never met Gastrell, never heard of him even, though Lord Easterton had Gastrell's assurance that he knew Sir Harry Dawson and had intended to call upon him on the evening he had unwittingly entered Lord Easterton's house, which was next door.

Then there was something not quite normal in Gastrell's posing one day as a married man, the next as a bachelor; also in his pretending at one moment that he had never seen Osborne and myself before, yet admitting at the next that he had met us. True, he had advanced an apparently sound reason for this volte-face of his, but still—

The affair, too, in Maresfield Gardens. That surely was an "incident" which bordered on a mystery. I felt I should never forget our extraordinary reception that night—the "black out" house, as stage managers say; our repeated ringing the door bell; the slow unlocking and unbolting the door; the cautious inquiry; our wait in the darkness after our admission; the discovery of that horrible serpent with its chilling eyes; the locked door; the sudden entry of Gastrell, and his odd conversation.

Then the conflagration which had occurred a few days later, and the subsequent discovery among the debris of a body, charred and stabbed; the apparent ignorance of everybody as to whose body it was; the statement made by the police that none knew the names of the sub-tenants who had occupied that house when the fire had broken out, or what had since become of them—the actual tenant was in America. Without a doubt, I reflected as I knocked the ashes out of my pipe into the grate, something "queer" was going on, and I had inadvertently got myself mixed up in it.

The last "incident" to puzzle me had been that momentary glance of mutual recognition exchanged between the woman I knew only as "Mrs. Gastrell"—or "Jasmine Gastrell," as Osborne always spoke of her—and Mrs. Stapleton, and their subsequent apparent entire lack of recognition. That, certainly, had been most odd. What could have been the cause of it? Why, knowing each other, did they all at once feign to be strangers? And the extraordinarily calm way Mrs. Stapleton had, looking me full in the eyes, assured me that she had never before even seen the woman she had just smiled at. Lastly—though this was of less consequence—how came Jack Osborne to be dancing attendance upon the woman I knew as "Mrs. Gastrell," when he had assured me as we drove away in the taxi from Maresfield Gardens that night that though he admired her he mistrusted her?

I had filled my pipe again, and, as I puffed at it to set it going, one more thought occurred to me. And this thought, I must say, perplexed me as much as any.

Hugesson Gastrell was said to have spent the whole of his life, until six months previously, in Australia and Tasmania. If that were so, then how did he come to have so large a circle of friends, or at any rate of acquaintances—acquaintances, too, of such distinction and high position? Was it possible he could in a few months have come to know all these peers and peeresses and baronets and knights, distinguished musicians and actors and actresses, leading members of the learned professions, and all the rest of the Society crowd who had thronged his house that evening?

Suddenly something I had been told at the club an hour or so before flashed back into my mind. Another club member besides Easterton had, it seemed, become acquainted with Gastrell through Gastrell's calling at the wrong house—by mistake.

A coincidence? Possibly. And yet—

I sucked meditatively at my pipe.

Suddenly the telephone rang. Easterton was speaking.

"What!" I exclaimed, in answer to the startling information he gave me. "When did he disappear?"

"Where was he last seen?"

"No, he has not been here. I haven't seen him since Gastrell's reception."

"Oh, yes, I saw you there."

"Yes, very extraordinary."

"No."

"Oh, no."

"Good. I'll come to you at once. Are you at Linden Gardens?"

"Very well, I'll come straight to the club."

Mechanically I hung up the receiver. Curious thoughts, strange conjectures, wonderings, arguments, crowded my brain in confusion. Five days had passed since the date of Gastrell's reception, when I had seen Jack Osborne at supper with the woman he had said he mistrusted. Since that evening, according to what Easterton had just told me, nobody had seen or heard of him. He had not been to his chambers; he had not left any message there or elsewhere; he had not written; he had neither telegraphed nor telephoned.

Where was he? What was he doing? Could some misfortune have befallen him? Had he—

I did not end the sentence my mind had formed. Instead I went out, hailed a taxi, and in a few minutes was on my way to Brooks's.

Outside a house in Grafton Street a group of people stood clustered about the door. Others, on the pavement opposite, stared up at the windows. Two policemen upon the doorstep prevented anyone from entering.

Leaning forward as my taxi sped by, I peered in through the open door of the house, then up at the windows, but there was nothing out of the ordinary to be seen. Further down the street we passed three policemen walking briskly along the pavement in the direction of the house.

"What's the commotion in Grafton Street?" I inquired of my driver as I paid him off at Brooks's.

"I've no idea, sir," he answered. "Looks as though there was trouble of some sort." Another fare hailed him, so our conversation ended.

I found Easterton awaiting me in a deserted card-room.

"This may be a serious affair, Berrington," he said in a tone of anxiety as I seated myself in the opposite corner of the big, leather-covered settee. "Here five days have gone by, and there isn't a sign of Jack Osborne, though he had not told anybody that he intended to absent himself, had not even hinted to anybody that he had any idea of doing so."

"You say he has not been seen since Gastrell's reception?"

"Not since then—five days ago. The fellows here at the club are getting quite alarmed about him—they want to advertise in the newspapers for news of his whereabouts."

"That means publicity, a shoal of inquiries, and maybe a scandal," I answered thoughtfully. "If Jack has intentionally disappeared for a day or two and all at once finds himself notorious he will be furious."

"Just what I tell them," Easterton exclaimed; "I wish you would back me up. You see, Jack hasn't any relatives to speak of, and those he has live abroad. Consequently the fellows here consider it is what the Americans call 'up to them' to institute inquiries, even if such inquiries should necessitate publicity."

I pondered for a moment or two.

"You know," I said, "Jack is a curious fellow in some ways—some call him a crank, but he isn't that. Still, he is something of a 'character,' and absolutely unconventional. I remember his making a bet, once, that he would punch out a boastful pugilist at the National Sporting Club—no, it wasn't at the N.S.C., it was at a place down East—'Wonderland,' they call it."

"And did he do it?" Easterton asked.

"Did he? By heaven, the poor chap he tackled was carried out unconscious at the end of the second round—Jack's bet was with Teddy Forsyth, and he pocketed a couple of ponies then and there."

"Did he really? Capital! And Teddy's such a mean chap; he didn't like partin', did he?"

"Like it? He went about for the rest of the night with a face like a funeral mute's."

"Capital!" Lord Easterton repeated. "But to return to the point, Jack's eccentricities and vagaries can have nothin' to do with his disappearance."

"Why not? How do you know?"

"Well, why should they? I only hope he hasn't gone and made a fool of himself in any way that'll make a scandal or get him into trouble. In a way, you know, we are connections. His mother and mine were second cousins. That's really why I feel that I ought to do somethin' to find out what has happened to him. Do you—do you think he can have got mixed up with some woman?"

"I won't say that I actually think so, but I think it's more than possible."

"No! Why? What woman?"

At that instant I remembered that the woman I had in my mind was the woman who on board the Masonic had, so Jack had told me, called herself Hugesson Gastrell's wife, and called herself his wife again at the house in Maresfield Gardens. But Gastrell had told Easterton, or at any rate led him to suppose, he was unmarried. How, then, could I refer to this woman by name without causing possible friction between Easterton and his tenant, Gastrell?

"I am afraid I can't tell you, Easterton," I said after an instant's hesitation. "I don't want to make mischief, and if what I think is possible is not the case, and I tell you about it, I shall have made mischief."

Easterton was silent. For some moments he remained seated in his corner of the settee, looking at me rather strangely.

"I quite understand what you mean, Berrington," he said at last. "Still, under the circumstances I should have thought—and yet no, I dare say you are right. I may tell you candidly, though, that I can't help thinkin' you must be mistaken in your supposition. Jack doesn't care about women in that way. He never has cared about them. The only thing he cares about is sport, though, of course, he admires a pretty woman, as we all do."

To that observation I deemed it prudent to make no reply, and at that moment a waiter entered and came across the room to us.

"Your lordship is wanted on the telephone," he said solemnly.

"Who is it?" Easterton asked, looking up.

"Scotland Yard, my lord."

"Oh, say, hold the line, and I'll come down."

"Have you informed the police, then?" I asked quickly, when the servant had left the room.

"Yes. I went to Scotland Yard this mornin', but I told them not to let a word about the disappearance get into the newspapers, if they could help it, until they heard further from me, and they promised they would respect my wish. You had better come down with me. They may have found out something."

I waited outside the glass hutch, which effectually shut in all sound, watching Lord Easterton's face below the electric light. His lips moved rapidly, and by the way his expression suddenly changed I judged that he was hearing news of importance. After talking for a minute or two he hung up the receiver, pushed open the door and came out. His face betrayed his emotion.

"Come over here," he said in a curious tone. "I have something to tell you."

I followed him a little way down the passage which led to the card-rooms. When we were out of sight and earshot of the club servants he stopped abruptly and turned to me.

"Jack has been found," he said quickly. "He was found gagged and bound in a house in Grafton Street half an hour ago. He is there now, and the police are with him."

"Good God!" I exclaimed. "How did they identify him?"

"He was not unconscious. The police want me to go there at once. Come."

We walked up to Grafton Street, as it was such a little way, also Easterton wanted to tell me more. The Inspector who had just spoken to him had not told him what had led to the police entering the house in Grafton Street, or if anybody else had been found upon the premises. He had only told him that Scotland Yard had for some weeks had the house under surveillance—they had suspected that something irregular was going on there, but they did not know what.

"I expect they have a pretty shrewd idea," Easterton added, as we crossed Piccadilly, "but they won't say what it is. Hello! Just look at the crowd!"

Up at the end of Dover Street, where Grafton Street begins, the roadway was blocked with people. When we reached the crowd we had some difficulty in forcing our way through it. A dozen policemen were keeping people back.

"Are you Lord Easterton?" the officer at the entrance asked, as Easterton handed him his card. "Ah, then come this way, please, m'lord. This gentleman a friend of yours? Follow the constable, please."

We were shown into a room on the ground floor, to the right of the hall. It was large, high-ceilinged, with a billiard table in the middle. Half a dozen men were standing about, two in police uniform; the remainder I guessed to be constables in plain clothes.

Suddenly I started, and uttered an exclamation.

Seated in a big arm-chair was Dulcie Challoner, looking pale, frightened. Beside her, with her back to me, stood Aunt Hannah!



CHAPTER VII

OSBORNE'S STORY

"Good heavens, Dulcie!" I exclaimed, hurrying across to her, "whatever are you doing here? And you, Aunt Hannah?"

At the sound of my voice Dulcie started up in her chair, and Aunt Hannah turned quickly. To my amazement they both looked at me without uttering. Dulcie's eyes were troubled. She seemed inclined to speak, yet afraid to. The expression with which Aunt Hannah peered at me chilled me.

"What is the meaning of this, Mr. Berrington?" she asked coldly, after a brief pause. Even in that moment of tense anxiety it struck me that Aunt Hannah looked and spoke as though reproving a naughty schoolboy.

"Meaning of what?" I said stupidly, astonishment for the moment deadening my intelligence.

"Of your bringing us up to London to find—this."

"Bringing you up? What do you mean, Miss Challoner?" I exclaimed, mystified.

In spite of my deep anxiety, a feeling of annoyance, of resentment, had come over me. No man likes to be made to look ridiculous, and here was I standing before a lot of constables, all of them staring in inquisitive astonishment at my being thus addressed by the old lady.

"Is this Mr. Berrington, madam?" an immensely tall, bull-necked, plain-clothes policeman, of pompous, forbidding mien, suddenly asked.

"Yes, officer, it is," she snapped. During all the time I had known her I had never seen her quite like this.

"See here," he said, turning to me, "I want your address, and for the present you will stay here."

I am considered good-tempered. Usually, too, I can control my feelings. There is a limit, however, to the amount of incivility I can stand, and this fellow was deliberately insulting me.

"How dare you speak like that to me!" I burst out. "What has this affair to do with me? Do you know who I am?"

"Aren't you Mr. Michael Berrington?" he inquired more guardedly, apparently taken aback at my outburst of indignation.

"I am."

"Then read that," he said, producing a telegram and holding it out before me.

It was addressed to:

"Miss Dulcie Challoner, Holt Manor, Holt Stacey," and ran:

"The police have recovered property which they believe to have been stolen from Holt Manor. Please come at once to 430 Grafton Street, Bond Street, to identify it. Shall expect you by train due Paddington 12:17. Please don't fail to come as matter very urgent.

"MICHAEL BERRINGTON."

It had been handed in at the office in Regent Street at 9:30 that morning, and received at Holt Stacey village at 9:43.

"How absurd! How ridiculous!" I exclaimed. "My name has been forged, of course. I never sent that telegram; this is the first I have seen or heard of it."

"That you will have to prove," the detective answered, with official stolidity.

"Surely, Aunt Hannah," I almost shouted—so excited did I feel—as I again turned to her, "you can't think I sent that telegram?"

"I certainly think nothing else," she replied, and her eyes were like shining beads. "Who would send a telegram signed with your name but you, or someone instructed by you?"

I saw that to argue with her in the frame of mind she was then in would be futile—my presentiment at Holt that some day I should fall foul of her had come true! I turned to the officer.

"I must see the original of that telegram," I said quickly, "and shall then quickly prove that it was not sent by me. How soon can I get hold of it?"

"Oh, we can see about it at once, sir," he answered much more civilly, for, pretending to look for something in my pocket, I had intentionally pulled out my leather wallet, containing two hundred pounds or more in notes, and opened it for an instant. There is nothing like the sight of paper money to ensure civility from a policeman disposed to be impertinent—I should like, in justice, to add that most policemen are not.

Also Easterton had come over and spoken to me, and of course pooh-poohed the idea of my having sent the telegram, which had just been shown to him. Dulcie stared at me with large, pathetic eyes, and I knew that, but for Aunt Hannah's so-to-speak mounting guard, she would have asked me endless questions instead of sitting there mute.

"You had better come with me and hear Jack Osborne's story," Easterton said some moments later. "The Inspector tells me he is upstairs, and still rather weak from the effect of the treatment he has received."

I had seen a puzzled look come into Aunt Hannah's eyes while Easterton was speaking, but she remained sour and unbending.

Osborne was sitting up in a chair, partly undressed—he still wore his evening clothes—cotton wool bound round his ankles and one wrist. He smiled weakly as we entered, and the policeman who sat at his bedside immediately rose. It was easy to see that Jack had suffered a good deal; he looked, for him, quite pale, and there were dark marks beneath his eyes. Nor was his appearance improved by several days' growth of beard—he was usually clean-shaven.

His story was quickly told, and points in it gave food for thought, also for conjecture.

It seemed that, while he was at supper with the woman I knew as "Mrs. Gastrell," at Gastrell's reception, two men, unable to find a vacant table, had asked if they might sit at his table, where there were two vacant seats. Both were strangers to him, and apparently to "Mrs. Gastrell" too. They seemed, however, pleasant fellows, and presently he had drifted into conversation with them, or they with him, and with his fair companion—Jack, as I have said, is extremely cosmopolitan, and picks up all sorts of acquaintances. I could well believe that at a reception such as Gastrell's he would waive all formality of introduction if he found himself with companionable strangers.

Supper over, the four had remained together, and later, when Jack had seen his fair friend safely into a cab, he had rejoined the two strangers, becoming gradually more and more friendly with them. The reception had not ended until past one in the morning, and he and his two acquaintances had been among the last to leave. Having all to go in the same direction, they had shared a taxi, and on arriving at the chambers which the strangers had told him they shared—these chambers were in Bloomsbury, but Jack had not noticed in what street—one of the strangers had suggested his coming in for a few minutes before returning to the Russell Hotel, where he had his rooms, which was close by.

At first disinclined to do this, he had finally yielded to their persuasion. He had a whiskey-and-soda with them, he said—he mentioned that the chambers were comfortable and well furnished—and one of them had then suggested a game of cards. They had all sat down to play, and—

Well, he remembered, he said, seeing cards being dealt—but that was all he did remember. He supposed that after that he must have fainted, or been made unconscious; he now suspected that the drink he had taken had been drugged.

When he recovered consciousness he had no idea where he was, or how long he had been insensible. The room was unfamiliar to him, and everything about him strange. He was stretched upon a bed, in an apartment much larger than the one he was now in, with hands and feet tightly tied. The two windows faced a blank wall, the wall apparently of the next house; later he came to know, by the sound of Big Ben booming in the night, that he was still in London.

The door of the room was at the back of the bed; he could not see it from where he lay, and, bound as he was, could not even turn, but was forced to lie flat upon his back.

He had not long been conscious, when the light of day began to fade. Soon the room was in pitch darkness. Then it was he became aware that someone was in the room. He listened attentively, but could hear nothing; nevertheless the presence of a man or woman made itself "felt" beyond a doubt. He judged the time of day to be about six o'clock in the evening, when suddenly somebody touched him—a hand in the darkness. He started, and called out; but there was no answer. Some minutes later a man spoke.

The voice was not that of either of the men he had met at Gastrell's reception; he could swear to that, he said. Yet he seemed to recognize the voice, indeed, to have heard it recently. He racked his brains to remember where, but to no purpose.

The man spoke in a low tone, and its timbre and inflection betrayed what is called the voice of a gentleman, he said.

"You have been brought here," the man said, "to give certain information, and to reveal certain secrets. If you do this, you will be released at once—you will be taken away from here in an unconscious state, just as you were brought here, and set down in the night not far from your hotel. If you refuse, you will be taken out during the night, and dropped into the Thames."

The man had then gone on to question him. The questions he had asked had been numerous, and one and all had had to do with persons of high station with whom Jack was on terms of intimacy—all of them rich people. What most astonished him, he said, was that his unseen interlocutor should know so much about him—his questions and remarks showed how much he knew—and that he should apparently know who all his friends were.

Jack could not remember all the questions he had been asked, but he repeated some of them. Whereabouts did the Duchesse de Montparnasse keep her jewels in her chateau on the Meuse? The questioner said he knew that Osborne could tell him, because he knew that Osborne, just before going to Nigeria, had, while staying at that chateau, been shown by the Duchesse herself her priceless jewellery—one of the finest collections in the world, chiefly valuable owing to its interesting historic associations.

Then, in which apartment in Eldon Hall, in Northumberland, the seat of the Earl of Cranmere, was the large safe that Lord Cranmere had bought ten months before from an American firm, the name of which was given? He said that he, Osborne, must know, because he was a guest at Lord Cranmere's when the safe arrived—which was the truth. He also wanted to know if there were a priests' hiding-hole in Eldon Hall, as was the case in so many of the large country mansions built about the same period, and, if so, its exact whereabouts in the house.

As Jack Osborne said this, my thoughts flashed away to Berkshire, to Holt Manor, to the dark, depressing hiding-hole there that I had peered down into more than once. Who had spoken to me of that hiding-hole only recently? Why, Dulcie, of course. She had mentioned it whilst telling me about Mrs. Stapleton, and about Sir Roland's showing the young widow over the house. Dulcie had mentioned it specially, because Mrs. Stapleton had evinced such evident interest in it.

I checked my train of thought, focussing my mind upon that single incident.

Mrs. Stapleton, the "mysterious widow" of whom nobody appeared to know anything, had been strangely interested in that hiding-hole and in all that Sir Roland had said about it—Dulcie had told me that. The hiding-hole was in close proximity to Sir Roland's bedroom, and to one other room from which valuable jewellery had been stolen. Mrs. Stapleton had left the neighbourhood on the day after the robbery, had been absent ever since—that of course might be, and probably was, merely a coincidence. At supper at Gastrell's reception in Cumberland Place Mrs. Stapleton had acknowledged "Mrs. Gastrell's" smile of recognition, and an instant later the two women had stared at each other stonily, and Mrs. Stapleton had assured me that she did not know the other woman, that she had "never seen her before." Then those two men, of whom Osborne had just spoken, had of their own accord joined him and "Mrs. Gastrell" at supper, and eventually he had gone with the men to their flat in Bloomsbury. And now here was an unseen man, evidently a scoundrel, inquiring the whereabouts of a safe in a country house belonging to a nobleman known to be extremely rich, and asking in particular if the house possessed a priests' hiding-hole, and if so, exactly where it was located—a man who threatened evil if the information were withheld. Could all this, I could not help wondering, be mere coincidence? Then on the top of it came that extraordinary telegram sent to Dulcie from London, with my name attached to it.

Jack, however, had not done relating his adventures, so I turned again to listen to him.

"A third thing the fellow asked," he said, "was the name of Hugo Salmonsteiner's bankers—Salmonsteiner the millionaire timber-merchant whose son was out big-game shooting with me a year ago. It seemed an absurd question, for surely it must be easy to find out who any man's bankers are, but still he asked me, and appeared to be most anxious that I should tell him. Oh, but there were scores of other questions, all much on the same lines, and tending to extract from me information of a peculiar kind."

"Did you answer any of them?" Easterton asked.

"Answer them? Why, of course—all of 'em. I didn't want to remain here in durance vile an hour longer than I could help, I can assure you. But naturally my answers were—well, 'inaccurate,' to say the least. I had to word them very carefully, though, or the fellow would have caught me out. He suspected that I might be misleading him, I think, for once or twice he put questions which might have unmasked me if I had not been on my guard when answering them. Really we pitted our brains and cunning against each other's all the time, and, if I may say so without boasting, I think my cunning won."

"Then why were you not released?" I said.

"I was to have been, to-night—so he said. Do you think, though, he would, whoever he was, have let me go after questioning me like that? He said not a word about my not giving information to the police, or warning the people he had questioned me about. Do you think he would have let me go? I don't.

"Every day food and drink were left by me—set on a table within reach of me, while the room was in inky blackness, for the man who had touched me in the dark had also released my right arm and left it so. Several times I tried to free my other arm, and my feet, but I couldn't manage it. I have been lying here with both feet and one arm bound for four nights and three days, to my knowledge, without seeing anybody, and, of course, without shaving or washing. I can't tell you what these days and nights have been like—they have been like a long, awful nightmare; even the house has all the time been as still as death. My God, what a relief it was to hear the door bell ringing this afternoon, and the knocker going as though the place was on fire!

"And when the police did force an entrance it seems they found nobody but me!"



CHAPTER VIII

MORE SUSPICIONS

Women are extraordinary—a platitude, of course, for everybody who has mixed with women and who possesses a gleam of intelligence knows that they are extraordinary, just as he knows, or ought to know, that if they were not bizarre and mystifying, complex and erratic, they would be less insidiously captivating than they are.

There are, however, exceptions to most rules—some misguided savant of a bygone epoch formulated a maxim which says that "the exception proves the rule," obviously an absurd statement, for if one man has no nose on his face it is no proof that all other men have noses on theirs. Aunt Hannah constituted an exception to the rule that women are rendered additionally attractive through being extraordinary. Had she been less extraordinary she would have been more lovable. As it was she came near, at this time, to being the reverse of lovable, or so it struck me when, upon my endeavour to talk calmly and rationally to her after hearing all that Jack Osborne had just told us, and striving to induce her to listen to reason, she remained prejudiced, illogical.

I should not have cared a button, naturally, had it not been for Dulcie and the estrangement between us that the foolish old lady's behaviour created. Dulcie thought no end of her aunt, respected her views and sentiments—she had been brought up to do so, poor child—and, I knew, really loved her. "Well," I said to myself tartly, "she will now have to choose between Aunt Hannah and me," and feeling cock-sure, after all that had occurred between us, that I should be the favoured one and that Aunt Hannah would be metaphorically relegated to the scrap-heap, I decided to approach Dulcie at once.

No, first I must see the original of that telegram, I reflected. Accompanied, therefore, by the police officer, I made my way to the post office in Regent Street. Having explained that I wanted to see the original of the telegram "because," as I said, "I think a mistake has been made in transcribing it," I was presently confronted by the postmaster, a most courteous, obliging person.

"Why, certainly," he said, when I had repeated my untruth. "You shall see it at once."

I waited in anxious expectancy, chatting lightly with the policeman, while the postmaster looked through the file of the day's messages.

"This is it, I think," he said presently—we were in his private room. "But," he went on, glancing from the message that had been sent to the original, "your original message is unsigned. Is that the alleged mistake of which you complain?"

"Unsigned!" I exclaimed, taking both papers from him. "Why yes, so it is! Then how does that message that was sent off come to be signed?"

The original message was type-written. The wording was exactly the same as that in the telegram received, with this exception—the telegram received was signed "Michael Berrington," the typed message had no signature.

"How do you account for this discrepancy?" I asked quickly.

"If you will kindly wait a moment," he answered, "I will inquire into this."

He left the room. The policeman, to whom I had handed both messages, was still contemplating them with a look of perplexity in his round eyes, when the postmaster returned, bringing with him an intelligent-looking girl.

"This," he said, "is the young lady who transmitted the message."

I am afraid I smiled. How long, I wonder, will post-office assistants, and shop girls, bar tenders, and others continue to be "young ladies," while ladies in the correct sense of the word never think, when talking of one another, of using terms more distinctive and dignified than "girl" and "woman"?

"Do you remember my sending this telegram this morning?" I asked, looking her full in the eyes.

"I remember taking in the message, but I'm afraid I don't remember your face, sir," she answered nervously, evidently afraid that I was about to get her into trouble. "You see, we see so many people, and most of them only for a few moments. I recall rather clearly taking in that message, because it was typed, which most telegrams are not. And—and I thought it was handed in by a lady, and not by a gentleman. In fact I feel sure it was. Was it really you who gave it to me to send off?"

"No, it was not," I answered quickly. "A lady? Can you remember what she was like?"

"I can. She was, I think, really the most beautiful lady I have ever seen. She was quite tall, as tall as a man, and she had a lovely figure. It did seem to set off her beautiful clothes so well. Then her face was lovely too—long, dark eyebrows she had, if I remember rightly, and her eyes were large. Oh, and she had a lot of auburn hair—red you might almost call it—I don't know which it was really, but I never saw such hair."

"Good!" I exclaimed.

I turned to the policeman.

"She has described beyond doubt a woman I know; a woman you will probably soon know something about too."

"Indeed, sir?" he said, interested.

"But about this signature," I went on, again addressing the operator. "How does this telegram you sent off come to be signed if the original was not signed?"

"It was signed, sir. It must have been. Otherwise the name wouldn't have been telegraphed. Ah—I remember!"

"Remember what?"

"The signature was in pencil. Just after the telegram had been despatched, the lady came in again and asked if she might see the message again just for a moment—she was not sure if she had said something she had meant to say, she said. I got it and gave it to her, and a moment or two afterwards she gave it back to me, thanking me very much for having let her see it. She must have rubbed off the signature then. She could do it easy with a damp finger. Of course, I ought to have looked, but I didn't think to."

"I think we have now solved the mystery—in part," I exclaimed triumphantly. "This is some abominable conspiracy, and I am going to get to the bottom of it. My name was evidently signed, telegraphed, and then purposely obliterated."

After thanking the postmaster for his extreme courtesy and for the trouble he had taken, and impressing upon him that under no circumstances was the bright-eyed little operator to be censured, or allowed to get into any trouble, I returned with the policeman, who was now quite apologetic, to the house in Grafton Street. The door was locked. A constable standing by, however, told us that Osborne and Easterton had driven away together in a car—"his lordship's car, which his lordship had telephoned for," he said, and that "the two ladies had gone to the Ritz for tea"—he had heard them say, as they walked away, that they were going there.

Alone I followed them. I know my way about the Ritz as though I lived there, being there so often with friends, and I soon found Aunt Hannah and Dulcie. They were alone in a cosy private tea-room leading out of one of the large rooms which is but seldom used, having tea.

I saw Aunt Hannah stiffen as I approached. I saw too—and this disturbed me far more—that Dulcie had been weeping. Her eyes were still quite moist.

"What do you wish, Mr. Berrington?" Aunt Hannah inquired starchily, sitting bolt upright in her chair as I approached.

I detest the use of the word "wish" in place of "want"; I don't know why, but I always associate it with prim, prudish, highly-conventional old ladies.

"I have come to explain everything, and to set your mind at rest," I said, trying to speak lightly, and intentionally saying "mind" instead of "minds," for I did not want Dulcie to suppose that I thought she shared her aunt's grotesque belief in this matter—the belief that I actually had sent that hateful telegram.

"I hope you will succeed," Aunt Hannah observed, then shut her lips tightly.

She did not offer me a cup of tea, but I feigned not to notice this paltry affront, and proceeded briefly to relate what had just taken place at the post office. At last, when I had, as I thought, completely cleared my character, I stopped speaking. To my surprise the old lady remained as unbending as ever.

"I don't know why I've gone to the trouble of telling you all this," I said, hiding the mortification I felt, "but you see, at any rate, that I had an explanation to offer, though I grant you that at present it can only be a partial one. That is no fault of mine, however."

"'Partial'—yes, it certainly is that," muttered the old lady.

Aunt Hannah has small green eyes, and they seemed to snap. She still sat up stiffly, her entire aspect rigid.

"This," I thought, "is the limit. Decidedly the moment of battle has arrived"—indeed, the initial encounter had already taken place. I don't mind confessing that my spirit quailed—for an instant. Then, realizing that I was "up against it," my courage returned. My engagement to Dulcie hung in the balance. I must face the music.

Perhaps at first I overdid it, but something is to be conceded to nervousness. Aunt Hannah kept tapping her teaspoon against her saucer with nervous little taps. The constant "small noise" was very irritating. Determined to stop it, I leant suddenly forward across the little table, till my face was close to Aunt Hannah's. Anger boiled in my heart. Sympathy for Dulcie rose up and flooded my mind. Though I allowed my most charming "boudoir" smile to overspread my face, it was all I could do not to seize hold of that old lady and shake her. Inwardly I craved to grasp her lean wrists in a firm grip, and force her to listen to reason. "A dear" Dulcie had sometimes called her. "A dear" she might be when in a nice mood, but in the peevish vein she was now in, her obstinacy held a particularly maddening quality.

"You know," I said, still smiling hypocritically, "you are really trying to disbelieve me now. You are trying to make mischief between Dulcie and me—and you enjoy it," and I glanced in the direction of my darling, whose eyes were shining strangely. "Why don't you answer?" I went on, as Aunt Hannah remained silent; I could hear her gulping with rage. At last she spoke:

"What impudence—what unwarrantable impudence!" The words were shot from between her teeth. "You—you dare to speak to me like this—you—you—"

"After all, Miss Challoner," I cut in, "it's true. I no more sent that, or any telegram, to Dulcie than I am flying over the moon at this moment. And if you still disbelieve me, at least tell me why. Yes, I must know. Don't evade an answer. You have something else in your mind, I can see that, and I am not going to rest until I know what that something is."

"Oh, you very rude young man," she burst out. "Yes, you shall know what it is! If, as you say, the telegram was not sent by you—and I suppose I must believe you—why was it not sent to Sir Roland? Such a telegram should have been sent to him, and not to his daughter—if the stolen property had been found, it was for him to come to Town, or even for me to, but certainly it was not Dulcie's place to go gallivanting about in London. Now, I maintain it was sent to Dulcie because the sender knew Sir Roland to be away from home—and who, but you, knew him to be away? He left only yesterday, and he should return to-night. You knew because, so my niece tells me, she told you in a letter that he was to leave home for a day."

"My niece!" Really, Aunt Hannah was qualifying for opera bouffe! Just then she knocked her spoon so loudly against her cup that it startled me.

"Don't worry, Dulcie," I said, seeing how distressed she looked. "You believe I didn't send it, anyway—I don't mind what anybody else thinks," I added spitefully. "The mystery will be cleared up sooner or later, and 'he laughs longest ...' you know the rest. Only one thing I wonder," I ended, again facing Aunt Hannah, "if you thought that, why did you bring Dulcie up to town? Why didn't you leave her at Holt, and come up alone?"

"I will tell you why," she snapped back. "Because, wilful and disobedient as she has always been, she refused to stay at Holt and let me come up alone."

Dulcie looked at me without answering, and I read love and confidence in her eyes. That was all I really cared to know, and the look afforded me immense relief.

I felt there was no good purpose to be served by remaining there longer, so after shaking hands warmly with Dulcie—to the manifold disapproval of Aunt Hannah, who stared at me frigidly and barely even bowed as I took my leave—I sauntered out into Piccadilly.

My thoughts wandered. They were not, I must say, of the happiest. Obviously there was an enemy somewhere—it might be enemies. But who could it be? Why should I have, we have—for Dulcie suffered equally—an enemy? What reason could anyone have for wishing to make Dulcie, or me, or any of the Challoners, unhappy? Everybody I knew who knew them seemed to love them, particularly the tenantry. Sir Roland was looked up to and respected by both county people and villagers for miles around Holt Stacey, while Dulcie was literally adored by men and women alike, or so I believed. True, old Aunt Hannah sometimes put people out owing to her eccentricities and her irascible temper, but then they mostly looked upon her as a rather queer old lady, and made allowances for her, and she had not, I felt sure, an enemy in the country-side.

As for myself, well, I could not recollect ever doing any particularly bad turn—I had my likes and dislikes among the people I knew, naturally. Then suddenly a thought struck me—my engagement to Dulcie. Could that be—

I smiled as I dismissed the thought—it seemed too grotesque. No; once and for all I decided that the whole affair could have nothing to do with any kind of personal animosity. Criminals were at work, desperate criminals, perhaps, and Osborne and Dulcie and I had chanced to prove very useful as pawns in some scheme of theirs for securing plunder. I glanced at my watch. It was just five o'clock. Concluding that Jack Osborne must now be at his rooms, I drove to the Russell Hotel. Yes, he particularly wanted to see me; would I please go up at once, the clerk said when he had telephoned up my name and my inquiry if Mr. Osborne were at home to anybody.

Easterton was with him still; a doctor was on the point of leaving as I entered the room where Jack sat in his dressing-gown in a big chair, drinking a cup of soup. Already he looked better, I thought, than when I had seen him at the house in Grafton Street, barely two hours before.

After exchanging a few remarks with him, and being assured by Easterton that the doctor had said that Jack might now see anyone he pleased, I came straight to the question of the telegram, repeating to him almost word for word what I had told Aunt Hannah.

For nearly a minute after I had stopped speaking he did not utter. He appeared to be thinking deeply, judging by the way his brows were knit. Then, suddenly looking straight at me, he said:

"Mike, I don't like this business—I don't like it at all. There's something radically wrong about the whole thing. Now, look here, you know that when I say a thing I mean it. Therefore I tell you this—I am going to set to work, as soon as I have quite recovered from the nightmare I have been through, to discover what is happening. I am going to solve every detail of this mystery, and if there is some gang of scoundrels at work committing burglaries and what not—because I feel quite sure this affair is in some way connected with the robbery at Holt—I am going to get them convicted. The doctor tells me I shall be perfectly all right in a couple of days. I have nothing to do. You have nothing to do. Will you join me in this attempt I am going to make to track these men down? I hear it said that you are engaged to be married to Dulcie Challoner. If that's so, then you should be even more anxious than I am to get this gang arrested—the police say it must be a gang. They have looted some thousands of pounds' worth of jewellery which practically belonged to Dulcie Challoner. Think what it will mean to her if through your efforts all that is restored to her. Besides, she will think you a hero—I mean an even greater hero than she already considers you, most likely; I confess I don't agree with her, old man. You are a very good chap—but a hero? No. Say, then, will you help me in this search? It may prove exciting too; on the other hand, it may not."

Jack's breezy manner and almost boyish enthusiasm appealed to me. After all, I had, as he said, nothing on earth to do—I often wished I had—and I was rather keen on anything that might lead to or savour of adventure. Though I was engaged to Dulcie, there were family reasons why the marriage could not take place at once, and then I thought again of what Jack had just said about the stolen jewels—Dulcie was still greatly upset at their loss, and there was even the possibility, I thought with a smile, that if I were directly or indirectly responsible for their recovery Aunt Hannah might eventually deign again to smile upon me—which would, of course, give me great joy!

"Yes, old chap," I said, "I'll do anything you jolly well like. I'm sick of doing nothing."

"First rate!" he answered. "Then that's settled. I've all sorts of ideas and theories about the Holt Manor robbery and this affair of mine, and that telegram to-day, and other things that have happened—some you know about, some you don't. I have a friend who was for twenty years at Scotland Yard—George Preston, wonderful chap, knows London upside-down and inside-out, and now he's kicking his heels with nothing to do he'll be only too glad to earn a bit. You might ring him up for me now, and ask him to come here to-morrow."

Somebody knocked, and I went to the door, Jack having told me that he did not want to see anybody likely to bore him.

It was only an hotel messenger. The clerk in the office had tried to ring up the room, he said, but could get no answer. Turning, I saw that Jack had forgotten to replace the receiver the last time he had spoken.

"What do you want?" I asked.

The messenger said that a "young gentleman" had just called. He wanted to see "a Mr. Berrington" who was probably with Mr. Osborne.

"What about?" I said. "And didn't he give his name?"

"He wouldn't say what about, sir, though he was asked. He said it was 'most important.' He said to say 'Mr. Richard Challoner.'"

"Dick!" I exclaimed. "Good heavens, what is Dick doing up in London? Oh, go down," I said to the messenger, "and send him up at once."

"It's Dick Challoner," I said, turning to Osborne and Easterton, "Sir Roland's boy, the little chap I told you about who behaved so pluckily when the thieves at Holt got hold of him. I wonder what he's doing in town, and why he wants to see me."

Then I sat down, lit a cigarette, and waited. I little suspected what an amazing story I was about to hear.



CHAPTER IX

THE SNARE

Dick's face bore a broad grin as he entered the room. He looked dreadfully mischievous. Assuming as serious an expression as I could conjure, I said to him:

"Why, what's the meaning of this, Dick? How do you come to be in town? Are you with Aunt Hannah?"

"It's all right—brother-in-law," he answered lightly. "No, I am not with Aunt Hannah, nor is Aunt Hannah with me. I have come up on my own."

"'On your own'? What do you mean?"

"I'll tell you, but—won't you introduce me, Mike?"

"Easterton," I said, "this is Roland Challoner's boy, Dick. Jack, this is the boy I told you about who was chloroformed by the thieves at Holt."

Jack's eyes rested on Dick. Then he put out his hand.

"Come here, old chap," he said in his deep voice. For several moments he held Dick's hand in his while he sat looking at him.

"Yes," he said at last, "I have heard about you—Dick. I heard about what you did that day those men caught you. Keep that spirit up, my boy—your family has never lacked pluck, if history is to be trusted—and you'll become one of the kind of men England so badly needs. What are you doing in London? Is your father with you?"

"No, I have come up on my own," Dick repeated. "I am going to tell Mike why, in a moment. Are you Mr. Jack Osborne that Mike is always talking to my sister about, who took Mike to that house—the house where the fire was?"

"Yes, I am," Jack answered, laughing. "Why?"

"Oh, because my sister didn't like your taking Mike there, you know—she didn't like it a bit. She and Mike are going to be married, you know, and Mike is going to be my brother-in-law."

I pounced upon him to make him be quiet, though Easterton and Osborne clamoured that he should be left alone and allowed to say anything he liked, Jack declaring that he wanted to hear "more of this romance."

At last we all became serious, and then Dick said:

"I made a discovery this morning at Holt. There is someone hidden in the old hiding-hole close to father's bedroom."

"Hidden in it!" I exclaimed. "Oh, nonsense!"

"Your telegram to Dulcie arrived at about half-past ten this morning," he went on, not heeding my remark, "and she and Aunt Hannah at once got ready to go to town—I know what was in the telegram, because Dulcie told me. About an hour after they were gone, I happened to go up to father's bedroom to fetch something, and when I came out again I noticed an odd sound—at first I couldn't think where it came from. It was like someone breathing very heavily, someone asleep. I stood quite still, and soon I found that it came from the priests' hiding-hole—you know it, you have seen it. I went over on tip-toe, got into the angle where the opening to the hole is, and pressed my ear down on the sliding board. I could hear the sound quite well then—somebody breathing awfully heavily. First I thought of sliding back the board and peeping in. Then I decided I wouldn't do that until I'd got somebody else with me. I noticed that the sliding board was unbolted—there is a little bolt on the side of it, you know—so I very quietly pushed forward the bolt and then went downstairs to look for James or Charles—that's the butler and the footman, you know," he said to Jack. "Cook told me they had both gone into Newbury for the day, and of course father's chauffeur was out with the car—he had taken Aunt Hannah and Dulcie to Holt Stacey to catch the train to London, and I knew that he would take a day off too, because he always does when he gets the chance—father isn't expected back until to-night. So then I went to try to find Churchill, or one of the other gardeners—goodness knows where they were hiding themselves. Anyway, I couldn't find them, nor could I find either of the keepers; in fact, I seemed to be the only man on the place."

"Well, go on," I said, as he paused. "You were the only man on the place. What did the only 'man' do then?"

"I'll tell you if you'll wait a moment—my brother-in-law is always so beastly impatient," he said, turning again to Jack. "Don't you find him like that, Mr. Osborne?"

"I do—always. But go on, old boy, I'm very interested."

"And so am I," Easterton laughed.

"Of course, it was no use telling cook or the maids; they'd have got what cook calls 'styricks' or something, so then it suddenly struck me the best thing for me to do would be to come right up to town and find Aunt Hannah and tell her. I knew where she'd be, because you'd said in your telegram—four hundred and thirty Grafton Street. I didn't know where Grafton Street was, but I thought I could find out—I borrowed money from cook for the railway ticket, though I didn't tell her what I wanted it for, or she wouldn't have given it to me, and directly after lunch I bicycled to Holt Stacey station and caught the train.

"I got to Grafton Street all right by a 'bus down Bond Street. There was a policeman standing near the house in Grafton Street, and when I rang the bell he came up and asked me what I wanted. I told him, and he said he thought I'd find 'the two ladies I wanted' at the Ritz Hotel. I knew where that was, and he showed me the way to get to it, down Dover Street—of course, if I'd had money enough I'd have taken taxis and got about much quicker. A giant in livery at the Ritz Hotel told me that 'two ladies answering to the description of the ladies I sought' had left the hotel about a quarter of an hour before I got there, and he didn't know where they had gone. Then I went to Brooks's to see if you were there, but you weren't, though they said you'd been there. That put the lid on it. I didn't know what to do, and I'd only got tenpence ha'penny left. I was awfully hungry, so I went and had tea and buns at the A.B.C. shop at Piccadilly Circus. While I was having tea I remembered hearing you tell Dulcie that Mr. Osborne lived at the Russell Hotel. I'd have telephoned to Mr. Osborne and explained who I was and asked him if he could tell me where I could find you, and I'd have telephoned too to your flat in South Molton Street to ask if you were there, but I'd got only fivepence ha'penny left after tea, and you might both have been out and then I'd have had only a penny-ha'penny and Paddington seemed an awfully long way to walk to, and I wasn't quite sure of the way, so I'd have had to keep asking, and that's such a bore, isn't it?

"So after tea I got on to the tube and came here and asked for Mr. Osborne. The man downstairs told me 'two gentlemen were with him,' and I asked him what they were like. He told me as well as he could, and I guessed from the description one of them must be you, and then just after the messenger had come up to ask if it was you and to tell you I was there, another hotel man turned up downstairs, and I talked to him, and he said he knew a Mr. Berrington was with Mr. Osborne because he, the man, had telephoned up your name a little while before, and Mr. Osborne had said to show you up. And so here I am, and that's all."

He stopped abruptly, breathless after his long talk, which had been delivered without an instant's pause.

"For your age you seem fairly intelligent," Jack said, with a look of amusement.

"Yes, fairly," Dick retorted. "But my brother-in-law says that 'when he was my age' the world was a much better and finer place, that the boys did wonderful things—'when he was my age.' He says, for instance, that he talked Latin and Greek and German and French and one or two other languages just as you talk English, Mr. Osborne, 'when he was my age'— funny how he has forgotten them all, isn't it? My sister told me only yesterday that Mike talks French fluently, but that his German 'leaves much to be desired.' Those were her words. Were all the boys wonderful when you were my age too, Mr. Osborne, can you remember? Another thing Mike says is that 'when he was my age' all boys were taught to swim by being taken to the ends of piers and flung into the sea—Mike says he was taught like that just as the rest were, and that he jolly well had to swim or he'd have been drowned, which seems pretty obvious, doesn't it, when you come to think of it? When did the fashion of teaching boys to swim like that go out, Mr. Osborne? I'm jolly glad it has gone out."

When I had succeeded in checking Dick's flow of talk and quelling his high spirits, and had questioned him further with regard to the man he declared to be in hiding at Holt—though without my being able to obtain from him any further information—I turned to Jack.

"What do you make of it?" I said. "What do you suggest ought to be done?"

"I think," he answered after a moment's pause, "that it affords an excellent excuse for you to run down to Holt to-night."

"Oh, good!" Dick exclaimed, jumping with excitement. "And there's a train at a quarter to seven that we can catch; it gets to Holt Stacey at five minutes to eight."

Jack glanced up at the clock.

"In three quarters of an hour's time," he said. "That will suit you, Mike, and you'll be glad, I know, of the excuse to go down to Holt to see the flowers and—and things. Don't think I suppose for a moment that you want to see either Dulcie Challoner or the old lady you call 'Aunt Hannah,' but still if you should see them, and of course you will—"

"Oh, he'll see them right enough," Dick burst out, "especially my sister. There aren't any flies on my brother-in-law, you bet!"

I boxed Dick's ears, but he didn't seem to mind. Perhaps I didn't box them very hard, for instead of howling as he ought to have done, he looked up at me sharply and exclaimed:

"Then you're coming down to Holt now! Hooray! We'll go down together—how ripping! I'll telephone to say you're coming, and say to get your room ready," and he sprang across to the instrument by the bedside.

I stopped him, gripping him by the shoulder, though not before he had pulled off the receiver and called through to the operator—"Trunks, please!"

"You'll do nothing of the sort," I said, "and look here, Dick, you are in Mr. Osborne's rooms, and not in your own play-room, so don't forget it."

I felt greatly preoccupied as the train sped down to Berkshire—anxious, too, about many things, not the least of these being how I should be received. Would Sir Roland have returned? Would Aunt Hannah have told him everything? If so would he have adopted her view with regard to the sending of that telegram, and with regard to other matters? And Dulcie, would she at last have come to think as Aunt Hannah thought? I could not believe she would have, but still—

As I have said, women are so extraordinary, that there is no knowing what they may not do, no accounting for what they may do.

Knowing there would be no conveyance obtainable at Holt Stacey, I had decided to go on to Newbury. On our alighting at Newbury I suddenly heard Dick's shrill voice calling:

"Why, Mike, there's father!"

Sir Roland had just got out of a compartment further up the train, and soon we were in conversation. He too had come from London, but whereas Dick and I had only just caught the train, Sir Roland had, he said, entered it as soon as it came into the station, which accounted for our not having seen him at Paddington. As we walked along the Newbury platform I explained to him very briefly the reason I had come down, and how it was I had Dick with me, inwardly congratulating myself upon my good fortune in thus meeting Sir Roland and so being able to explain everything to him concerning what had happened that day, before he should meet his sister and hear what she would tell him.

"It was only at the last moment I decided to come by this train," Sir Roland said as he entered the taxi that a porter had hailed, and I followed him, while Dick hopped in after us. "How tiresome it is one can't get a conveyance at Holt Stacey; people are for ever complaining to me about it. As I have not telegraphed for the car to meet me I had to come on to Newbury."

"I came to Newbury for the same reason," I said; and then, as the taxi rolled swiftly along the dark lanes, for we had a twelve miles' run before us, I gave Sir Roland a detailed account of all that had happened that day, from the time Easterton had rung me up at my flat to tell me of Jack Osborne's disappearance and to ask me to come to him at once, down to the sudden and unexpected arrival of Dick at Jack's rooms at the Russell Hotel.

Sir Roland was astounded, and a good deal perturbed. Several times during the course of my narrative he had interrupted in order to put some question or other to Dick. At first he had reproved him for going to London on what Dick called "his own"; but when I told him more he admitted that what the boy had done he had done probably for the best.

"Oh, I haven't told you one thing," Dick suddenly interrupted.

"Well, what?" Sir Roland asked.

"While I was on my way to Holt Stacey this morning, Mrs. Stapleton passed me in her car. I was on that part of the road, about a mile from the lodge, where if you look round you can see a long bit of the avenue. I wondered if Mrs. Stapleton were going to Holt by any chance, so I bicycled rather slowly for a minute or two, and looked round once or twice. I had guessed right, because all at once I saw her car going up the avenue."

"Are you sure it was Mrs. Stapleton?" I asked, suddenly interested.

"Oh, quite. But I don't think she saw me, her car went by so fast."

"Was anybody with her?"

"No, she was alone—the chauffeur was driving."

"And the car that went up the drive, are you sure it was the same?"

"Positive—that long grey car of hers, I'd know it anywhere; you can recognize it ever so far away."

We were half a mile from the lodge, now. Soon we had shot through the open gates, and were sliding up the splendid avenue. I felt intensely excited, also happier than when in the train, for I knew I now possessed Sir Roland's entire confidence. Delicious was it to think that in a few minutes I should see Dulcie again, but what excited me—and I knew it must be exciting Sir Roland too—was the thought of that man—or would it prove to be a woman?—lying concealed in the hiding-hole. Who could he be? How long had he been there? How had he got there and what could he be doing?

I had told Sir Roland of the false conclusion Aunt Hannah had come to with regard to the sending of that typed telegram, and how bitterly she had spoken to me about it—I had thought it best to prepare him for the absurd story that I felt sure Aunt Hannah would proceed to pour into his ear directly she met him. To my relief he had laughed, appearing to treat the matter of her annoyance and suspicion as a joke, though the sending of the telegram he looked upon, naturally, as a very grave matter. Consequently, upon our arrival at Holt, instead of inquiring for his sister, and at once consulting her upon the subject of the day's events, as he would, I knew, have done under ordinary circumstances, he told Charles, the footman, to send the butler to him at once, and to return with him.

We were now in the little library—Sir Roland and myself, Dick, the butler and the footman, and the door was shut. Without any preliminaries Sir Roland came straight to the point. He told the two servants of Dick's discovery that morning, told them that presumably the man was still in hiding where Dick had bolted him down, and that the four of us were at once going, as he put it, "to unearth the scoundrel."

"And you will stay here, Dick," Sir Roland added. "We shall not need your services at this juncture."

Dick was, I could see, deeply disappointed at, as he put it to me in an undertone, "being side-tracked like this by the guv'nor when it was I who marked the beggar to ground "; but his father's word was law, and he knew it.

"Never mind, my dear old chap," I said, as I noticed a slight quiver of the under lip, "directly we've unearthed him and got him safely bagged I'll come and tell you what he looks like and all about him. You see, your father doesn't want to run unnecessary risk—you're the only boy he's got, and this man may be armed. You would be annoyed if the fellow were to make holes in you, and I should be vexed too; greatly vexed."

Dick laughed at that, and when, a minute later, we left him, he was happier in his mind.

No sound was audible as we stood above the priests' hole, listening intently. This hiding-place was oddly situated, and ingeniously constructed. In an angle formed by two walls with old oak wainscoting was a sliding floor—in reality it was a single board, but it was made to resemble so exactly several boards set parallel and horizontally that none could believe it to be a single board unless they were shown. Immediately beneath was a room, or closet, not much bigger than a very large cupboard, which could accommodate three men standing, or two seated. In olden days this sliding board was covered with tapestry, and being made in such a way that, when stamped upon or struck, no hollow sound was emitted, it formed a safe place of concealment for any outlawed person for whom the emissaries of the law might be in search. To this day the board slides away into the wall as "sweetly" as it did in the days of the Reformation; but Sir Roland, owing to an accident having once occurred through someone leaving the hole uncovered, had affixed a small bolt to the board and given orders that this bolt should always be kept pushed into its socket.

When we had all stood listening for fully a minute, Sir Roland said suddenly:

"Charles, draw the bolt and slide back the board—get back, James!" he exclaimed sharply to the butler, who in his anxiety to see what would be revealed was bending forward.

"D'you want to be shot? Whoever the man may be he is pretty sure to be armed."

An instant later the board had vanished into the wall, and Sir Roland stood peering down exactly as he had warned his butler not to do.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed.

Casting prudence aside, we all pressed forward and looked down into the hole. Huddled in a heap at the bottom was a man in hunting kit—white breeches, top boots and "pink" coat. Sitting along the floor, he was bent almost double, so that we could not see his face.

"Hello!" Sir Roland called out, "who are you? What are you doing there?"

But the figure didn't move.

At one end of the hiding-hole a ladder was nailed vertically. The feet of the man touched its lowest rung. Turning, Sir Roland began carefully to descend.

"Let me, sir!" the butler exclaimed excitedly, "let me—it's not safe—he may attack you, sir!"

Without answering Sir Roland continued to clamber down. Now he stood upon the floor of the hiding-hole, at the foot of the figure. We saw him stoop, raise the man's head, and bend the body upward until the back rested against the other end of the hole.

An exclamation escaped us simultaneously. The face was that of a man of twenty-seven or so, though the stubbly beard and moustache, apparently a week's growth or more, at first gave the idea that he was much older. The eyes were closed and sunken. The mouth gaped. The face was deathly pale and terribly emaciated.

"By Gad!" gasped Sir Roland, as he took hold of the wrist and felt for the pulse. "My Gad, I think he's dead!"



CHAPTER X

NARRATES A CONFESSION

Half an hour later the man found in the hiding-hole lay upon a bed in one of the spare rooms.

Though not dead, he had, when discovered, been in the last stage of exhaustion. The doctor telephoned for had at once discovered that what we already suspected was true—the man's left ankle was very badly sprained. It must, he said, have been sprained ten or twelve days previously. In addition, the man was almost like a skeleton.

"You found him not an hour too soon," the doctor said when, after completing his diagnosis, and giving instructions concerning the treatment of his patient to the nurse who had just arrived, he rejoined us in the smoking-room downstairs. "He is in a state of complete collapse. For days he has evidently not touched food."

He looked at us in turn with an odd expression as he said this. He was clearly mystified at finding a man at Holt Manor dying of starvation—a starving man dressed for the chase, a man obviously of refinement, and undoubtedly to be described as a gentleman.

Sir Roland decided under the circumstances to tell the doctor everything: how the man's presence had been discovered by Dick, how we had afterwards found him lying upon the floor of the hiding-hole, apparently dead, and how, with the help of ropes, we had finally pulled him out. The doctor had, of course, heard of the robbery at Holt nearly a fortnight before, and he at once put two and two together.

For two days the stranger quivered between life and death. Two nurses were in constant attendance, and the doctor called frequently. It was on the afternoon of the third day that he expressed a desire to talk to Sir Roland; he had, until then, been allowed to speak only a word or two.

He wanted, he said, "to speak with Sir Roland alone"; but to this Sir Roland would not agree.

"If you want to speak to me, you can speak quite freely before this gentleman," he said; I was in the room at the time.

At first the man seemed distressed, but at last, finding that Sir Roland would make no concession, he said in a weak voice:

"I'm dying, Sir Roland, I feel it, and before I go there are things I should like to say to you—things that it may be to your advantage to hear."

His voice, I noticed, had in it the timbre peculiar to the voices of men of education.

"Say anything you like," Sir Roland answered coldly.

"You have been exceedingly kind to me: there are men who, finding me in concealment as you found me, and after what has happened in this house, would at once have called in the police. You may believe me or not, but I am extremely grateful to you. And I want to show my gratitude in the only way I can."

He paused for nearly a minute, then continued:

"Sir Roland, I will tell you as much as I am justified in telling about the robbery; but first, has anybody concerned in it been arrested?"

Sir Roland shook his head.

"Nobody—as yet," he answered. "The police have not discovered even the smallest clue."

"I and another were in your bedroom when your son suddenly sprang from behind the screen," the stranger went on. "Again you may believe me or not, but I tried to prevent my companion from doing him any injury. It was I who put the chloroform on the boy, but I did him no other harm, I swear, sir."

I saw Sir Roland's eyes blaze. Then, as his glance rested upon the stranger's starved, almost ashen face—it seemed to be gradually growing livid—the sternness of his expression relaxed.

"How came you to be in hiding here?" he asked abruptly. "How many accomplices had you?"

"Seven," the stranger replied, without an instant's hesitation. "The robbery was carefully planned; it was planned so carefully that it seemed without the bounds of possibility that it could fail to succeed. I and others were at your hunt breakfast—"

"Were your accomplices all men?" I interrupted sharply.

The man's stare met mine. He looked at me with, I thought, singular malevolence.

"They were not," he answered quietly. He turned again to Sir Roland. "Just after your son had been rendered unconscious, I had the misfortune to slip up on the polished floor and sprain my ankle badly. No sooner did my companion realize what had happened, than he snatched from me all the stolen property I held, in spite of my endeavour to prevent him, then emptied my pockets, and left me. Dismayed at being thus deserted—for unless I could hide at once I must, I knew, quickly be discovered—I crawled out of the room on all fours, and along the landing as far as the angle where the hiding-place is. The hole was open—we had opened it before entering your room, lest we might be surprised and suddenly forced to hide. Almost as I reached it I heard somebody coming. Instantly I scrambled down and slid the board over my head."

"How came you to know of the existence and the whereabouts of the hiding-hole at all?" Sir Roland inquired, eyeing the stranger suspiciously.

"That I do not wish to tell. I hoped ultimately to be rescued by my accomplices, and for that reason I made no sound which might have revealed my presence. My ankle had swollen considerably, and, confined in my riding-boot, which I couldn't pull off, it gave me intense pain. To clamber out unaided was consequently an impossibility; so there I lay, slowly starving, hoping, night after night, that my accomplices would force an entrance into the house and rescue me, for my companion who left me must have guessed where I was in hiding—we had agreed, as I have said, to seek concealment in that hole should either of us be driven to hide in order to escape detection."

"Was the man who deserted you the man who deliberately strained my boy's arm by twisting it?" Sir Roland asked.

"Yes."

"What is his name?"

"Gastrell—Hugesson Gastrell, that's the name the brute is known by. He always was a blackguard—a perisher! I shall refuse to betray any of the others; they are my friends. But Hugesson Gastrell—don't forget that name, Sir Roland. You may some day be very glad I told it to you—the man of The Four Faces!"

He paused. He seemed suddenly to be growing weaker. As we sat there, watching him, I could not help in a sense feeling pity for the fellow, and I knew that Sir Roland felt the same. It seemed terrible to find a man like this, quite young—he was certainly under thirty—a man with the unmistakable cachet of public school and university, engaged in a career of infamy. What was his life's story I wondered as I looked at him, noting how refined his features were, what well-shaped hands he had. Why had he sunk so low? Above all, who was he? for certainly he was no ordinary malefactor.

Suddenly he turned on to his back, wincing with pain as he did so; he had been lying partly on his side.

"I can't betray my friends, Sir Roland," he murmured, "but believe me when I say I am deeply grateful for your kindness to me. I was not always what I am now, you know," his voice grew weaker still; "not always an adventurer—a criminal if you will. Yes, I am a criminal, and have been for many years; unconvicted as yet, but none the less a criminal. I was once what you are, Sir Roland; I took pride in being a gentleman and in calling myself one. Educated at Marlborough and at Trinity—but why should I bore you with my story—eh, Sir Roland? Why should I bore you with, with—ah! The Four Faces! The Four Faces!" he repeated.

His eyes rolled strangely, then looked dully up at the ceiling. What did he mean by "The Four Faces"? Did he refer to the medallion worn by Gastrell? His mind was beginning to wander. He muttered and murmured for a minute, then again his words became articulate.

"Jasmine—oh, Jasmine my darling, I love you so!"

I started.

"Jasmine, if only you would ... oh, yes, that is all I ask, all I want, my darling woman, all I ... you remember it all, don't you? ... yes ... oh, it was her fault ... he wouldn't otherwise have killed her ... oh, no, discovery is impossible, the ... it was quite unrecognizable.... The Four Faces—ha! ha! ... I myself saw it, black, charred beyond all hope of recognition ... he did right to ... dear, I should have done the same...."

Between these scraps of sentences were words impossible to catch the meaning of, so indistinctly were they uttered, some being said beneath his breath, some muttered and inarticulate, some little more than murmurings.

He moved restlessly on the bed. Then his eyes slowly closed, and for a minute he lay still. And then, all at once, he seemed to spring back into life.

"Mother!" he shouted suddenly in quite a strong voice.

He started up in bed, and now sat erect and still, his wide-stretched eyes staring straight before him.

The nurse had, at Sir Roland's request, left the room before the stranger had begun to speak to him. Now, opening the door quickly, Sir Roland called to her to return.

The stranger's eyes were fixed. Motionless he sat there glaring, as it seemed to us, at some figure facing him. Instinctively we followed the direction of his gaze, but naught was visible to us save the artistic pattern upon the pink-tinted wall-paper opposite the foot of the bed.

His lips were slightly parted, now. We saw them move as though he spoke rapidly, but no words came. And then, all at once, he smiled.

"The Four Faces!" he repeated, almost inaudibly.

It was not a vacant smile, not the smile of a man mentally deficient, but a smile charged with meaning, with intelligent expression; a smile of delight, of greeting—a smile full of love. It was the first time we had seen a smile, or anything approaching one, upon his face, and in an instant it revealed how handsome the man had been.

"Mother!"

This time the word was only murmured, a murmur so low as to be barely audible. The fellow's pyjama jacket, one Sir Roland Challoner had lent to him, had become unfastened at the throat, and now I noticed that a thin gold chain was round his neck, and that from it there depended a flat, circular locket.

Sir Roland was seated close beside the bed. Almost as I noticed this locket, he saw it too. I saw him bend forward a little, and take it in his fingers, and turn it over. I could see it distinctly from where I sat. Upon the reverse side was a miniature—the portrait of a woman—a woman of forty-five or so, very beautiful still, a striking face of singular refinement. Yes, there could be no doubt whatever—the eyes of the miniature bore a striking likeness to the stranger's, which now gazed at nothing with that fixed, unmeaning stare.

I had noticed Sir Roland raised his eyebrows. Now he sat staring intently at the miniature which lay flat upon the palm on his hand. At last he let it drop and turned to me, while the stranger still sat upright in the bed, gazing still at something he seemed to see before him.

"I believe I have discovered his identity," Sir Roland whispered. "I recognize the portrait in that locket; I couldn't possibly mistake it seeing that years ago I knew the original well. It's a miniature of Lady Logan, who died some years ago. Her husband, Lord Logan, was a gambler, a spendthrift, and a drunkard, and he treated her with abominable cruelty. They had one child, a son. I remember the son sitting on my knee when he was quite a little chap—he couldn't at that time have been more than five or six. He went to Marlborough, I know; then crammed for the army, but failed to pass; and yet he was undoubtedly clever. His father became infuriated upon hearing that he had not qualified, and, in a fit of drunkenness, turned him with curses out of the house, forbidding him ever to return, in spite of Lady Logan's pleading on the lad's behalf. The lad had from infancy been passionately devoted to his mother, though he couldn't bear his father. The mother died soon afterwards—of a broken heart it was said—and Lord Logan survived her only a few months, dying eventually of delirium tremens. Upon his death the little money he left was swallowed up in paying his debts. The son, whose name was Harold, didn't show up even at the funerals—none knew where he was or what had become of him. It was generally believed that he had gone abroad, and Logan's executors thought it probable that the son had not had news of either his mother's or his father's death. Altogether it was a very sad story and—"

He checked himself, for the stranger had turned his head and was looking at us—never shall I forget the infinite pathos of his expression at that moment. There was something in the face which betrayed misery and dejection so abject that for days afterwards the look haunted me. Again I saw the lips move, but no sound came.

He had sunk back upon his pillows. Once more his eyes gazed fixedly at the ceiling. Some moments later the mouth gaped, the lips turned slowly blue, a dull, leaden hue spread over the pale features.

The nurse hurried forward, but there was nothing to be done. Harold Logan, Lord Logan's wastrel son, was dead.



CHAPTER XI

CONCERNS MRS. STAPLETON

Ten days had passed since the events I have set down in the previous chapter, and still no clue of any kind had been obtained to the robbers at Holt, or the perpetrators of the outrage at the house in Grafton Street. Nor, indeed, had any light been thrown upon the mystery of the forged telegram, while the incident of the discovery of the charred body of a murdered woman among the debris of the house in Maresfield Gardens destroyed by fire on Christmas Eve had, to all intents, been entirely forgotten.

In the firelight in a small room leading out of the large library, Dulcie and I sat and talked. Perched on the broad arm of a giant padded chair, swinging her small, grey-spatted feet to and fro, she glanced at me moodily, replying in monosyllables to most of my remarks. Presently I rose with a gesture of annoyance, and began to pace the floor.

It was not a comfortable atmosphere by any means—metaphorically. In point of fact, Dulcie and I quarrelled.

We had quarrelled during our afternoon walk over the hard-frozen snow to a neighbouring hamlet to take a deserving widow a can of soup, and old "Captain" Barnacle in Wheatsheaf Lane a promising Christmas pudding.

The cause of our quarrel was a curious one. Though Aunt Hannah appeared to have overcome her belief concerning the telegram she had felt so certain I had sent, I felt that she was now prejudiced against me—why, heaven only knew. Her manner towards me, as well as her expression, and the way she spoke to me, all betrayed this. Women dislike being proved to be in the wrong even more than men do, and the conclusion I had come to was that Aunt Hannah would never forgive my having, in a sense, made her eat her words and look ridiculous. It was on the subject of Aunt Hannah, then, that Dulcie and I had begun our quarrel, for Dulcie had stood up for her when I condemned her—that I condemned her rather bitterly, I admit. From that we had presently come to talk of Mrs. Stapleton, for whom Dulcie had suddenly developed a most extraordinary infatuation.

On the morning that Dick, on his way to the station, had passed Mrs. Stapleton in her car, Mrs. Stapleton had called at Holt and asked to see Dulcie. At that moment Dulcie was in the train with Aunt Hannah, on her way to London in response to the telegram. The widow had then asked to see Aunt Hannah Challoner, and then Sir Roland.

Upon hearing that all three were absent from home, she had asked if she might come into the house to write a note to Dulcie, and the maid who had opened the door to her—the butler and footman having, as we know, gone into Newbury—had politely but firmly refused to admit her, declaring that she had orders to admit nobody whomsoever.

This refusal had apparently annoyed Mrs. Stapleton a good deal, and on the same evening she had called again, and again asked to see Dulcie, who by that time had returned. It was while she was alone with Dulcie in her boudoir that Sir Roland and Dick and I had returned to Holt, and that the stranger—whom we now knew to have been Lord Logan's son—had been discovered in the hiding-hole. Mrs. Stapleton had remained with Dulcie over an hour, and during that hour it was that she had apparently cast the spell of her personality over Dulcie. It was on the subject of this infatuation of Dulcie's that Dulcie and I had ended by quarrelling rather seriously.

"I won't hear a word said against her," Dulcie suddenly declared impetuously, kicking her heel viciously against the chair. "I think she is the most fascinating woman I have ever met, and the more you abuse her the more I shall stand up for her—so there."

"Abuse her!" I answered irritably. "When did I abuse her? Repeat one word of abuse that I have uttered against her. You know quite well that I haven't said a syllable that you can twist into abuse. All I have said is that I mistrust her, and that I think it a pity you should for ever be metaphorically sitting on her skirts, as you have been during the past few days."

"And you don't call that abuse?" Dulcie retorted. "Then tell me what you do call it."

"I myself like Mrs. Stapleton up to a point," I answered, evading the question. "She is capital company and all that, but—"

"But what?" Dulcie asked quickly, as I hesitated.

"But who is she? And where does she come from? How is it that nobody about here, and apparently nobody in town either, knows anything at all about her? Such an attractive-looking woman, young, apparently well off, and a widow—surely somebody ought to know something or other about her if she is quite—well, quite all right. It's most singular that she shouldn't have any friends at all among our rather large circle of acquaintance."

"I shall tell her just what you have said about her," Dulcie exclaimed quite hotly. "I never thought you were that kind, Michael—never. You pride yourself upon being broadminded—you have often told me so—and yet because Tom, Dick and Harry don't know all about poor Mrs. Stapleton—who her husband was, who her parents were, and where she comes from—you immediately become suspicious, and begin to wonder all sorts of horrid things about her."

"My dear Dulcie," I said, becoming suddenly quite calm, so anxious was I to soothe her at any cost, for I hated our falling out like this, "you put words into my mouth I never spoke, and thoughts into my mind which never occurred to me. I have said only one thing, and I shall say it again. I mistrust Mrs. Stapleton, and I advise you to be on your guard against her."

The door opened at that moment, and Charles, entering, announced:

"Mrs. Stapleton."

"Oh, Connie, how glad I am you've come!" Dulcie burst out, jumping off the arm of the big chair impetuously, and hurrying forward to meet the widow, who at once embraced her affectionately. "We were just this instant talking about you. Isn't that strange?"

"And I hope not saying nasty things, as I have reason to believe some of my 'friends' do," Mrs. Stapleton answered, with a charming smile, casting a careless glance at me. "But, of course, I couldn't imagine you or Mr. Berrington saying anything unpleasant about anybody," she added quickly; "you are both much—much too nice."

This was heaping coals of fire upon me, and I believe I winced as Dulcie's eyes met mine for a brief instant and I noticed the look of scorn that was in them. She did not, however, repeat to Mrs. Stapleton what I had just said about her, as she had threatened to do. Instead, she slipped her arm affectionately through the young widow's, led her over to the big arm-chair, made her sit down in it, and once more perched herself upon its arm.

"Ring for tea, Mike, like a dear," she said to me. Her tone had completely changed. Once more she had become her own, delightful self. This sudden volte-face did not, I must admit, in the least surprise me, for I knew what a child of moods she was, how impulsive and impetuous, and I think I loved her the more because she was like that.

We now formed, indeed, quite a merry trio. By the time tea was finished Connie Stapleton's magnetic personality must, I think, have begun to affect me to some extent, for I found myself wondering whether, after all, I had not been mistaken in the opinion I had formed that she was a woman one would be well-advised not to trust too implicitly—become too intimate with.

"And your jewels, dear!" she suddenly asked, as though the recollection of the robbery had but at that instant occurred to her. "Have you recovered any of them? Have the police found any clue?"

"Yes," Dulcie answered at once, "the police have a clue, though, as yet, none of the stolen things have been recovered."

"Indeed?" I exclaimed. "Why, Dulcie, you never told me. What is it? What is the clue?"

"I forgot to tell you; at least, I should have told you, but you've been so snappy all the afternoon that I thought there was no need," Dulcie answered equivocally. "Well, the clue is merely this. When Churchill—that's the head gardener, you know," she said to Mrs. Stapleton—"was sweeping away the snow in the drive at the back of the house, that narrow drive which leads down to the lane that joins the main road to Newbury, just by Stag's Leap, he saw something shining on the ground. He picked it up and found it was a buckle, set in diamonds, as he thought, so when he brought it to me of course he was tremendously excited—he made sure it was one of the stolen bits of jewellery. As a matter of fact, it was one of a set of very old paste buckles which belonged to my mother, and those buckles were among the stolen things."

"When did he find it?" Mrs. Stapleton asked, interested.

"Why, only a few hours ago—it was just after lunch when he came to me, and he had then only just found it. You see, the ground has been covered with snow ever since the day of the robbery; that was the last day we hunted."

"Did the gardener say anything else? Has he any theory to account for the buckle being there?"

Again it was Mrs. Stapleton who put the question.

"None, Connie," Dulcie answered. "At least, yes," she corrected, "he has a sort of theory, but I don't think much of it. That narrow drive is rarely used, you know; the gate into the lane is nearly always locked—it was unlocked and the gate set open the day the hounds met here in order to save people coming from the direction of Stag's Leap the trouble of going round by the lodge. I don't think, all the same, that many people came in that way."