Penelope nodded her head thoughtfully.

"You are destroying all my illusions, Mr. Coulson," she said. "Do you know that I was building up quite a romance about poor Mr. Fynes' life? It seemed to me that he must have enemies; that there must have been something in his life, or his manner of living, which accounted for such a terrible crime."

"Why, sure not!" Mr. Coulson declared heartily. "It was a cleverly worked job, but there was no mystery about it. Some chap went for him because he got riding about like a millionaire. A more unromantic figure than Hamilton Fynes never breathed. Call him a crank and you've finished with him."

Penelope sighed once more and looked at the tips of her patent shoes.

"It has been so kind of you," she murmured, "to talk to us. And yet, do you know, I am a little disappointed. I was hoping that you might have been able to tell us something more about the poor fellow."

"He was no talker," Mr. Coulson declared. "It was little enough he had to say to me, and less to any one else."

"It seems strange," she remarked innocently, "that he should have been so shy. He didn't strike me that way when I knew him at home in Massachusetts, you know. He travelled about so much in later years, too, didn't he?"

Penelope's eyes were suddenly upraised. For the first time Mr. Coulson's ready answers failed him. Not a muscle of his face moved under the girl's scrutiny, but he hesitated for a short time before he answered her.

"Not that I know of," he said at length. "No, I shouldn't have called him much of a traveller."

Penelope rose to her feet and held out her hand.

"It has been very nice indeed of you to see us, Mr. Coulson," she said, "especially after all these other people have been bothering you. Of course, I am sorry that you haven't anything more to tell us than we knew already. Still, I felt that I couldn't rest until we had been."

"It's a sad affair, anyhow," Mr. Coulson declared, walking with them to the door. "Don't you get worrying your head, young lady, though, with any notion of his having had enemies, or anything of that sort. The poor fellow was no hero of romance. I don't fancy even your halfpenny papers could drag any out of his life. It was just a commonplace robbery, with a bad ending for poor Fynes. Good evening, miss! Good night, sir! Glad to have met you, Sir Charles."

Mr. Coulson's two visitors left and got into a small electric brougham which was waiting for them. Mr. Coulson himself watched them drive off and glanced at the clock. It was already a quarter past six. He went into the cafe and ordered a light dinner, which he consumed with much obvious enjoyment. Then he lit a cigar and went into the smoking room. Selecting a pile of newspapers, he drew up an easy chair to the fire and made himself comfortable.

"Seems to me I may have a longish wait," he said to himself.

As a matter of fact, he was disappointed. At precisely seven o'clock, Mr. Richard Vanderpole strolled into the room and, after a casual glance around, approached his chair and touched him on the shoulder. In his evening clothes the newcomer was no longer obtrusively American. He was dressed in severely English fashion, from the cut of his white waistcoat to the admirable poise of his white tie. He smiled as he patted Coulson upon the shoulder.

"This is Mr. Coulson, I'm sure," he declared,—"Mr. James B. Coulson from New York?"

"You're dead right," Mr. Coulson admitted, laying down his newspaper and favoring his visitor with a quick upward glance.

"This is great!" the young man continued. "Just off the boat, eh? Well, I am glad to see you,—very glad indeed to make your acquaintance, I should say."

Mr. Coulson replied in similar terms. A waiter who was passing through the room hesitated, for it was a greeting which generally ended in a summons for him.

"What shall it be?" the newcomer asked.

"I've just taken dinner," Mr. Coulson said. "Coffee and cognac'll do me all right."

"And a Martini cocktail for me," the young man ordered. "I am dining down in the restaurant with some friends later on. Come over to this corner, Mr. Coulson. Why, you're looking first-rate. Great boat, the Lusitania, isn't she? What sort of a trip did you have?"

So they talked till the drinks had been brought and paid for, till another little party had quitted the room and they sat in their lonely corner, secure from observation or from any possibility of eavesdropping. Then Mr. Richard Vanderpole leaned forward in his chair and dropped his voice.

"Coulson," he said, "the chief is anxious. We don't understand this affair. Do you know anything?"

"Not a d——d thing!" Coulson answered.

"Were you shadowed on the boat?" the young man asked.

"Not to my knowledge," Coulson answered. "Fynes was in his stateroom six hours before we started. I can't make head nor tail of it."

"He had the papers, of course?"

"Sewn in the lining of his coat," Coulson muttered. "You read about that in tonight's papers. The lining was torn and the space empty. He had them all right when he left the steamer."

The young man looked around; the room was still empty.

"I'm fresh in this," he said. "I got some information this afternoon, and the chief sent me over to see you on account of it. We had better not discuss possibilities, I suppose? The thing's too big. The chief's almost off his head. Is there any chance, do you think, Coulson, that this was an ordinary robbery? I am not sure that the special train wasn't a mistake."

"None whatever," Coulson declared.

"How do you know?" his companion asked quickly.

"Well, I've lied to those reporters and chaps," Coulson admitted,—"lied with a purpose, of course, as you people can understand. The money found upon Fynes was every penny he had when he left Liverpool."

The young man set his teeth.

"It's something to know this, at any rate," he declared. "You did right, Coulson, to put up that bluff. Now about the duplicates?"

"They are in my suitcase," Coulson answered, "and according to the way things are going, I shan't be over sorry to get rid of them. Will you take them with you?"

"Why, sure!" Vanderpole answered. "That's what I'm here for."

"You had better wait right here, then," Coulson said, "I'll fetch them."

He made his way up to his room, undid his dressing bag, which was fastened only with an ordinary lock, and from between two shirts drew out a small folded packet, no bigger than an ordinary letter. It was a curious circumstance that he used only one hand for the search and with the other gripped the butt of a small revolver. There was no one around, however, nor was he disturbed in any way. In a few minutes he returned to the bar smoking room, where the young man was still waiting, and handed him the letter.

"Tell me," the latter asked, "have you been shadowed at all?"

"Not that I know of," Coulson answered.

"Men with quick instincts," Vanderpole continued, "can always tell when they are being watched. Have you felt anything of the sort?"

Coulson hesitated for one moment.

"No," he said. "I had a caller whose manner I did not quite understand. She seemed to have something at the back of her head about me."

"She! Was it a woman?" the young man asked quickly.

Coulson nodded.

"A young lady," he said,—"Miss Penelope Morse, she called herself."

Mr. Richard Vanderpole stood quite still for a moment.

"Ah!" he said softly. "She might have been interested."

"Does the chief want me at all?" Coulson asked.

"No!" Vanderpole answered. "Go about your business as usual. Leave here for Paris, say, in ten days. There will probably be a letter for you at the Grand Hotel by that time."

They walked together toward the main exit. The young man's face had lost some of its grimness. Once more his features wore that look of pleasant and genial good-fellowship which seems characteristic of his race after business hours.

"Say, Mr. Coulson," he declared, as they passed across the hall, "you and I must have a night together. This isn't New York, by any manner of means, or Paris, but there's some fun to be had here, in a quiet way. I'll phone you tomorrow or the day after."

"Sure!" Mr. Coulson declared. "I'd like it above all things."

"I must find a taxicab," the young man remarked. "I've a busy hour before me. I've got to go down and see the chief, who is dining somewhere in Kensington, and get back again to dine here at half past seven in the restaurant."

"I guess you'll have to look sharp, then." Mr. Coulson remarked. "Do you see the time?"

Vanderpole glanced at the clock and whistled softly to himself.

"Tell you what!" he exclaimed, "I'll write a note to one of the friends I've got to meet, and leave it here. Boy," he added, turning to a page boy, "get me a taxi as quick as you can."

The boy ran out into the Strand, and Vanderpole, sitting down at the table, wrote a few lines, which he sealed and addressed and handed to one of the reception clerks. Then he shook hands with Coulson and threw himself into a corner of the cab which was waiting.

"Drive down the Brompton Road," he said to the man. "I'll direct you later."

It was a quarter past seven when he left the hotel. At half past a policeman held up his hand and stopped the taxi, to the driver's great astonishment, as he was driving slowly across Melbourne Square, Kensington.

"What's the matter?" the man asked. "You can't say I was exceeding my speed limit."

The policeman scarcely noticed him. His head was already through the cab window.

"Where did you take your fare up?" he asked quickly.

"Savoy Hotel," the man answered. "What's wrong with him?"

The policeman opened the door of the cab and stepped in.

"Never you mind about that," he said. "Drive to the South Kensington police station as quick as you can."



CHAPTER VIII. AN INTERRUPTED THEATRE PARTY

Seated upon a roomy lounge in the foyer of the Savoy were three women who attracted more than an average amount of attention from the passers-by. In the middle was the Duchess of Devenham, erect, stately, and with a figure which was still irreproachable notwithstanding her white hair. On one side sat her daughter, Lady Grace Redford, tall, fair, and comely; on the other, Miss Penelope Morse. The two girls were amusing themselves, watching the people; their chaperon had her eye upon the clock.

"To dine at half-past seven," the Duchess remarked, as she looked around the entresol of the great restaurant through her lorgnettes, "is certainly a little trying for one's temper and for one's digestion, but so long as those men accepted, I certainly think they ought to have been here. They know that the play begins at a quarter to nine."

"It isn't like Dicky Vanderpole in the least," Penelope said. "Since he began to tread the devious paths of diplomacy, he has brought exactness in the small things of life down to a fine art."

"He isn't half so much fun as he used to be," Lady Grace declared.

"Fun!" Penelope exclaimed. "Sometimes I think that I never knew a more trying person."

"I have never known the Prince unpunctual," the Duchess murmured. "I consider him absolutely the best-mannered young man I know."

Lady Grace smiled, and glanced at Penelope.

"I don't think you'll get Penelope to agree with you, mother," she said.

"Why not, my dear?" the Duchess asked. "I heard that you were quite rude to him the other evening. We others all find him so charming."

Penelope's lip curled slightly.

"He has so many admirers," she remarked, "that I dare say he will not notice my absence from the ranks. Perhaps I am a little prejudiced. At home, you know, we have rather strong opinions about this fusion of races."

The Duchess raised her eyebrows.

"But a Prince of Japan, my dear Penelope!" she said. "A cousin of the Emperor, and a member of an aristocracy which was old before we were thought of! Surely you cannot class Prince Maiyo amongst those to whom any of your country people could take exception."

Penelope shrugged her shoulders slightly.

"Perhaps," she said, "my feeling is the result of hearing you all praise him so much and so often. Besides, apart from that, you must remember that I am a patriotic daughter of the Stars and Stripes, and there isn't much friendship lost between Washington and Tokio just now."

The Duchess turned away to greet a man who had paused before their couch on his way into the restaurant.

"My dear General," she said, "it seems to me that one meets every one here! Why was not restaurant dining the vogue when I was a girl!"

General Sherrif smiled. He was tall and thin, with grizzled hair and worn features. Notwithstanding his civilian's clothes, there was no possibility of mistaking him anywhere, or under any circumstances, for anything but a soldier.

"It is a delightful custom," he admitted. "It keeps one always on the qui vive; one never knows whom one may see. Incidentally, I find it interferes very much with my digestion."

"Digestion!" the Duchess murmured. "But then, you soldiers lead such irregular lives."

"Not always from choice," the General reminded her. "The Russo-Japanese war finished me off. They kept us far enough away from the fighting, when they could, but, by Jove, they did make us move!"

"We are waiting now for Prince Maiyo," the Duchess remarked. "You know him?"

"Know him!" the General answered. "Duchess, if ever I have to write my memoirs, and particularly my reminiscences of this war, I fancy you would find the name of your friend appear there pretty frequently. There wasn't a more brilliant feat of arms in the whole campaign than his flanking movement at Mukden. I met most of the Japanese leaders, and I have always said that I consider him the most wonderful of them all."

The Duchess turned to Penelope.

"Do you hear that?" she asked.

Penelope smiled.

"The Fates are against me," she declared. "If I may not like, I shall at least be driven to admire."

"To talk of bravery when one speaks of that war," the General remarked, "seems invidious, for it is my belief that throughout the whole of the Japanese army such a thing as fear did not exist. They simply did not know what the word meant. But I shall never forget that the only piece of hand-to-hand fighting I saw during the whole time was a cavalry charge led by Prince Maiyo against an immensely superior force of Russians. Duchess," the General declared, "those Japanese on their queer little horses went through the enemy like wind through a cornfield. That young man must have borne a charmed life. I saw him riding and cheering his men on when he must have had at least half a dozen wounds in his body. You will pardon me, Duchess? I see that my party are waiting."

The General hurried away. The Duchess shut up her lorgnettes with a snap, and held out her hand to a newcomer who had come from behind the palms.

"My dear Prince," she exclaimed, "this is charming of you! Some one told me that you were not well,—our wretched climate, of course—and I was so afraid, every moment, that we should receive your excuses."

The newcomer, who was bowing over her hand, was of medium height or a trifle less, dark, and dressed with the quiet exactness of an English gentleman. Only a slight narrowness of the eyes and a greater alertness of movement seemed to distinguish him in any way, as regards nationality, from the men by whom he was surrounded. His voice, when he spoke, contained no trace of accent. It was soft and singularly pleasant. It had, too, one somewhat rare quality—a delightful ring of truth. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why Prince Maiyo was just then, amongst certain circles, one of the most popular persons in Society.

"My dear Duchess," he said, "my indisposition was nothing. And as for your climate, I am beginning to delight in it,—one never knows what to expect, or when one may catch a glimpse of the sun. It is only the grayness which is always the same."

"And even that," the Duchess remarked, smiling, "has been yellow for the last few days. Prince, you know my daughter Grace, and I am sure that you have met Miss Penelope Morse? We are waiting for two other men, Sir Charles Somerfield and Mr. Vanderpole."

The Prince bowed, and began to talk to his hostess' daughter,—a tall, fair girl, as yet only in her second season.

"Here comes Sir Charles, at any rate!" the Duchess exclaimed. "Really, I think we shall have to go in. We can leave a message for Dicky; they all know him at this place. I am afraid he is one of those shocking young men who entertain the theatrical profession here to supper."

A footman at that moment brought a note to the Duchess, which she tore open.

"This is from Dicky!" she exclaimed, glancing it through quickly,—"Savoy notepaper, too, so I suppose he has been here. He says that he may be a few minutes late and that we are not to wait. He will pick us up either here or at the theatre. Prince, shall we let these young people follow us? I haven't heard your excuses yet. Do you know that you were a quarter of an hour late?"

He bent towards her with troubled face.

"Dear Duchess," he said, "believe me, I am conscious of my fault. An unexpected matter, which required my personal attention, presented itself at the last moment. I think I can assure you that nothing of its sort was ever accomplished so quickly. It would only weary you if I tried to explain."

"Please don't," the Duchess begged, "so long as you are here at last. And after all, you see, you are not the worst sinner. Mr. Vanderpole has not yet arrived."

The Prince walked on, for a few steps, in silence.

"Mr. Vanderpole is a great friend of yours, Duchess?" he asked.

The Duchess shook her head.

"I do not know him very well," she said. "I asked him for Penelope."

The Prince looked puzzled.

"But I thought," he said, "that Miss Morse and Sir Charles—"

The Duchess interrupted him with a smile.

"Sir Charles is very much in earnest," she whispered, "but very very slow. Dicky is just the sort of man to spur him on. He admires Penelope, and does not mind showing it. She is such a dear girl that I should love to have her comfortably settled over here."

"She is very intelligent," the Prince said. "She is a young lady, indeed, for whom I have a great admiration. I am only sorry," he concluded, "that I do not seem able to interest her."

"You must not believe that," the Duchess said. "Penelope is a little brusque sometimes, but it is only her manner."

They made their way through the foyer to the round table which had been reserved for them in the centre of the restaurant.

"I suppose I ought to apologize for giving you dinner at such an hour," the Duchess remarked, "but it is our theatrical managers who are to blame. Why they cannot understand that the best play in the world is not worth more than two hours of our undivided attention, and begin everything at nine or a quarter-past, I cannot imagine."

The Prince smiled.

"Dear Duchess," he said, "I think that you are a nation of sybarites. Everything in the world must run for you so smoothly or you are not content. For my part, I like to dine at this hour."

"But then, you take no luncheon, Prince," Lady Grace reminded him.

"I never lunch out," the Prince answered, "but I have always what is sufficient for me."

"Tell me," the Duchess asked, "is it true that you are thinking of settling down amongst us? Your picture is in the new illustrated paper this week, you know, with a little sketch of your career. We are given to understand that you may possibly make your home in this country."

The Prince smiled, and in his smile there seemed to be a certain mysticism. One could not tell, indeed, whether it came from some pleasant thought flitting through his brain, or whether it was that the idea itself was so strange to him.

"I have no plans, Duchess," he said. "Your country is very delightful, and the hospitality of the friends I have made over here is too wonderful a thing to be described; but one never knows."

Lady Grace bent towards Sir Charles, who was sitting by her side.

"I can never understand the Prince," she murmured. "Always he seems as though he took life so earnestly. He has a look upon his face which I never see in the faces of any of you other young men."

"He is a bit on the serious side," Sir Charles admitted.

"It isn't only that," she continued. "He reminds me of that man whom we all used to go and hear preach at the Oratory. He was the same in the pulpit and when one saw him in the street. His eyes seemed to see through one; he seemed to be living in a world of his own."

"He was a religious Johnny, of course," Sir Charles remarked. "They do walk about with their heads in the air."

Lady Grace smiled.

"Perhaps it is religion with the Prince," she said,—"religion of a sort."

"I tell you what I do think," Sir Charles murmured. "I think his pretence at having a good time over here is all a bluff. He doesn't really cotton to us, you know. Don't see how he could. He's never touched a polo stick in his life, knows nothing about cricket, is indifferent to games, and doesn't even understand the meaning of the word 'Sportsman.' There's no place in this country for a man like that."

Lady Grace nodded.

"I think," she said, "that his visit to Europe and his stay amongst us is, after all, in the nature of a pilgrimage. I suppose he wants to carry back some of our civilization to his own people."

Penelope, who overheard, laughed softly and leaned across the table.

"I fancy," she murmured, "that the person you are speaking of would not look at it in quite the same light."

"Has any one seen the evening paper?" the Duchess asked. "It is there any more news about that extraordinary murder?"

"Nothing fresh in the early editions," Sir Charles answered.

"I think," the Duchess declared, "that it is perfectly scandalous. Our police system must be in a disgraceful state. Tell me, Prince,—could anything like that happen in your country?"

"Without doubt," the Prince answered, "life moves very much in the East as with you here. Only with us," he added a little thoughtfully, "there is a difference, a difference of which one is reminded at a time like this, when one reads your newspapers and hears the conversation of one's friends."

"Tell us what you mean?" Penelope asked quickly.

He looked at her as one might have looked at a child,—kindly, even tolerantly. He was scarcely so tall as she was, and Penelope's attitude towards him was marked all the time with a certain frigidity. Yet he spoke to her with the quiet, courteous confidence of the philosopher who unbends to talk to a child.

"In this country," he said, "you place so high a value upon the gift of life. Nothing moves you so greatly as the killing of one man by another, or the death of a person whom you know."

"There is no tragedy in the world so great!" Penelope declared.

The Prince shrugged his shoulders very slightly.

"My dear Miss Morse," he said, "it is so that you think about life and death here. Yet you call yourselves a Christian country—you have a very beautiful faith. With us, perhaps, there is a little more philosophy and something a little less definite in the trend of our religion. Yet we do not dress Death in black clothes or fly from his outstretched hand. We fear him no more that we do the night. It is a thing that comes—a thing that must be."

He spoke so softly, and yet with so much conviction, that it seemed hard to answer him. Penelope, however, was conscious of an almost feverish desire either to contradict him or to prolong the conversation by some means or other.

"Your point of view," she said, "is well enough, Prince, for those who fall in battle, fighting for their country or for a great cause. Don't you think, though, that the horror of death is a more real thing in a case like this, where a man is killed in cold blood for the sake of robbery, or perhaps revenge?"

"One cannot tell," the Prince answered thoughtfully. "The battlefields of life are there for every one to cross. This mysterious gentleman who seems to have met with his death so unexpectedly—he, too, may have been the victim of a cause, knowing his dangers, facing them as a man should face them."

The Duchess sighed.

"I am quite sure, Prince," she said, "that you are a romanticist. But, apart from the sentimental side of it, do things like this happen in your country?"

"Why not?" the Prince answered. "It is as I have been saying: for a worthy cause, or a cause which he believed to be worthy, there is no man of my country worthy of the name who would not accept death with the same resignation that he lays his head upon the pillow and waits for sleep."

Sir Charles raised his glass and bowed across the table.

"To our great allies!" he said, smiling.

The Prince drank his glass of water thoughtfully. He drank wine only on very rare occasions, and then under compulsion. He turned to the Duchess.

"A few days ago," he said, "I heard myself described as being much too serious a person. Tonight I am afraid that I am living up to my reputation. Our conversation seems to have drifted into somewhat gloomy channels. We must ask Miss Morse, I think, to help us to forget. They say," he continued, "that it is the young ladies of your country who hold open the gates of Paradise for their menkind."

He was looking into her eyes. His tone was half bantering, half serious. From across the table Penelope knew that Somerfield was watching her closely. Somehow or other, she was irritated and nervous, and she answered vaguely. Sir Charles intervened with a story about some of their acquaintances, and the conversation drifted into more ordinary channels.

"Some day, I suppose," the Duchess remarked, as the service of dinner drew toward a close, "you will have restaurants like this in Tokio?"

The Prince assented.

"Yes," he said without enthusiasm, "they will come. Our heritage from the West is a sure thing. Not in my days, perhaps, or in the days of those that follow me, but they will come."

"I think that it is absolutely wicked of Dicky," the Duchess declared, as they rose from the table. "I shall never rely upon him again."

"After all, perhaps, it isn't his fault," Penelope said, breathing a little sigh of relief as she rose to her feet. "Mr. Harvey is not always considerate, and I know that several of the staff are away on leave."

"That's right, my dear," the Duchess said, smiling, "stick up for your countrymen. I suppose he'll find us sometime during the evening. We can all go to the theatre together; the omnibus is outside."

The little party passed through the foyer and into the hall of the hotel, where they waited while the Duchess' carriage was called. Mr. Coulson was there in an easy chair, smoking a cigar, and watching the people coming and going. He studied the passers-by with ah air of impersonal but pleased interest. Penelope and Lady Grace were certainly admirable foils. The latter was fair, with beautiful complexion—a trifle sunburnt, blue eyes, good-humored mouth, and features excellent in their way, but a little lacking in expression. Her figure was good; her movements slow but not ungraceful; her dress of white ivory satin a little extravagant for the occasion. She looked exactly what she was,—a well-bred, well-disposed, healthy young Englishwoman, of aristocratic parentage. Penelope, on the other hand, more simply dressed, save for the string of pearls which hung from her neck, had the look of a creature from another world. She had plenty of animation; a certain nervous energy seemed to keep her all the time restless. She talked ceaselessly, sometimes to the Prince, more often to Sir Charles. Her gray-green eyes were bright, her cheeks delicately flushed. She spoke and looked and moved as one on fire with the joy of life. The Prince, noticing that Lady Grace had been left to herself for the last few moments, moved a little towards her and commenced a courteous conversation. Sir Charles took the opportunity to bend over his companion.

"Penelope," he said, "you are queer tonight. Tell me what it is? You don't really dislike the Prince, do you?"

"Why, of course not," she answered, looking back into the restaurant and listening, as though interested in the music. "He is odd, though, isn't he? He is so serious and, in a way, so convincing. He is like a being transplanted into an absolutely alien soil. One would like to laugh at him, and one can't."

"He is rather an anomaly," Sir Charles said, humming lightly to himself. "I suppose, compared with us matter-of-fact people, he must seem to your sex quite a romantic figure."

"He makes no particular appeal to me at all," Penelope declared.

Somerfield was suddenly thoughtful.

"Sometimes, Penelope," he said, "I don't quite understand you, especially when we speak about the Prince. I have come to the conclusion that you either like him very much, or you dislike him very much, or you have some thoughts about him which you tell to no one."

She lifted her skirts. The carriage had been called.

"I like your last suggestion," she declared. "You may believe that that is true."

On their way out, the Prince was accosted by some friends and remained talking for several moments. When he entered the omnibus, there seemed to Penelope, who found herself constantly watching him closely, a certain added gravity in his demeanor. The drive to the theatre was a short one, and conversation consisted only of a few disjointed remarks. In the lobby the Prince laid his hand upon Somerfield's arm.

"Sir Charles," he said, "if I were you, I would keep that evening paper in your pocket. Don't let the ladies see it."

Somerfield looked at him in surprise.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"To me personally it is of no consequence," the Prince answered, "but your womenfolk feel these things so keenly, and Mr. Vanderpole is of the same nationality, is he not, as Miss Morse? If you take my advice, you will be sure that they do not see the paper until after they get home this evening."

"Has anything happened to Dicky?" Somerfield asked quickly.

The Prince's face was impassive; he seemed not to have heard. Penelope had turned to wait for them.

"The Duchess thinks that we had better all go into the box," she said. "We have two stalls as well, but as Dicky is not here there is really room for five. Will you get some programmes, Sir Charles?"

Somerfield stopped for a minute, under pretence of seeking some change, and tore open his paper. The Prince led Penelope down the carpeted way.

"I heard what you and Sir Charles were saying," she declared quietly. "Please tell me what it is that has happened to Dicky?"

The Prince's face was grave.

"I am sorry," he replied. "I did not know that our voices would travel so far."

"It was not yours," she said. "It was Sir Charles'. Tell me quickly what it is that has happened?"

"Mr. Vanderpole," the Prince answered, "has met with an accident,—a somewhat serious one, I fear. Perhaps," he added, "it would be as well, after all, to break this to the Duchess. I was forgetting the prejudices of your country. She will doubtless wish that our party should be broken up."

Penelope was suddenly very white. He whispered in her ear.

"Be brave," he said. "It is your part."

She stood still for a moment, and then moved on. His words had had a curious effect upon her. The buzzing in her ears had ceased; there was something to be done—she must do it! She passed into the box, the door of which the attendant was holding open.

"Duchess," she said, "I am so sorry, but I am afraid that something has happened to Dicky. If you do not mind, I am going to ask Sir Charles to take me home."

"But my dear child!" the Duchess exclaimed.

"Miss Morse is quite right," the Prince said quietly. "I think it would be better for her to leave at once. If you will allow me, I will explain to you later."

She left the box without another word, and took Somerfield's arm.

"We two are to go," she murmured. "The Prince will explain to the Duchess."

The Prince closed the box door behind them. He placed a chair for the Duchess so that she was not in view of the house.

"A very sad thing has happened," he said quietly. "Mr. Vanderpole met with an accident in a taxicab this evening. From the latest reports, it seems that he is dead!"



CHAPTER IX. INSPECTOR JACKS SCORES

There followed a few days of pleasurable interest to all Englishmen who travelled in the tube and read their halfpenny papers. A great and enlightened Press had already solved the problem of creating the sensational without the aid of facts. This sudden deluge, therefore, of undoubtedly tragical happenings became almost an embarrassment to them. Black headlines, notes of exclamation, the use of superlative adjectives, scarcely met the case. The murder of Mr. Hamilton Fynes was strange enough. Here was an unknown man, holding a small position in his own country,—a man apparently without friends or social position. He travelled over from America, merely a unit amongst the host of other passengers; yet his first action, on arriving at Liverpool, was to make use of privileges which belonged to an altogether different class of person, and culminated in his arrival at Euston in a special train with a dagger driven through his heart! Here was material enough for a least a fortnight of sensations and countersensations, of rumored arrests and strange theories. Yet within the space of twenty-four hours the affair of Mr. Hamilton Fynes had become a small thing, had shrunk almost into insignificance by the side of the other still more dramatic, still more wonderful happening. Somewhere between the Savoy Hotel and Melbourne Square, Kensington, a young American gentleman of great strength, of undoubted position, the nephew of a Minister, and himself secretary to the Ambassador of his country in London, had met with his death in a still more mysterious, still more amazing fashion. He had left the hotel in an ordinary taxicab, which had stopped on the way to pick up no other passenger. He had left the Savoy alone, and he was discovered in Melbourne Square alone. Yet, somewhere between these two points, notwithstanding the fact that the aggressor must have entered the cab either with or without his consent, Mr. Richard Vanderpole, without a struggle, without any cry sufficiently loud to reach the driver or attract the attention of any passer-by, had been strangled to death by a person who had disappeared as though from the face of the earth. The facts seemed almost unbelievable, and yet they were facts. The driver of the taxi knew only that three times during the course of his drive he had been caught in a block and had had to wait for a few seconds—once at the entrance to Trafalgar Square, again at the junction of Haymarket and Pall Mall, and, for a third time, opposite the Hyde Park Hotel. At neither of these halting places had he heard any one enter or leave the taxi. He had heard no summons from his fare, even though a tube, which was in perfect working order, was fixed close to the back of his head. He had known nothing, in fact, until a policeman had stopped him, having caught a glimpse of the ghastly face inside. There was no evidence which served to throw a single gleam of light upon the affair. Mr. Vanderpole had called at the Savoy Hotel upon a travelling American, who had written to the Embassy asking for some advice as to introducing American patents into Great Britain and France. He left there to meet his chief, who was dining down in Kensington, with the intention of returning at once to join the Duchess of Devenham's theatre party. He was in no manner of trouble. It was not suggested that any one had any cause for enmity against him. Yet this attack upon him must have been carefully planned and carried out by a person of great strength and wonderful nerve. The newspaper-reading public in London love their thrills, and they had one here which needed no artificial embellishments from the pens of those trained in an atmosphere of imagination. The simple truth was, in itself, horrifying. There was scarcely a man or woman who drove in a taxicab about the west end of London during the next few days without a little thrill of emotion.

The murder of Mr. Richard Vanderpole took place on a Thursday night. On Monday morning a gentleman of middle age, fashionably but quietly dressed, wearing a flower in his buttonhole, patent boots, and a silk hat which he had carefully deposited upon the floor, was sitting closeted with Miss Penelope Morse. It was obvious that that young lady did not altogether appreciate the honor done to her by a visit from so distinguished a person as Inspector Jacks!

"I am sorry," he said, "that you should find my visit in the least offensive, Miss Morse. I have approached you, so far as possible, as an ordinary visitor, and no one connected with your household can have any idea as to my identity or the nature of my business. I have done this out of consideration to your feelings. At the same time I have my duty to perform and it must be done."

"What I cannot understand," Penelope said coldly, "is why you should bother me about your duty. When I saw you at the Carlton Hotel, I told you exactly how much I knew of Mr. Hamilton Fynes."

"My dear young lady," Inspector Jacks said, "I will not ask for your sympathy, for I am afraid I should ask in vain; but we are just now, we people at Scotland Yard, up against one of the most extraordinary problems which have ever been put before us. We have had two murders occurring in two days, which have this much, at least, in common—that they have been the work of so accomplished a criminal that at the present moment, although I should not like to tell every one as much, we have not in either case the ghost of a clue."

"That sounds very stupid of you," Penelope remarked, "but I still ask—"

"Don't ask for a minute or two," the Inspector interrupted. "I think I remarked just now that these two crimes had one thing in common, and that was the fact that they had both been perpetrated by a criminal of unusual accomplishments. They also have one other point of similitude."

"What is that?" Penelope asked.

"The victim in both cases was an American," the Inspector said.

Penelope sat very still. She felt the steely eyes of the man who had chosen his seat so carefully, fixed upon her face.

"You do not connect the two affairs in any way?" she asked.

"That is what we are asking ourselves," Mr. Jacks continued. "In the absence of any definite clue, coincidences such as this are always interesting. In this case, as it happens, we can take them even a little further. We find that you, for instance, Miss Penelope Morse, a young American lady, celebrated for her wit and accomplishments, and well known in London society, were to have lunched with Mr. Hamilton Fynes on the day when he made his tragical arrival in London; we find too, curiously enough, that you were one of the party with whom Mr. Richard Vanderpole was to have dined and gone to the theatre on the night of his decease."

Penelope shivered, and half closed her eyes.

"Don't you think," she said, "that the shock of this coincidence, as you call it, has been quite sufficient, without having you come here to remind me of it?"

"Madam," Mr. Jacks said, "I have not come here to gratify any personal curiosity. I have come here in the cause of justice. You should find me a welcome visitor, for both these men who have lost their lives were friends of yours."

"I should be very sorry indeed," Penelope answered, "to stand in the way of justice. No one can hope more fervently than I do that the perpetrator of these deeds will be found and punished. But what I cannot understand is your coming here and reopening the subject with me. I tell you again that I have no possible information for you."

"Perhaps not," the Inspector declared, "but, on the other hand, there are certain questions which you can answer me,—answer them, I mean, not grudgingly and as though in duty bound,—answer them intelligently, and with some apprehension of the things which lie behind."

"And what is the thing that lies behind them?" she asked.

"A theory, madam," the Inspector answered,—"no more. But in this case, unfortunately, we have not passed the stage of theories. My theory, at the present moment, is that the murderer of these two men was the same person."

"You have evidence to that effect," she said, suddenly surprised to find that her voice had sunk to a whisper.

"Very little," Mr. Jacks admitted; "but, you see, in the case of theories one must build them brick by brick. Then if, after all, as we reach the end, the foundation was false, well, we must watch them collapse and start again."

"Supposing we leave these generalities," Penelope remarked, "and get on with those questions which you wish to ask me. My aunt, as you may have heard, is an invalid, and although she seldom leaves her room, this is one of the afternoons when she sometimes sits here for a short time. I should not care to have her find you."

The Inspector leaned back in his chair. It was a very pleasant drawing room, looking out upon the Park. A little French clock, a masterpiece of workmanship, was ticking gayly upon the mantelpiece. Two toy Pomeranians were half hidden in the great rug. The walls were of light blue, soft, yet full of color, and the carpet, of some plain material, was of the same shade. The perfume of flowers—the faint sweetness of mimosa and the sicklier fragrance of hyacinths—seemed almost overwhelming, for the fire was warm and the windows closed. By the side of Penelope's chair were a new novel and a couple of illustrated papers, and Mr. Jacks noticed that although a paper cutter was lying by their side the leaves of all were uncut.

"These questions," he said, "may seem to you irrelevant, yet please answer them if you can. Mr. Hamilton Fynes, for instance,—was he, to your knowledge, acquainted with Mr. Richard Vanderpole?"

"I have never heard them speak of one another," Penelope answered. "I should think it very unlikely."

"You have no knowledge of any common pursuit or interest in life which the two men may have shared?" the Inspector asked. "A hobby, for instance,—a collection of postage stamps, china, any common aim of any sort?"

She shook her head.

"I knew little of Mr. Fynes' tastes. Dicky—I mean Mr. Vanderpole—had none at all except an enthusiasm for his profession and a love of polo."

"His profession," the Inspector repeated. "Mr. Vanderpole was attached to the American Embassy, was he not?"

"I believe so," Penelope answered.

"Mr. Hamilton Fynes," the Inspector continued, "might almost have been said to have followed the same occupation."

"Surely not!" Penelope objected. "I always understood that Mr. Fynes was employed in a Government office at Washington,—something to do with the Customs, I thought, or forest duties."

Mr. Jacks nodded thoughtfully.

"I am not aware, as yet," he said, "of the precise nature of Mr. Fynes' occupation. I only knew that it was, in some shape or form, Government work."

"You know as much about it," she answered, "as I do."

"We have sent," the Inspector continued smoothly, "a special man out to Washington to make all inquiries that are possible on the spot, and incidentally, to go through the effects of the deceased, with a view to tracing any complications in which he may have been involved in this country."

Penelope opened her lips, but closed them again.

"I am not, however," the Inspector continued, "very sanguine of success. In the case of Mr. Vanderpole, for instance, there could have been nothing of the sort. He was too young, altogether too much of a boy, to have had enemies so bitterly disposed towards him. There is another explanation somewhere, I feel convinced, at the root of the matter."

"You do not believe, then," asked Penelope, "that robbery was really the motive?"

"Not ordinary robbery," Mr. Jacks answered. "A man who was capable of these two crimes is capable of easier and greater things. I mean," he explained, "that he could have attempted enterprises of a far more remunerative character, with a prospect of complete success."

"Will you forgive me," she said, "if I ask you to go on with your questions, providing you have any more to ask me? Notwithstanding the excellence of your disguise," she remarked with a faint curl of the lips, "I might find it somewhat difficult to explain your presence if my aunt or any visitors should come in."

"I am sorry, Miss Morse," the Inspector said quietly, "to find you so unsympathetic. Had I found you differently disposed, I was going to ask you to put yourself in my place. I was going to ask you to look at these two tragedies from my point of view and from your own at the same time, and I was going to ask you whether any possible motive suggested itself to you, any possible person or cause, which might be benefited by the removal of these two men."

"If you think, Mr. Jacks," Penelope said, "that I am keeping anything from you, you are very much mistaken. Such sympathy as I have would certainly be with those who are attempting to bring to justice the perpetrator of such unmentionable crimes. What I object to is the unpleasantness of being associated with your inquiries when I am absolutely unable to give you the least help, or to supply you with any information which is not equally attainable to you."

"As, for instance?" the Inspector asked.

"You are a detective," Penelope said coldly. "You do not need me to point out certain things to you. Mr. Hamilton Fynes was robbed and murdered—an American citizen on his way to London. Mr. Richard Vanderpole is also murdered, after a call upon Mr. James B. Coulson, the only acquaintance whom Mr. Fynes is known to have possessed in this country. Did Mr. Fynes share secrets with Mr. Coulson? If so, did Mr. Coulson pass them on to Mr. Vanderpole, and for that reason did Mr. Vanderpole meet with the same death, at the same hands, as had befallen Mr. Fynes?"

Inspector Jacks moved his head thoughtfully.

"It is admirably put," he assented, "and to continue?"

"It is not my place to make suggestions to you," Penelope said. "If you are able to connect Mr. Fynes with the American Government, you arrive at the possibility of these murders having been committed for some political end. I presume you read your newspapers?"

Inspector Jacks smiled, picked up his hat and bowed, while Penelope, with a sigh of relief, moved over to the bell.

"My dear young lady," he said, "you do not understand how important even the point of view of another person is to a man who is struggling to build up a theory. Whether you have helped me as much as you could," he added, looking her in the face, "you only can tell, but you have certainly helped me a little."

The footman had entered. The Inspector turned to follow him. Penelope remained as she had been standing, the hand which had touched the bell fallen to her side, her eyes fixed upon him with a new light stirring their quiet depths.

"One moment, Morton," she said. "Wait outside. Mr. Jacks," she added, as the door closed, "what do you mean? What can I have told you? How can I have helped you?"

The Inspector stood very still for a brief space of time, very still and very silent. His face, too, was quite expressionless. Yet his tone, when he spoke, seemed to have taken to itself a note of sternness.

"If you had chosen," he said slowly, "to have become my ally in this matter, to have ranged yourself altogether on the side of the law, my answer would have been ready enough. What you have told me, however, you have told me against your will and not in actual words. You have told me in such a way, too," he added, "that it is impossible for me to doubt your intention to mislead me. I am forced to conclude that we stand on opposite sides of the way. I shall not trouble you any more, Miss Morse."

He turned to the door. Penelope remained motionless for several moments, listening to his retreating footsteps.



CHAPTER X. MR. COULSON OUTMATCHED

Mr. James B. Coulson settled down to live what was, to all appearance, a very inoffensive and ordinary life. He rose a little earlier than was customary for an Englishman of business of his own standing, but he made up for this by a somewhat prolonged visit to the barber, a breakfast which bespoke an unimpaired digestion, and a cigar of more than ordinary length over his newspaper. At about eleven o'clock he went down to the city, and returned sometimes to luncheon, sometimes at varying hours, never later, however, than four or five o'clock. From that time until seven, he was generally to be found in the American bar, meeting old friends or making new ones.

On the sixth day of his stay at the Savoy Hotel the waiter who looked after the bar smoking room accosted him as he entered at his usual time, a little after half past four.

"There's a gentleman here, Mr. Coulson, been asking after you," he announced. "I told him that you generally came in about this time. You'll find him sitting over there."

Mr. Coulson glanced in the direction indicated. It was Mr. Jacks who awaited him in the cushioned easy chair. For a single moment, perhaps, his lips tightened and the light of battle flashed in his face. Then he crossed the room apparently himself again,—an undistinguished, perfectly natural figure.

"It's Mr. Jacks, isn't it?" he asked, holding out his hand. "I thought I recognized you."

The Inspector rose to his feet.

"I am sorry to trouble you again, Mr. Coulson," he said, "but if you could spare me just a minute or two, I should be very much obliged."

Mr. Coulson laughed pleasantly.

"You can have all you want of me from now till midnight," he declared. "My business doesn't take very long, and I can only see the people I want to see in the middle of the day. After that, I don't mind telling you that I find time hangs a bit on my hands. Try one of these," he added, producing a cigar case.

The Inspector thanked him and helped himself. Mr. Coulson summoned the waiter.

"Highball for me," he directed. "What's yours, Mr. Jacks?"

"Thank you very much," the Inspector said. "I will take a little Scotch whiskey and soda."

The two men sat down. The corner was a retired one, and there was no one within earshot.

"Say, are you still on this Hamilton Fynes business?" Mr. Coulson asked.

"Partly," the Inspector replied.

"You know, I'm not making reflections," Mr. Coulson said, sticking his cigar in a corner of his mouth and leaning back in a comfortable attitude, "but it does seem to me that you are none too rapid on this side in clearing up these matters. Why, a little affair of that sort wouldn't take the police twenty minutes in New York. We have a big city, full of alien quarters, full of hiding places, and chock full of criminals, but our police catch em, all the same. There's no one going to commit murder in the streets of New York without finding himself in the Tombs before he's a week older. No offence, Mr. Jacks."

"I am not taking any, Mr. Coulson," the Inspector answered. "I must admit that there's a great deal of truth in what you say. It is rather a reflection upon us that we have not as yet even made an arrest, but I think you will also admit that the circumstances of those murders were exceedingly curious."

Mr. Coulson knocked the ash from his cigar.

"Well, as to that," he said, "and if we are to judge only by what we read in the papers, they are curious, without a doubt. But I am not supposing for one moment that you fellows at Scotland Yard don't know more than you've let on to the newspapers. You keep your discoveries out of the Press over here, and a good job, too, but you wouldn't persuade me that you haven't some very distinct theory as to how that crime was worked, and the sort of person who did it. Eh, Mr. Jacks?"

"We are perhaps not quite so ignorant as we seem," the Inspector answered, "and of course you are right when you say that we have a few more facts to go by than have appeared in the newspapers. Still, the affair is an extremely puzzling one,—as puzzling, in its way," Mr. Jacks continued, "as the murder on the very next evening of this young American gentleman."

Mr. Coulson nodded sympathetically. The drinks were brought, and he raised his glass to his guest.

"Here's luck!" he said—"luck to you with your game of human chess, and luck to me with my woollen machinery patents! You were speaking of that second murder," he remarked, setting down his glass. "I haven't noticed the papers much this morning. Has any arrest been made yet?"

"Not yet," the Inspector admitted. "To tell you the truth, we find it almost as puzzling an affair as the one in which Mr. Hamilton Fynes was concerned."

Mr. Coulson nodded. He seemed content, at this stage in their conversation, to assume the role of listener.

"You read the particulars of the murder of Mr. Vanderpole, I suppose?" the Inspector asked.

"Every word," Mr. Coulson answered. "Most interesting thing I've seen in an English newspaper since I landed. Didn't sound like London somehow. Gray old law-abiding place, my partner always calls it."

"I am going to be quite frank with you, Mr. Coulson," the Inspector continued. "I am going to tell you exactly why I have come to see you again tonight."

"Why, that's good," Mr. Coulson declared. "I like to know everything a man's got in his mind."

"I have come to you," the Inspector said, "because, by a somewhat curious coincidence, I find that, besides your slight acquaintance with and knowledge of Mr. Hamilton Fynes, you were also acquainted with this Mr. Richard Vanderpole,—that you were," he continued, knocking the ash off his cigar and speaking a little more slowly, "the last person, except the driver of the taxicab, to have seen him alive."

Mr. Coulson turned slowly around and faced his companion.

"Now, how the devil do you know that?" he asked.

The Inspector smiled tolerantly.

"Well," he said, "that is very simple. The taxicab started from here. Mr. Vanderpole had been visiting some one in the hotel. There was not the slightest difficulty in ascertaining that the person for whom he asked, and with whom he spent some twenty minutes in this very room, was Mr. James B. Coulson of New York."

"Seated on this very couch, sir!" Mr. Coulson declared, striking the arm of it with the flat of his hand,—"seated within a few feet of where you yourself are at this present moment."

The Inspector nodded.

"Naturally," he continued, "when I became aware of so singular an occurrence, I felt that I must lose no time in coming and having a few more words with you."

Mr. Coulson became meditative.

"Upon my word, when you come to think of it," he said, "it is a coincidence, sure! Two men murdered within twenty-four hours, and I seem to have been the last person who knew them, to speak to either. Tell you what, Mr. Jacks, if this goes on I shall get a bit scared. I think I shall let the London business alone and go on over to Paris."

The Inspector smiled.

"I fancy your nerves," he remarked, "are quite strong enough to bear the strain. However, I am sure you will not mind telling me exactly why Mr. Richard Vanderpole, Secretary to the American Embassy here, should have come to see you on Thursday night."

"Why, that's easy," Mr. Coulson replied. "You may have heard of my firm, The Coulson & Bruce Company of Jersey City. I'm at the head of a syndicate that's controlling some very valuable patents which we want to exploit on this side and in Paris. Now my people don't exactly know how we stand under this new patent bill of Mr. Lloyd George's. Accordingly they wrote across to Mr. Blaine-Harvey, putting the matter to him, and asking him to give me his opinion the moment I arrived on this side. You see, it was no use our entering into contracts if we had to build the plant and make the stuff over here. We didn't stand any earthly show of making it pay that way. Well, Mr. Harvey cabled out that I was just to let him know the moment I landed, and before I opened up any business. Sure enough, I called him up on the telephone, an hour or so after I got here, and this young man came round. I can tell you he was all right, too,—a fine, upstanding young fellow, and as bright as they make em. He brought a written opinion with him as to how the law would affect our proceedings. I've got it in my room if you'd care to see it?"

Mr. Jacks listened to his companion's words with unchanged face.

"If it isn't troubling you," he said, "it would be of some interest to me."

Mr. Coulson rose to his feet.

"You sit right here," he declared. "I'll be back in less than five minutes."

Mr. Coulson was as good as his word. In less than the time mentioned he was seated again by his companion's side with a square sheet of foolscap spread out upon the round table. The Inspector ran it through hurriedly. The paper was stamped American Embassy,' and it was the digest of several opinions as to the effect of the new patent law upon the import of articles manufactured under processes controlled by the Coulson & Bruce syndicate. At the end there were a few lines in the Ambassador's own handwriting, summing up the situation. Mr. Coulson produced another packet of letters and documents.

"If you've an hour or so to spare, Mr. Jacks," he said, "I'd like to go right into this with you, if it would interest you any. It's my business over here, so naturally I am glad enough of an opportunity to talk it over."

Mr. Jacks passed back the paper promptly.

"I am extremely obliged to you," he said. "I am sure I should find it most interesting. Another time I should be very glad indeed to look through those specifications, but just now I have this affair of my own rather on my mind. About this Mr. Richard Vanderpole, Mr. Coulson, then," he added. "Do I understand that this young man came to you as a complete stranger?"

"Absolutely," Mr. Coulson answered. "I never saw him before in my life. As decent a young chap as ever I met with, all the same," he went on, "and comes of a good American stock, too. They tell me there's going to be an inquest and that I shall be summoned, but I know nothing more than what I've told you. If I did, you'd be welcome to it."

Mr. Jacks leaned back in his chair. Certainly the situation increased in perplexity! The man by his side was talking now of the adaptation of one of his patents to some existing machinery, and Jacks watched him covertly. He considered himself, to some extent, a physiognomist. He told himself it was not possible that this man was playing a part. Mr. James B. Coulson sat there, the absolute incarnation of the genial man of affairs, interested in his business, interested in the great subject of dollar-getting, content with himself and his position,—a person apparently of little imagination, for the shock of this matter concerning which they had been talking had already passed away. He was doing his best to explain with a pencil on the back of an illustrated paper some new system of wool-bleaching.

"Mr. Coulson," the Inspector said suddenly, "do you know a young lady named Miss Penelope Morse?"

It was here, perhaps, that Mr. Coulson sank a little from the heights of complete success. He repeated the name, and obviously took time to think before he answered.

"Miss Penelope Morse," the Inspector continued. "She is a young American lady, who lives with an invalid aunt in Park Lane, and who is taken everywhere by the Duchess of Devenham, another aunt, I believe."

"I suppose I may say that I am acquainted with her," Mr. Coulson admitted. "She came here the other evening with a young man—Sir Charles Somerfield."

"Ah!" the Inspector murmured.

"She'd read that interview of mine with the Comet man," Mr. Coulson said, "and she fancied that perhaps I could tell her something about Hamilton Fynes."

"First time you'd met her, I suppose?" the Inspector remarked.

"Sure!" Mr. Coulson answered. "As a matter of fact, I know very few of my compatriots over here. I am an American citizen myself, and I haven't too much sympathy with any one, man or woman, who doesn't find America good enough for them to live in."

The Inspector nodded.

"Quite so," he agreed. "So you hadn't anything to tell this young lady?"

"Not a thing that she hadn't read in the Comet," Mr. Coulson replied. "What brought her into your mind, anyway?"

"Nothing particular," the Inspector answered carelessly. "Well, Mr. Coulson, I won't take up any more of your time. I am convinced that you have told me all that you know, and I am afraid that I shall have to look elsewhere to find the loose end of this little tangle."

"Stay and have another drink," Mr. Coulson begged. "I've nothing to do. There are one or two boys coming in later who'll like to meet you."

The Inspector shook his head.

"I must be off," he said. "I want to get into my office before six o'clock. I dare say I shall be running across you again before you go back."

He shook hands and turned away. Then Mr. Coulson made what was, perhaps, his second slight mistake.

"Say, Mr. Jacks," he exclaimed, "what made you mention that young lady's name, anyway? I'm curious to know."

The Inspector looked thoughtfully at the end of the fresh cigar which he had just lit.

"Well," he said, "I don't know that there was anything definite in my mind, only it seems a little strange that you and Miss Penelope Morse should both have been acquainted with the murdered man and that you should have come across one another."

"Sort of bond between us, eh?" Mr. Coulson replied. "She seemed a very charming young lady. Cut above Fynes, I should think."

The detective smiled.

"All your American young ladies who come over here are charming," he said. "Goodbye, Mr. Coulson, and many thanks!"

The Inspector passed out, and the man whom he had come to visit, after a moment's hesitation, resumed his seat.

"These aren't American methods," he muttered to himself. "I don't understand them. That man Jacks is either a simpleton or he is too cunning for me."

He crossed to a writing table and scribbled an unnecessary note, addressing it to a firm in the city. Then he rang for a messenger boy and handed it to him for delivery. A few minutes afterwards he strolled out into the hall. The boy was in the act of handing the note to one of the head porters, who carefully copied the address. Mr. Coulson returned to the smoking room, whistling softly to himself.



CHAPTER XI. A COMMISSION

Mr. Robert Blaine-Harvey, American Ambassador and Plenipotentiary Extraordinary to England, was a man of great culture, surprising personal gifts, and with a diplomatic instinct which amounted almost to genius. And yet there were times when he was puzzled. For at least half an hour he had been sitting in his great library, looking across the Park, and trying to make up his mind on a very important matter. It seemed to him that he was face to face with what amounted almost to a crisis in his career. His two years at the Court of St. James had been pleasant and uneventful enough. The small questions which had presented themselves for adjustment between the two countries were, after all, of no particular importance and were easily arranged. The days seemed to have gone by for that over-strained sensitiveness which was continually giving rise to senseless bickerings, when every trilling breeze seemed to fan the smouldering fires of jealousy. The two great English-speaking nations appeared finally to have realized the absolute folly of continual disputes between countries whose destiny and ideals were so completely in accord and whose interests were, in the main, identical. A period of absolute friendliness had ensued. And now there had come this little cloud. It was small enough at present, but Mr. Harvey was not the one to overlook its sinister possibilities. Two citizens of his country had been barbarously murdered within the space of a few hours, one in the heart of the most thickly populated capital in the world, and there was a certain significance attached to this fact which the Ambassador himself and those others at Washington perfectly well realized. He glanced once more at the most recent letter on the top of this pile of correspondence and away again out into the Park. It was a difficult matter, this. His friends at Washington did not cultivate the art of obscurity in the words which they used, and it had been suggested to him in black and white that the murder of these two men, under the particular circumstances existing, was a matter concerning which he should speak very plainly indeed to certain August personages. Mr. Harvey, who was a born diplomatist, understood the difficulties of such a proceeding a good deal more than those who had propounded it.

There was a knock at the door, and a footman entered, ushering in a visitor.

"The young lady whom you were expecting, sir," he announced discreetly.

Mr. Harvey rose at once to his feet.

"My dear Penelope," he said, shaking hands with her, "this is charming of you."

Penelope smiled.

"It seems quite like old times to feel myself at home here once more," she declared.

Mr. Harvey did not pursue the subject. He was perfectly well aware that Penelope, who had been his first wife's greatest friend, had never altogether forgiven him for his somewhat brief period of mourning. He drew an easy chair up to the side of his desk and placed a footstool for her.

"I should not have sent for you," he said, "but I am really and honestly in a dilemma. Do you know that, apart from endless cables, Washington has favored me with one hundred and forty pages of foolscap all about the events of the week before last?"

Penelope shivered a little.

"Poor Dicky!" she murmured, looking away into the fire. "And to think that it was I who sent him to his death!"

Mr. Harvey shook his head.

"No," he said, "I do not think that you need reproach yourself with that. As a matter of fact, I think that I should have sent Dicky in any case. He is not so well known as the others, or rather he wasn't associated so closely with the Embassy, and he was constantly at the Savoy on his own account. If I had believed that there was any danger in the enterprise," he continued, "I should still have sent him. He was as strong as a young Hercules. The hand which twisted that noose around his neck must have been the hand of a magician with fingers of steel."

Penelope shivered again. Her face showed signs of distress.

"I do not think," she said, "that I am a nervous person, but I cannot bear to think of it even now."

"Naturally," Mr. Harvey answered. "We were all fond of Dicky, and such a thing has never happened, so far as I am aware, in any European country. My own private secretary murdered in broad daylight and with apparent impunity!"

"Murdered—and robbed!" she whispered, looking up at him with a white face.

The frown on the Ambassador's forehead darkened.

"Not only that," he declared, "but the secrets of which he was robbed have gone to the one country interested in the knowledge of them."

"You are sure of that?" she asked hoarsely.

"I am sure of it," Mr. Harvey answered.

Penelope drew a little breath between her teeth. Her thoughts flashed back to a recent dinner party. The Prince was once more at her side. Almost she could hear his voice—low, clear, and yet with that note of inexpressible, convincing finality. She heard him speak of his country reverently, almost prayerfully; of the sacrifices which true patriotism must always demand. What had been in his mind, she wondered, at the back of his inscrutable eyes, gazing, even at that moment, past the banks of flowers, across the crowded room with all its splendor of light and color, through the walls,—whither! She brushed the thought away. It was absurd, incredible! She was allowing herself to be led away by her old distrust of this man.

"I remarked just now," Mr. Harvey continued, "that such a thing had never happened, so far as I was aware, in any European country. My own words seem to suggest something to me. These methods are not European. They savor more of the East."

"I think you had better go on," she said quietly. "There is something in your mind. I can see that. You have told me so much that you had better tell me the rest."

"The contents of those despatches," Mr. Harvey continued, "intrusted in duplicate, as you have doubtless surmised, to Fynes and to Coulson, contained an assurance that the sending of our fleet to the Pacific was in fact, as well as in appearance, an errand of peace. It was a demonstration, pure and simple. Behind it there may have lain, indeed, a masterful purpose, the determination of a great country to affirm her strenuous existence in a manner most likely to impress the nations unused to seeing her in such a role. It became necessary, in view of certain suspicions, for me to be able to prove to the Government here the absolutely pacific nature of our great enterprise. Those despatches contained such proof. And now listen, Penelope. Before the murder of poor Dicky Vanderpole, we know for a fact that a great nation who chooses to consider herself our enemy in Eastern waters was straining every nerve to prepare for war. Today those preparations have slackened. A great loan has been withdrawn in Paris, an invitation cabled to our fleet to visit Yokohama. These things have a plain reading."

"Plain, indeed," Penelope assented, and she spoke in a low tone because there was fear in her heart. "Why have you told me about them? They throw a new light upon everything,—an awful light!"

"I have known you," the Ambassador said quietly, "since you were a baby. Every member of your family has been a friend of mine. You come of a silent race. I know very well that you are a person of discretion. There are certain small ways in which a government can occasionally be served by the help of some one outside its diplomatic service altogether, some one who could not possibly be connected with it. You know this very well, Penelope, because you have already been of service to us on more than one occasion."

"It was a long time ago," she murmured.

"Not so very long," he reminded her. "But for the first of these tragedies, Fynes' despatches would have reached me through you. I am going to ask your help even once more."

In the somewhat cold spring sunlight which came streaming through the large window, Penelope seemed a little pallid, as though, indeed, the fatigue of the season, even in this its earlier stages, were leaving its mark upon her. There were violet rims under her eyes. A certain alertness seemed to have deserted her usually piquant face. She sat listening with the air of one half afraid, who has no hope of hearing pleasant things.

"It has been remarked," Mr. Harvey continued, "or rather I may say that I myself have noticed, that you are on exceedingly friendly terms with a very distinguished nobleman who is at present visiting this country—I mean, of course, Prince Maiyo."

Her eyebrows were slowly elevated. Was that really the impression people had! Her lips just moved.

"Well?" she asked.

"I have met Prince Maiyo myself," Mr. Harvey continued, "and I have found him a charming representative of his race. I am not going to say a word against him. If he were an American, we should be proud of him. If he belonged to any other country, we should accept him at once for what he appears to be. Unfortunately, however, he belongs to a country which we have some reason to mistrust. He belongs to a country in whose national character we have not absolute confidence. For that reason, my dear Penelope, we mistrust Prince Maiyo."

"I do not know him so well as you seem to imagine," Penelope said slowly. "We are not even friends, in the ordinary acceptation of the word. I am, to some extent, prejudiced against him. Yet I do not believe that he is capable of a dishonorable action."

"Nor do I," the Ambassador declared smoothly. "Yet in every country, almost in every man, the exact standard of dishonor varies. A man will lie for a woman's sake, and even in the law courts, certainly at his clubs and amongst his friends, it will be accounted to his righteousness. A patriot will lie and intrigue for his country's sake. Now I believe that to Prince Maiyo Japan stands far above the whole world of womankind. I believe that for her sake he would go to very great lengths indeed."

"Go on, please," Penelope murmured.

"The Prince is over here on some sort of an errand which it isn't our business to understand," Mr. Harvey said. "I have heard it rumored that it is a special mission entirely concerned with the renewal of the treaty between England and Japan. However that may be, I have sat here, and I have thought, and I have come to this conclusion, ridiculous though it may seem to you at first. I believe that somewhere behind the hand which killed and robbed Hamilton Fynes and poor Dicky stood the benevolent shadow of our friend Prince Maiyo."

"You have no proof?" she asked breathlessly.

"No proof at all," the Ambassador admitted. "I am scarcely in a position to search for any. The conclusion I have come to has been simply arrived at through putting a few facts together and considering them in the light of certain events. In the first place, we cannot doubt that the secret of those despatches reached at once the very people whom we should have preferred to remain in ignorance of them. Haven't I told you of the sudden cessation of the war alarm in Japan, when once she was assured, by means which she could not mistrust, that it was not the intention of the American nation to make war upon her? The subtlety of those murders, and the knowledge by which they were inspired, must have come from some one in an altogether unique position. You may be sure that no one connected with the Japanese Embassy here would be permitted for one single second to take part in any such illegal act. They know better than that, these wily Orientals. They will play the game from Grosvenor Place right enough. But Prince Maiyo is here, and stands apart from any accredited institution, although he has the confidence of his Ambassador and can command the entire devotion of his own secret service. I have not come to this conclusion hastily. I have thought it out, step by step, and in my own mind I am now absolutely convinced that both these murders were inspired by Prince Maiyo."

"Even if this were so," Penelope said, "what can I do? Why have you sent for me? The Prince and I are not on especially friendly terms. It is only just lately that we have been decently civil to one another."

The Ambassador looked at her with some surprise.

"My dear Penelope," he said, "I have seen you together the last three or four evenings. The Prince looks at no one else while you are there. He talks to you, I know, more freely than to any other woman."

"It is by chance," Penelope protested. "I have tried to avoid him."

"Then I cannot congratulate you upon your success," Mr. Harvey said grimly.

"Things have changed a little between us, perhaps," Penelope said. "What is it that you really want?"

"I want to know this," the Ambassador said slowly. "I want to know how Japan became assured that America had no intention of going to war with her. In other words, I want to know whether those papers which were stolen from Fynes and poor Dicky found their way to the Japanese Embassy or into the hands of Prince Maiyo himself."

"Anything else?" she asked with a faint note of sarcasm in her tone.

"Yes," Mr. Harvey replied, "there is something else. I should like to know what attitude Prince Maiyo takes towards the proposed renewal of the treaty between his country and Great Britain."

She shook her head.

"Even if we were friends," she said, "the very closest of friends, he would never tell me. He is far too clever."

"Do not be too sure," Mr. Harvey said. "Sometimes a man, especially an Oriental, who does not understand the significance of your sex in these matters, can be drawn on to speak more freely to a woman than he would ever dream of doing to his best friend. He would not tell you in as many words, of course. On the other hand, he might show you what was in his mind."

"He is going back very shortly," Penelope remarked.

Mr. Harvey nodded.

"That is why I sent for you to come immediately. You will see him tonight at Devenham House."

"With all the rest of the world," she answered, "but a man is not likely to talk confidentially under such conditions."

Mr. Harvey rose to his feet.

"It is only a chance, of course," he admitted, "but remember that you know more than any other person in this country except myself. It would be impossible for the Prince to give you credit for such knowledge. A casual remark, a word, perhaps, may be sufficient."

Penelope held out her hand. The servant for whom the Ambassador had rung was already in the room.

"I will try," she promised. "Ask Mrs. Harvey to excuse my going up to see her this afternoon. I have another call to make, and I want to rest before the function tonight."

The Ambassador bowed, and escorted her to the door.

"I have confidence in you, Penelope," he said. "You will try your best?"

"Oh, yes!" she answered with a queer little laugh, "I shall do that. But I don't think that even you quite understand Prince Maiyo!"



CHAPTER XII. PENELOPE INTERVENES

The perfume of countless roses, the music of the finest band in Europe, floated through the famous white ballroom of Devenham House. Electric lights sparkled from the ceiling, through the pillared way the ceaseless splashing of water from the fountains in the winter garden seemed like a soft undernote to the murmur of voices, the musical peals of laughter, the swirl of skirts, and the rhythm of flying feet.

Penelope stood upon the edge of the ballroom, her hand resting still upon her partner's arm. She wore a dress of dull rose-color, a soft, clinging silk, which floated about her as she danced, a creation of Paquin's, daring but delightful. Her eyes were very full and soft. She was looking her best, and knew it. Nevertheless, she was just at the moment, a little distrait. She was watching the brilliant scene with a certain air of abstraction, as though her interest in it was, after all, an impersonal thing.

"Jolly well every one looks tonight," her partner, who was Sir Charles, remarked. "All the women seem to be wearing smart frocks, and some of those foreign uniforms are gorgeous."

"Even the Prince," Penelope said thoughtfully, "must find some reflection of the philosophy of his own country in such a scene as this. For the last fortnight we have been surfeited with horrors. We have had to go through all sorts of nameless things," she added, shivering slightly, "and tonight we dance at Devenham House. We dance, and drink champagne, and marvel at the flowers, as though we had not a care in the world, as though life moved always to music."

Sir Charles frowned a little.

"The Prince again!" he said, half protesting. "He seems to be a great deal in your thoughts lately, Penelope."

"Why not?" she answered. "It is something to meet a person whom one is able to dislike. Nowadays the whole world is so amiable."

"I wonder how much you really do dislike him," he said.

She looked at him with a mysterious smile.

"Sometimes," she murmured softly, "I wonder that myself."

"Leaving the Prince out of the question," he continued, "what you say is true enough. Only a few days ago, you had to attend that awful inquest, and the last time I saw dear old Dicky Vanderpole, he was looking forward to this very dance."

"It seems callous of us to have come," Penelope declared. "And yet, if we hadn't, what difference would it have made? Every one else would have been here. Our absence would never have been noticed, and we should have sat at home and had the blues. But all the same, life is cruel."

"Can't say I find much to grumble at myself," Sir Charles said cheerfully. "I'm frightfully sorry about poor old Dicky, of course, and every other decent fellow who doesn't get his show. But, after all, it's no good being morbid. Sackcloth and ashes benefit no one. Shall we have another turn?"

"Not yet," Penelope replied. "Wait till the crowd thins a little. Tell me what you have been doing today?"

"Pretty strenuous time," Sir Charles remarked. "Up at nine, played golf at Ranelagh all morning, lunched down there, back to my rooms and changed, called on my tailor, went round to the club, had one game of billiards and four rubbers of bridge."

"Is that all?" Penelope asked.

The faint sarcasm which lurked beneath her question passed unnoticed. Sir Charles smiled good-humoredly.

"Not quite," he answered. "I dined at the Carlton with Bellairs and some men from Woolwich and we had a box at the Empire to see the new ballet. Jolly good it was, too. Will you come one night, if I get up a party?"

"Oh, perhaps!" she answered. "Come and dance."

They passed into the great ballroom, the finest in London, brilliant with its magnificent decorations of real flowers, its crowd of uniformed men and beautiful women, its soft yet ever-present throbbing of wonderful music. At the further end of the room, on a slightly raised dais, still receiving her guests, stood the Duchess of Devenham. Penelope gave a little start as they saw who was bowing over her hand.

"The Prince!" she exclaimed.

Sir Charles whispered something a little under his breath.

"I wonder," she remarked with apparent irrelevance, "whether he dances."

"Shall I go and find out for you?" Sir Charles asked.

She had suddenly grown absent. She had the air of scarcely hearing what he said.

"Let us stop," she said. "I am out of breath."

He led her toward the winter garden. They sat by a fountain, listening to the cool play of the water.

"Penelope," Somerfield said a little awkwardly, "I don't want to presume, you know, nor to have you think that I am foolishly jealous, but you have changed towards me the last few weeks, haven't you?"

"The last few weeks," she answered, "have been enough to change me toward any one. All the same, I wasn't conscious of anything particular so far as you are concerned."

"I always thought," he continued after a moment's hesitation, "that there was so much prejudice in your country against—against all Asiatic races."

She looked at him steadfastly for a minute.

"So there is," she answered. "What of it?"

"Nothing, except that it is a prejudice which you do not seem to share," he remarked.

"In a way I do share it," she declared, "but there are exceptions, sometimes very wonderful exceptions."