THE SLAVE OF SILENCE

"Nothing daunted, the pair made a rush at Berrington who fired right and left." Frontispiece. [See page 191.]

THE
SLAVE OF SILENCE

BY
F. M. WHITE
AUTHOR OF "TREGARTHEN'S WIFE" "THE WHITE BATTALION"
"THE ROBE OF LUCIFER" ETC ETC
ILLUSTRATED
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1906

Copyright, 1904,
By FRED M. WHITE.
Copyright, 1906,
By LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

All Rights Reserved
Published November, 1906
Printers
S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, U. S. A.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE SLAVE OF SILENCE

CHAPTER I

The girl turned away from the splendour of it and laid her aching head against the cool windowpane. A hansom flashed along in the street below with just a glimpse of a pretty laughing girl in it with a man by her side. From another part of the Royal Palace Hotel came sounds of mirth and gaiety. All the world seemed to be happy, to-night, perhaps to mock the misery of the girl with her head against the windowpane.

And yet on the face of it, Beatrice Darryll's lines seemed to have fallen in pleasant places. She was young and healthy, and, in the eyes of her friends, beautiful. Still, the startling pallor of her face was in vivid contrast with the dead black dress she wore, a dress against which her white arms and throat stood out like ivory on a back-ground of ebony and silver. There was no colour about the girl at all, save for the warm, ripe tone of her hair and the deep, steadfast blue of her eyes. Though her face was cold and scornful, she would not have given the spectator the impression of coldness, only utter weariness and a tiredness of life at the early age of twenty-two.

Behind her was a table laid out for a score of dinner guests. Everything was absolutely perfect and exceedingly costly, as appertained to all things at the Royal Palace Hotel, where the head waiter condescended to bow to nothing under a millionaire. The table decorations were red in tone, there were red shades to the low electric lights, and masses of red carnations everywhere. No taste, and incidentally no expense had been spared, for Beatrice Darryll was to be married on the morrow, and her father, Sir Charles, was giving this dinner in honour of the occasion. Only a very rich man could afford a luxury like that.

"I think everything is complete, madame," a waiter suggested softly. "If there is anything——"

Beatrice turned wearily from the window. She looked old and odd and drawn just for the moment. And yet that face could ripple with delighted smiles, the little red mouth was made for laughter. Beatrice's eyes swept over the wealth of good taste and criminal extravagance.

"It will do very nicely," the girl said. "It will do—anything will do. I mean you have done your work splendidly. I am more than satisfied."

The gratified, if slightly puzzled, waiter bowed himself out. The bitter scorn in Beatrice's eyes deepened. What did all this reckless extravagance mean? Why was it justified? The man who might have answered the question sauntered into the room. A wonderfully well-preserved man was Sir Charles Darryll, with a boyish smile and an air of perennial youth unspotted by the world, a man who was totally unfitted to cope with the hard grip and sordid side of life. There were some who said that he was a grasping, greedy, selfish

old rascal, who under the guise of youthful integrity concealed a nature that was harsh and cruel.

"Well, my dear child," Sir Charles cried. "And are you not satisfied? That table-setting is perfect; I never saw anything in more exquisite taste."

"It will all have to be paid for," Beatrice said wearily. "The money——"

"Will be forthcoming. I have no doubt of it. Whether I have it at the bank or not I cannot for the moment say. If not, then our good friend Stephen Richford must lend it me. My dear child, that black dress of yours gives me quite a painful shock. Why wear it?"

Beatrice crossed over and regarded her pale reflection in the glass opposite. The little pink nails were dug fiercely into the still pinker flesh of her palm.

"Why not?" she asked. "Is it not appropriate? Am I not in the deepest mourning for my lost honour? To-morrow I am going to marry a man who from the bottom of my heart I loathe and despise. I am going to sell myself to him for money—money to save your good name. Oh, I know that I shall have the benediction of the church, less fortunate girls will envy me; but I am not a whit better than the poor creature flaunting her shame on the pavement. Nay, I am worse, for she can plead that love was the cause of her undoing. Father, I can't, can't go through with it."

She flung herself down in a chair and covered her face with her hands. The boyish innocence of Sir Charles's face changed suddenly, a wicked gleam came into his eyes. His friends would have found a difficulty in recognizing him then.

"Get up," he said sternly. "Get up and come to

the window with me. Now, what do you see in this room?"

"Evidences of wealth that is glittering here," Beatrice cried. "Shameless extravagance that you can never hope to pay for. Costly flowers——"

"And everything that makes life worth living. All these things are necessary to me. They will be with me till the end if you marry Stephen Richford. Now look outside. Do you see those two men elaborately doing nothing by the railings opposite. You do? Well, they are watching me. They have been dogging me for three days. And if anything happened now, a sudden illness on your part, anything to postpone to-morrow's ceremony, I should pass the next day in jail. You did not think it was as bad as that, did you?"

The man's face was livid with fury; he had Beatrice's bare arm in a cruel grip, but she did not notice the pain. Her mental trouble was too deep for that.

"It's that City Company that I hinted at," Sir Charles went on. "There was a chance of a fortune there. I recognized that chance, and I became a director. And there was risk, too. We took our chance, and the chance failed. We gambled desperately, and again fortune failed us. Certain people who were against us have made unhappy discoveries. That is why those men are watching me. But if I can send the chairman a letter to-morrow assuming innocence and regret and enclosing a cheque for £5,000 to cover my fees and to recover all the shares I have sold, then I come out with a higher reputation than ever. I shall shine as the one honest man in a den of thieves. That cheque and more, Richford has promised me directly you are his wife. Do you understand, you sullen,

white-faced fool? Do you see the danger? If I thought you were going to back out of it now, I'd strangle you."

Beatrice felt no fear; she was long past that emotion. Her weary eyes fell on the banks of red carnations; on the shaded lights and the exquisite table service. The fit of passion had left her indifferent and cold. She was not in the least sullen.

"It would be the kindest act you could do, father," she said. "Oh, I know that this is no new thing. There is no novelty in the situation of a girl giving herself to a man whom she despises, for the sake of his money. The records of the Divorce Court teem with such cases. For the battered honour of my father I am going to lose my own. Be silent—no sophistry of yours can hide the brutal truth. I hate that man from the bottom of my soul, and he knows it. And yet his one desire is to marry me. In Heaven's name, why?"

Sir Charles chuckled slightly. The danger was past, and he could afford to be good-humoured again. Looking at his daughter he could understand the feelings of the lover who grew all the more ardent as Beatrice drew back. And Stephen Richford was a millionaire. It mattered little that both he and his father had made their money in crooked ways; it mattered little that the best men and a few of the best clubs would have none of Stephen Richford so long as Society generally smiled on him and fawned at his feet.

"You need have no further fear," Beatrice answered coldly. "My weakness has passed. I am not likely to forget myself again. My heart is dead and buried——"

"That's the way to talk," Sir Charles said cheerfully.

"Feeling better, eh? I once fancied that that confounded foolishness between Mark Ventmore and yourself,—eh, what?"

A wave of crimson passed over Beatrice's pale face. Her little hands trembled.

"It was no foolishness," she said. "I never cared for anyone but Mark, I never shall care for anybody else. If Mark's father had not disowned him, because he preferred art to that terrible City, you would never have come between us. But you parted us, and you thought that there was an end of it. But you were wrong. Let me tell the truth. I wrote to Mark in Venice, only last week, asking him to come to me. I got no reply to that letter. If I had and he had come to me, I should have told him everything and implored him to marry me. But the letter was not delivered, and therefore you need have no fear of those men in the street. But my escape has been much nearer than you imagine."

Sir Charles turned away humming some operatic fragment gaily. There was not the least occasion for him to give any display of feeling in the matter. It had been an exceedingly lucky thing for him that the letter in question had miscarried. And nothing could make any difference now, seeing that Beatrice had given her word, and that was a thing that she always respected. All Beatrice's probity and honour she inherited from her mother.

"Very foolish, very foolish," Sir Charles muttered benignly. "Girls are so impulsive. Don't you think that those carnations would be improved by a little more foliage at the base? They strike me as being a little set and formal. Now, is not that better?"

As if he had not either care or trouble in the world, Sir Charles added a few deft touches to the deep crimson blooms. His face was careless and boyish and open again. From the next room came the swish of silken skirts and the sound of a high-bred voice asking for somebody.

"Lady Rashborough," Sir Charles cried, "I'll go and receive her. And do for goodness' sake try to look a little more cheerful. Stay in here and compose yourself."

Sir Charles went off with an eager step and his most fascinating smile. Lord Rashborough was the head of his family. He was going to give Beatrice away to-morrow; indeed, Beatrice would drive to the church from Rashborough's town house, though the reception was in the Royal Palace Hotel.

Beatrice passed her hand across her face wearily. She stood for a moment looking into the fire, her thoughts very far away. Gradually the world and its surroundings came back to her, and she was more or less conscious that somebody was in the room. As she turned suddenly a tall figure turned also, and made with hesitation towards the door.

"I am afraid," the stranger said in a soft, pleading voice; "I am afraid that I have made a mistake."

"If you are looking for anybody," Beatrice suggested, "my father has these rooms. If you have come to see Sir Charles Darryll, why, I could——"

It struck Beatrice just for a moment that here was an adventurer after the silver plate. But a glance at the beautiful, smooth, sorrowful face beat down the suspicion as quickly as it had risen. The intruder was unmistakably a lady, she was dressed from head to foot

in silver grey, and had a bonnet to match. In some vague way she reminded Beatrice of a hospital nurse, and then again of some grande dame in one of the old-fashioned country houses where the parvenue and the Russo-Semitic financier is not permitted to enter.

"I took the wrong turn," the stranger said. "I fancy I can reach the corridor by that door opposite. These great hotels are so big, they confuse me. So you are Beatrice Darryll; I have often heard of you. If I may venture to congratulate you upon——"

"No, no," Beatrice cried quickly. "Please don't. Perhaps if you tell me your name I may be in a position to help you to find anybody you may chance——"

The stranger shook her head as she stood in the doorway. Her voice was low and sweet as she replied.

"It does not in the least matter," she said. "You can call me the Slave of the Bond."

CHAPTER II

The guests had assembled at length, the dinner was in full swing. It would have been hard for any onlooker to have guessed that so much misery and heart-burning were there. Sir Charles, smiling, gay, debonair, chatted with his guests as if quite forgetful of the silent watchers by the railings outside. He might have been a rich man as he surveyed the tables and ordered the waiters about. True, somebody else would eventually pay for the dinner, but that detracted nothing from the host's enjoyment.

Beatrice had a fixed smile to her face; she also had disguised her feelings marvellously. There were other girls bidden to that brilliant feast who envied Miss Darryll and secretly wondered why she was dressed so plainly and simply. On her left hand sat Stephen Richford, a dull, heavy-looking man with a thick lip and a suggestion of shiftiness in his small eyes. Altogether he bore a strong resemblance to a prize-fighter. He was quiet and a little moody, as was his wont, so that most of Beatrice's conversation was directed to her neighbour on the other side, Colonel Berrington, a brilliant soldier not long from the East.

A handsome and distinguished-looking man he was, with melancholy droop to his moustache and the shadow of some old sorrow in his eyes. Colonel Berrington went everywhere and knew everything, but as to his past he said nothing. Nobody knew anything about his

people and yet everybody trusted him, indeed no man in the Army had been in receipt of more confidences. Perhaps it was his innate feeling, his deep sense of introspection. And he knew by a kind of instinct that the beautiful girl by his side was not happy.

"So this is your last free party, Miss Beatrice," he smiled. "It seems strange to think that when last we met you were a happy child, and now——"

"And now an unhappy woman, you were going to suggest," Beatrice replied. "Is not that so?"

"Positively, I refuse to have words like that put into my mouth," Berrington protested. "Looking round the table I can see four girls at least who are envying you from the bottom of their hearts. Now could any society woman be miserable under those circumstances?"

Beatrice flushed a little as she toyed nervously with her bread. Berrington's words were playful enough, but there was a hidden meaning behind them that Beatrice did not fail to notice. In a way he was telling her how sorry he was; Richford had been more or less dragged into a sporting discussion by the lady on the other side, so that Beatrice and her companion had no fear of being interrupted. Their eyes met for a moment.

"I don't think they have any great need to be envious," the girl said. "Colonel Berrington, I am going to ask what may seem a strange question under the circumstances. I am going to make a singular request. Everybody likes and trusts you. I have liked and trusted you since the first day I met you. Will you be my friend,—if anything happens when I want a friend

sorely, will you come to me and help me? I know it is singular——"

"It is not at all singular," Berrington said in a low voice. He shot a quick glance of dislike at Richford's heavy jowl. "One sees things, quiet men like myself always see things. And I understand exactly what you mean. If I am in England I will come to you. But I warn you that my time is fully occupied. All my long leave——"

"But surely you have no work to do whilst you are in England on leave?"

"Indeed I have. I have a quest, a search that never seems to end. I thought that I had finished it to-night, and singularly enough, in this very hotel. I can't go into the matter here with all this chattering mob of people about us, for the story is a sad one. But if ever you should chance to meet a grey lady with brown eyes and lovely grey hair——"

"The stranger! How singular!" Beatrice exclaimed. "Why, only to-night in this very room."

"Ah!" the word came with a gasp almost like pain from Berrington's lips. The laughter and chatter of the dinner-table gave these two a sense of personal isolation. "That is remarkable. I am looking for a grey lady, and I trace her to this hotel—quite by accident, and simply because I am dining here to-night. And you saw her in this room?"

"I did," Beatrice said eagerly. "She came here by mistake; evidently she had quite lost herself in this barrack of a place. She was dressed from head to foot in silver grey, she had just the eyes and hair that you describe. And when I asked her who she was, she merely said that she was the Slave of the Bond and vanished."

Colonel Berrington's entrée lay neglected on his plate. A deeper tinge of melancholy than usual was on his face. It was some time before he spoke again.

"The Slave of the Bond," he echoed. "How true, how characteristic! And that is all you have to tell me. If you see her again——but there, you are never likely to see her again ... I will tell you the story some other time, not before these frivolous creatures here. It is a sad story; to a great extent, it reminds me of your own, Miss Beatrice."

"Is mine a sad story?" Beatrice smiled and blushed. "In what way is it sad, do you think?"

"Well, we need not go into details here," Berrington replied. "You see, Mark Ventmore is an old friend of mine. I knew his father intimately. It was only at Easter that we met in Rome, and, as you say, people are so good as to regard me as worthy of confidence. Beatrice, is it too late?"

Berrington asked the question in a fierce, sudden whisper. His lean fingers clasped over the girl's hand. Sir Charles was leaning back in his chair talking gaily. Nobody seemed to heed the drama that was going on in their midst. Beatrice's eyes filled with tears.

"It is a great comfort to me to know that I have so good and true a friend," she said with her eyes cast down on her plate. "No, I do not want any wine. Why does that waiter keep pushing that wine list of his under my nose?"

"Then you are quite sure that it is too late?" Berrington asked again.

"My dear friend, it is inevitable," Beatrice replied. "It is a matter of—duty. Look at my father."

Berrington glanced in the direction of Sir Charles,

who was bending tenderly over the very pretty woman on his right hand. Apparently the baronet had not a single care in the world; his slim hand toyed with a glass of vintage claret. Berrington gave him a quick glance of contempt.

"I do not see what Sir Charles has to do with it," he said.

"My father has everything to do with it," Beatrice said. "Does he not look happy and prosperous! And yet you can never tell. And there was a time when he was so very different. And the mere thought that any action of mine would bring disgrace upon him——"

Beatrice paused as she felt Berrington's eyes upon her. The expression of his face showed that she had said enough, and more than enough.

"I quite understand," Berrington said quietly. "You are a hostage to fortune. Honour thy father that his days may be long in the land where good dinners abound and tradesmen are confiding. But the shame, the burning shame of it! Here's that confounded waiter again."

Beatrice felt inclined to laugh hysterically at Berrington's sudden change of tone. The dark-eyed Swiss waiter was bending over the girl's chair again with a supplicating suggestion that she should try a little wine of some sort. He had a clean list in his hand, and even Berrington's severest military frown did not suffice to scare him away.

"Ver' excellent wine," he murmured. "A little claret, a liqueur. No. 74 is what—will madame kindly look? Madame will look for one little moment?"

With an insistence worthy of a better cause, the Swiss placed the card in Beatrice's hand.

It was a clean card, printed in red and gold, and opposite No. 74 was a pencilled note. The girl's eyes gleamed as she saw the writing. The words were few but significant. "In the little conservatory beyond the drawing-room. Soon as possible."

"I shall have to complain about that fellow," Berrington said. "Miss Beatrice, are you not well?"

"I am quite well, quite strong and well," Beatrice whispered. "I implore you not to attract any attention to me. And the waiter was not to blame. He had a message to deliver to me. You can see how cleverly he has done it. Look here!"

Beatrice displayed the card with the pencilled words upon it. Berrington's quick intelligence took everything in at a glance.

"Of course that is intended for you," he said. "A neat handwriting. And yet in some way it seems quite familiar to me. Could I possibly have seen it anywhere before?"

"I should say that it is extremely likely," the girl said. "It is Mark Ventmore's own handwriting."

Berrington smiled. He had all a soldier's love of adventure, and he began to see a very pretty one here.

"I wrote to him a little over a week ago," Beatrice said rapidly. "If he had got my letter then and come, goodness knows what would have happened. I was not quite aware at that hour how close was the shadow of disgrace. I expect Mark has found out everything. Probably he has only just arrived and feels that if he does not see me to-night it will be too late. Colonel Berrington, I must see Mark at once, oh, I must."

Nothing could be easier. Beatrice had merely to say that she was suffering with a dreadful headache, that the atmosphere of the room was insupportable, and that she was going to try the purer air of the conservatory beyond the dining-room.

"No, you need not come," Beatrice said as Richford lounged heavily to his feet. "I do not feel the least in the mood to talk to anybody, not even you."

The listener's sullen features flushed, and he clenched his hands. Beatrice had never taken the slightest trouble to disguise her dislike for the man she had promised to marry. In his heart of hearts he had made up his mind that she should suffer presently for all the indignities that she had heaped upon his head.

"All right," he said. "I'll come into the drawing-room and wait for you. Keep you from being interrupted, in fact. I know what women's headaches mean."

There was no mistaking the cowardly insinuation, but Berrington said nothing. Richford could not possibly have seen the signal, and yet he implied an assignation if his words meant anything at all. It was a cruel disappointment, but the girl's face said nothing of her emotions. She passed quietly along till she came to the little conservatory where presently she was followed by the Swiss waiter, who had given her the card with Mark Ventmore's message upon it.

"Madame is not well," he said. "Madame has the dreadful headache. Can I get anything for Madame? A glass of water, an ice, a cup of coffee, or——"

Beatrice was on the point of declining everything, when she caught the eye of the speaker. Apparently

there was some hidden meaning behind his words, for she changed her mind.

"No coffee," she said in a voice that was meant for the lounger in the drawing-room, "but I shall be very glad if you will let me have a cup of tea, strong tea, without milk or sugar."

The waiter bowed and retired. Beatrice sat there with her head back as if utterly worn out, though her heart was beating thick and fast. She looked up again presently as a waiter entered leaving the necessary things on a tray. It was not the same waiter, but a taller, fairer man who bowed as he held out the silver salver.

"The tea, Madame," he said. "May I be allowed to pour it out for you? Steady!"

The last word was no more than a whisper. Beatrice checked the cry that came to her lips.

"Mark," she murmured. "Mark, dear Mark, is it really you?"

The tall waiter smiled as he laid a hand on the girl's trembling fingers.

"Indeed it is, darling," he said. "For God's sake don't say I have come too late!"

CHAPTER III

From the point of view of the onlooker there could have been nothing suspicious in the attitude of the pseudo waiter with his tray. He could see Beatrice leaning back as if the pain in her head had made her oblivious to everything else. As a matter of fact, Beatrice was racking her brains for some way out of the difficulty. The self-elected waiter could not stay there much longer, in any case, at least not unless the suspicious Richford took it in his head to return to the dinner-table again.

"It is so good of you to come," Beatrice said, still with her head thrown back in the air. "That man has followed me, though Heaven knows what he has to be suspicious about. Go away for a few minutes, as if you had forgotten something, and then return again."

Mark Ventmore assented with a low bow. Scarcely had he left the conservatory by a door leading to the corridor than Richford strolled in.

"Feeling better now?" he asked ungraciously. "Funny things, women's headaches!"

"For Heaven's sake go away," Beatrice exclaimed. "Why do you come and torture me like this? You are the very last I want to see just now. Don't drive me over the border. Go back to the others, and leave me in peace."

With a sullen air, Richford lounged away; Colonel Berrington was crossing the drawing-room, and Bea

trice's heart beat high with hope. She might have known that the gallant soldier would help her if possible. With unspeakable relief she saw Richford tactfully drawn away and disappear. Very quickly Beatrice changed her seat, so that she could command a view of the drawing-room without herself being seen. The side door opened, and Mark Ventmore came in again. He carried a tray still, but he no longer looked like a waiter. With one quick glance around him he advanced to Beatrice and knelt by the side of her chair.

"My darling," he whispered. "Oh, my dear little love! Am I too late?"

Beatrice said nothing for a moment. She was content only to forget her unhappy lot in the knowledge that the one man she had ever cared for was by her side. Ventmore's arm stole about her; her head drooped to his shoulder. There was a faint, unsteady smile on the girl's lips as Ventmore bent and kissed her passionately.

"Why did you not come before?" she asked.

"My dearest, I could not. I was away from my quarters, and I did not get your letter. I am only here quite by chance. But is it too late?"

"Oh, I fear so; I fear so," Beatrice murmured. "If you had come a week ago I should have asked you to marry me and take me away from it all. And yet, if I had done so, my father would have been ruined and disgraced."

Mark Ventmore moved his shoulders a little impatiently.

"So Sir Charles says," he replied. "Sir Charles was always very good at those insinuations. He has played upon your feelings, of course, sweetheart."

"Not this time, Mark. He has mixed himself up in some disgraceful City business. A prosecution hangs in the air. And I am to be the price of his freedom. My future husband will see my father through after I become his wife. Even now there are private detectives watching my father. It is a dreadful business altogether, Mark. And yet if you had come a week ago, I should have risked it all for your sake."

Ventmore pressed the trembling figure to his heart passionately. Under his breath he swore that this hideous sacrifice should never be. Was this white-drawn woman in his arms, the happy laughing little Beatrice that he used to know? They had parted cheerfully enough a year since; they had agreed not to write to one another; they had infinite trust in the future. Mark was going to make his fortune as a painter, and Beatrice was to wait for him. And now it was the girl's wedding eve, and the fates had been too strong for her altogether.

"Leave your father to himself and come," Mark urged. "I am making enough now to keep us both in comfort; not quite the income that I hoped to ask you to share with me, but at least we shall be happy. I will take you to a dear old friend of mine, and to-morrow I will buy a license. After that no harm can molest you."

Beatrice closed her eyes before the beatitude of the prospect. Just for the moment she felt inclined to yield. Mark was so strong and good and handsome, and she loved him so. And yet she had given her word for the sake of her father.

"I cannot," she said. Her voice was very low but

quite firm. "I have promised my father. Oh, yes, I know that I had promised you first. But it is for the sake of my father's honour. If I do what you wish he will go to jail—nothing can prevent it. I only knew to-night."

"And you are sure that Sir Charles is not—not ... you know what I mean?"

"Lying to me?" Beatrice said bitterly. "Not this time. I always know when he is making an effort to deceive me. Mark, don't press me."

Mark crushed down his feelings with an effort. Blindly and passionately in love as he was, he could see that duty and reason were on the side of the girl. She would have to be sacrificed to this scoundrelly father, and to please the other rascal who coveted her beauty and her fair white body all the more because Beatrice kept him so rigidly at a distance.

"It seems very, very hard," Mark said thoughtfully. "Terribly hard on both of us."

"Yes, but it is always the woman who suffers most," Beatrice replied. "There is no help for it, Mark. I must see this thing out to the end. If you had only come before!"

"My darling, I came as quickly as I could. I am staying here to-night, and my room is in the same corridor as that of Sir Charles. I shall see him to-night, or early to-morrow, and tell him a few of the things that I have discovered. Perhaps when I open his eyes to the truth as to his future son-in-law, he will change his mind."

"He will never do so," Beatrice said mournfully. "My father can always justify himself and his con

science where his own interests are concerned. But how did you know——"

"That you were in trouble? It came to me quite by accident. I was in Paris a day or two ago to see a wealthy American who wants some of my work. And as I was alone in the evening, I went to one of the theatres. There were two English ladies by me in the stalls and presently they began to talk about you. I could not help hearing. Then I heard everything. Do you know a tall, elderly lady with dark eyes and white hair, a lady all in silver grey?"

Beatrice started. Surely Mark was describing the Slave of the Bond, as the grey lady whom Beatrice had encountered earlier in the evening had called herself.

"I know her, and I don't know her," the girl cried. "She came into the dining-room here before dinner quite by accident. I thought she was some adventuress at first. But her face was too good and pure for that. I asked her who she was, and she said she was the Slave of the Bond. Is this a coincidence, or is there something deeper beyond? I don't know what to think."

"Something deeper beyond, I should imagine," Mark said. "Be sure that in some way or another this grey lady is interested in your welfare. But I am absolutely sure that she did not know me."

"And so you came on at once, Mark?" Beatrice asked.

"As soon as possible, dear. I heard about the dinner whilst I was in the theatre. My train was very late, and I could not possibly carry out the programme that I had arranged. My next difficulty was to get speech with you. Happily, a half sovereign and an intelligent waiter solved that problem. When Richford

followed you I had to borrow that tray and the rest of it and disburse another half sovereign. Then I saw that my old friend Berrington had come to my rescue. Did you tell him, Beatrice?"

"He saw the message on the wine card and recognized your handwriting. But I shall not be able to stay much longer, Mark. Those people may come into the drawing-room at any moment. This must be our last meeting."

"I am not going to be so sure of that, Beatrice. What I have to say to your father must move him. The idea of your being the wife of that man—but I will not think of it. Oh, love will find the way even at this very late hour."

Mark would have said more, only there was the flutter of a dress in the drawing-room beyond, and the echo of a laugh. The dinner guests were coming into the drawing-room. With a quick motion, Mark snatched the girl to his heart and kissed her passionately.

"Good night, darling," he whispered. "Keep up your courage. Who knows what may happen between now and twelve o'clock to-morrow? And after I have seen your father——"

Another kiss, and the lover was gone. Beatrice lay back in her chair striving to collect her thoughts. Everything seemed to have happened so suddenly and unexpectedly. There were people about her now who were asking smoothly sympathetic questions in the hollow insincerity of the world.

"I'm no better," Beatrice said. "If my aunt is ready I should like to go home. My father will stay and see that you get your bridge all right."

Beatrice had gone at length with Lady Rashborough, the rest of the guests had finished their bridge, and the party was breaking up. Mark Ventmore was sitting, smoking cigarettes in his bedroom, waiting for the chance to see Sir Charles. It was getting very late now, and all the guests had long since been in their rooms. With his door open Mark could see into the corridor.

Then he gave a little whistle of astonishment as the door of Sir Charles's sitting-room opened and the grey lady, the Slave of the Bond of Silence, came out. She was dressed just as Mark had seen her before; as she walked along, her face was calm and placid. She came at length to the end of the corridor and disappeared quietly and deliberately down the stairs. With a feeling of curiosity, Mark crossed over and tried the handle of Sir Charles's door. To his great surprise it was locked.

For a little time Mark pondered over the problem. As he did so, his head fell back and he slept. It was the sound sleep of the clean mind in the healthy body, so that when the sleeper came to himself again it was broad daylight; the hotel was full of life and bustle. With a sense of having done a fearful thing, Mark looked at his watch. It was ten minutes past eleven!

"This comes of having no rest the night before," he muttered. "And to think that the fate of my little girl should be hanging in the balance! If Sir Charles has gone!"

But Sir Charles had not gone, as one of the waiters was in a position to assure Mark. He had not retired to bed until past three, and at that time was in a state

of hilarity that promised a pretty fair headache in the morning.

"Well, there is time yet," Mark thought, grimly. "And Sir Charles must be moving by this time, as the wedding is to take place at twelve."

But the minutes crept on, and it was pretty near to that hour when Sir Charles's man came down the corridor with an anxious expression on his face. He had been hammering at the bedroom door without effect.

A sudden idea thrilled Mark, an idea that he was ashamed of almost before it had come into his mind. He stood by idly, listening. He heard a clock somewhere strike the hour of midday. He stepped up to the little knot of waiters.

"Why don't you do something?" he demanded. "What is the use of standing stupidly about here? Call the manager or whoever is in attendance. Break down the door."

With all his force Mark thrust himself against the stout oak. The hinges yielded at last.

CHAPTER IV

Beatrice woke to the knowledge of her own utter misery. Contrary to her anticipation, she had slept very soundly all night, much as condemned criminals are supposed to do on the eve of execution. She felt well and vigorous in herself, a brilliant sunshine was pouring into her room, and all around her lay evidences of her coming slavery. Here were the bridal veil and the long train, there were the jewels laid out on the dressing table. A maid was moving quietly about the room.

"Good morning, miss," she said. "A lovely morning. And if there's any truth in the saying that 'happy's the bride that the sun shines on,' why——"

The maid stopped and smiled before she caught sight of Beatrice's pale, set face.

"I suppose you think I am to be envied?" Beatrice asked. "Now don't you?"

The maid lifted her hands to express her dumb admiration. "Who would not be happy to be dressed in those lovely clothes, to be decked in those jewels and to marry a man who will give you everything that the heart could desire?" Beatrice smiled wearily.

"You are quite wrong, Adeline," she said. "If I could change places with you at this moment I would gladly do so. You have a sweetheart, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, miss. He's in a shop. Some day he hopes to have a shop of his own, and then——"

"And then you will be married. You love him very dearly, I suppose. And I——"

Beatrice stopped, conscious of the fact that she was saying too much. She ate sparingly enough of her breakfast; she went down to the drawing-room and wrote a few letters. It was not quite ten yet and she had plenty of time. Lady Rashborough was not an early riser, though Rashborough himself had breakfasted and gone out long before. Beatrice was moodily contemplating her presents in the library when Mr. Stephen Richford was announced. He came in with an easy smile, though Beatrice could see that his hands were shaking and there was just a suggestion of fear in his eyes. With all his faults, the man did not drink, and Beatrice wondered. She had once seen a forger arrested on a liner, and his expression, as soon as he recognized his position, was just the same as Beatrice now saw in the eyes of the man she was going to marry.

"What is the matter?" she asked listlessly. "You look as if you had had some great shock, like a man who has escaped from prison. Your face is ghastly."

Richford made no reply for a moment. He contemplated his sullen, livid features in a large Venetian mirror opposite. He was not a pretty object at any time, but he was absolutely repulsive just at that moment.

"Bit of an upset," he stammered. "Saw a—a nasty street accident. Poor chap run over."

The man was lying to her; absolutely he was forced to the invention to save himself from a confession of quite another kind. He was not in the least likely to feel for anybody else, in fact he had no feeling of human kindness, as Beatrice had once seen for herself.

There had been a fatal accident at a polo match under their very feet, and Richford had puffed at his cigarette and expressed the sentiment that if fools did that kind of thing they must be prepared to put up with the consequences.

"You are not telling the truth!" Beatrice said coldly. "As if anything of that kind would affect you. You are concealing something from me. Is it—is there anything the matter with my father?"

Richford started violently. With all his self-control he could not hold himself in now. His white face took on a curious leaden hue, his voice was hoarse as he spoke.

"Of course I have no good points in your eyes," he said with a thick sneer. "And once a woman gets an idea into her head there is no rooting it out again. Your father is all right; nothing ever happens to men of that class. I saw him to his room last night, and very well he had done for himself. Won over two hundred at bridge, too. Sir Charles can take care of himself."

Beatrice's face flamed and then turned pale again. She had caught herself hoping that something had happened to her father, something sufficiently serious to postpone to-day's ceremony. It was a dreadfully unworthy thought and Beatrice was covered with shame. And yet she knew that she would have been far happier in the knowledge of a disaster like that.

"Why did you want to see me?" she asked. "I have not too much time to spare."

"Of course not. But you can cheer yourself with the reflection that we shall have so much time together later on when the happy knot is tied. Has it occurred

to you that I have given you nothing as yet? I brought this for you."

Richford's hands, still trembling, produced a bulky package from his pocket. As he lifted the shabby lid a stream of living fire flashed out. There were diamonds of all kinds in old settings, the finest diamonds that Beatrice had ever seen. Ill at ease and sick at heart as she was, she could not repress a cry.

"Ah, I thought I could touch you," Richford grinned. "A female saint could not resist diamonds. Forty thousand pounds I gave for them. They are the famous Rockmartin gems. The family had to part with them, so the opportunity was too good to be lost. Well?"

"They are certainly exquisitely lovely," Beatrice stammered. "I thank you very much."

"If not very warmly, eh? So that is all you have to say? Ain't they worth one single kiss?"

Beatrice drew back. For the life of her she could not kiss this man. Never had his lips touched hers yet. They should never do so if Beatrice had her own way.

"I think not," she said in her cold constrained way. "It is very princely of you, and yet it does not touch me in the least. You made the bargain with your eyes open; I told you at the time that I could never care for you; that I sold myself to save my father's good name. I know the situation is not a new one; I know that such marriages, strange to say, have before now turned out to be something like success. But not ours. All the heart I ever had to bestow has long since been given to another. I will do my best to make your life comforta

ble, I will do my best to learn all that a wife is asked to become. But no more."

Richford turned away with a savage curse upon his lips. The cold contempt struck him and pierced the hide of his indifference as nothing else could. But he was going to have his revenge. The time was near at hand when Beatrice would either have to bend or break, Richford did not care which. It was the only consolation that he had.

"Very well," he said. "We understand one another. We shall see. Au revoir!"

He took up his hat and his stick, and strode off without a further word. Beatrice put the diamonds away from her as if they had been so many deadly snakes. She felt that she would loathe the sight of diamonds for the rest of her life.

The time was drawing on now, it only wanted another hour, and the thing would be done. Lady Rashborough came in and admired the diamonds; in her opinion, Beatrice was the luckiest girl in London. Her ladyship was a pretty little blue-eyed thing adored by her husband, but she had no particle of heart. Why a girl should dislike a man who would give her diamonds like these she could not possibly imagine.

"You will be wiser as you grow older, my dear," she said sapiently. "Why didn't I meet Richford before?"

Beatrice echoed the sentiment with all her heart. She resigned herself dully to the maid; she took not the slightest interest in the proceedings; whether she looked ill or well mattered nothing. But though her own natural beauty was not to be dimmed, and though

she had the aid of all that art could contrive, nothing could disguise the pallor of her face.

"A little rouge, miss," Adeline implored. "Just a touch on your cheeks. Your face is like snow, and your lips like ashes. I could do it so cleverly that——"

"That people would never know," Beatrice said. "I have no doubt about it, Adeline. But all the same I am not going to have any paint on my face."

A big clock outside was striking the three quarters after eleven; already the carriage was at the door. As yet there was no sign of Sir Charles. But perhaps he would join the party at the church, seeing that the head of the family and not himself was going to give the bride away. Lord Rashborough, a little awkward in his new frock coat, was fuming about the library. He was an open-air man and hated the society into which his wife constantly dragged him.

"Don't be too late," he said. "Always like to be punctual. Of course that father of yours has not turned up, though he promised to drive to the church, with us."

"Father was never known to be in time in his life," Beatrice said calmly. Her dull depression had gone, she was feeling quite cool and tranquil. If anybody had asked her, she would have said that the bitterness of death had passed. "It is not necessary to wait for him."

"He'll understand," Lord Rashborough joined in. "We can leave a message, and he can follow to the church in a hansom. Let us be moving, Beatrice, if you are quite ready."

With wonderful calmness Beatrice answered that she was quite ready. A little knot of spectators had gath

ered outside to see the bride depart. Two or three carriages were there, and into the first, with the splendid pair of bays, Lord Rashborough handed Beatrice. They drove along the familiar streets that seemed to Beatrice as though she was seeing them for the last time. She felt like a doomed woman with the deadly virus of consumption in her blood when she is being ordered abroad with the uncertain chance that she might never see England again. It almost seemed to Beatrice that she was asleep, and that the whole thing was being enacted in a dream.

"Here we are at last," Rashborough exclaimed. "What a mob of women! What a lot of flowers! Why anybody wants to make all this fuss over getting married beats me. Come along."

It was a society wedding in the highest sense of the word, and the church was crowded. There was a rustle and a stir as the bride swept up the aisle, and the organ boomed out. There was a little delay at the altar, for the father of the bride had not yet arrived, and there was a disposition to give him a little latitude. Only Lord Rashborough rebelled.

"Let's get on," he said. "Darryll may be half an hour late. One can never tell. And I've got a most important appointment at Tattersall's at half-past two."

Beatrice had no objection to make—she would have objected to nothing at that moment. In the same dreamy way, presently she found herself kneeling at the altar, and a clergyman was saying something that conveyed absolutely nothing to her intelligence. Presently somebody was fumbling unsteadily at her left hand, whereon somebody a great deal more nervous than she

was trying to fix a plain gold ring. Someone at the back of the church was making a disturbance.

The officiating clergyman raised his head in protest. Except the exhortation, the ceremony was practically finished. A policeman appeared out of somewhere and seemed to be expostulating with the intruder. Just for a minute it looked as if there was going to be an open brawl.

"I tell you I must go up," somebody was saying, and just for a moment it seemed to Beatrice that she was listening to the voice of Mark Ventmore. "It is a matter of life and death."

Beatrice glanced up languidly at the silly society faces, the frocks and the flowers. Did she dream, or was that really the pale face of Mark that she saw? Mark had burst from the policeman—he was standing now hatless before the altar.

"The ceremony must not go on," he said, breathlessly. There was a nameless horror in his white face. "I—I feel that I am strangely out of place, but it is all too dreadful."

Beatrice rose to her feet. There was some tragedy here, a tragedy reflected in the ghastly face of her groom. And yet on his face was a suggestion of relief, of vulgar triumph.

"What is it?" Beatrice asked. "Tell me. I could bear anything—now!"

"Your father!" Mark gasped. "We had to burst open his door. Sir Charles was found in his bed quite dead. He had been dead for some hours when they found him."

CHAPTER V

Mark Ventmore repeated his statement three times before anybody seemed to comprehend the dread meaning of his words. The shock was so sudden, so utterly unexpected by the majority of the people there. Of course nobody in that brilliant throng had the least idea of the bride's feelings in the matter, most of them were privileged guests for the reception. They had been bidden to a festive afternoon, a theatre had been specially chartered for the evening, with a dance to follow. This was one of the smart functions of the season.

And now death had stepped in and swept everything away at one breath. People looked at one another as if unable to take in what had happened. There was a strange uneasiness that might have been taken for disappointment rather than regret. Perhaps it partook of both. Somebody a little more thoughtful than the rest gave a sign to the organist who had begun to fill the church with a volume of triumphal music. The silence that followed was almost painful.

Then as if by common consent, every eye was fixed upon the bride. Beatrice had turned and walked down the altar steps in the direction of Mark, who advanced now without further opposition. Beatrice stood there with her hand to her head as if trying to understand it all. She was terribly white, but absolutely composed.

"Did you say that my father was dead?" she asked.

"I am afraid so," Mark stammered. "He—he has been dead for hours. I came on here as fast as I could, hoping to be in time to——"

He paused, conscious of the fact that he was about to say something terribly out of place. Just for an instant Mark had forgotten that he and Beatrice were not alone. He was looking into her beautiful, dilated eyes, oblivious to the fact of the spectators. He was going to say that he had hurried there in the hopes of being in time to stop the ceremony. And Beatrice had divined it, for she flushed slightly. It seemed a terrible thing, but already she had asked herself the same question. The shock of her father's death had not quite gone home to her yet, and she could still think about herself. Was she really married to Stephen Richford? Was the ceremony legally completed? The thought was out of place, but there it was. A mist rose before the girl's eyes, her heart beat painfully fast.

"Don't you think we ought to do something?" Mark asked.

The question startled Beatrice out of her stupor. She was ready for action. It was as if a stream of cold water had been poured over her.

"Of course," she cried. "It is wrong to stand here. Take me home at once, Mark."

It was a strange scene strangely carried out. The bridegroom stood irresolute by the altar, feeling nervously at his gloves, whilst Beatrice, with all her wedding finery about her, clutched Mark by the arm and hurried him down the aisle. The whole thing was done, and the strangely assorted pair had vanished before the congregation recovered from their surprise.

"Come back!" Richford exclaimed. "Surely it is my place to——"

Long before Richford could reach the porch, his wife and Mark had entered a hansom and were on their way to the Royal Palace Hotel. The story had got about by this time; people stopped to stare at the man in tweeds and the bride in her full array in the hansom. To those two it did not seem in the least strange.

"Did you manage to see my father, after all?" Beatrice asked.

"No, I tried to do so; you see, I had to wait for him. He was very late, so I fell asleep. It was after eleven to-day when I awoke to find Sir Charles had not left his room. I ventured to suggest that he had better be roused or he would be too late for your wedding. Nobody could make him hear, so the door was broken in. He was quite dead."

Beatrice listened in a dull kind of way. There was no trace of tears in her eyes. She had suffered so terribly, lately, that she could not cry. The horrible doubt as to whether she was free or not could not be kept out of her mind. Yet it seemed so dreadfully unnatural.

"He died in his sleep, I suppose?" Beatrice asked.

"That nobody can say yet," Mark said. "The doctor we called in was very guarded. Nobody seems to have been in the bedroom, though the sitting-room adjoining is not locked, and last night I saw a lady come out of it, a lady in grey."

"A lady in grey!" Beatrice cried. "What a singular thing, Mark! Do you mean to say it was the same lady who sat next to you in the Paris theatre?"

"Well, yes," Mark admitted. "It was the same.

I have not told anybody but you, and it seems to me that nothing will be gained by mentioning the fact."

Beatrice nodded thoughtfully. She could not identify the grey lady, the Slave of Silence, with anything that was wrong. And yet it was strange how that silent woman had come into her life. She must have been known to Sir Charles or she would never have ventured into his sitting-room. If she was still staying in the hotel, Beatrice made up her mind to seek her out. There was some strange mystery here that must be explained. It was uppermost in Beatrice's mind as she descended from the hansom and passed through the curious group of servants into the hall.

The fine suite of rooms was ready for the festive throng; in the dining-room a banquet had been spread out. The scarlet flush of red roses gave a warm note to the room; the sun came streaming through the stained-glass windows, and shone upon the silver and glass and red glow of wine, and on the gold foil of the champagne bottles. In the centre of the table stood a great white tower that Beatrice regarded vaguely as her wedding cake. A shudder passed over her as she looked at it. She longed for something dark and sombre, to hide her diamonds and the sheen of her ivory satin dress.

The place was silent now; the very bareness and desolation of the scene sickened Beatrice to the soul. No guests were here now—they were not likely to be. A polite manager was saying something to the bride, but she did not seem to heed.

"Mr. Marius is talking to you," Mark said. "He wants to know if he can do anything."

"Mr. Marius is very kind," Beatrice said wearily.

"I should like to see the doctor. I suppose that he is still here? May I see him at once?"

The doctor had not gone yet. Mark procured a small plate of dainty sandwiches and a glass of port wine which he forced Beatrice to take. To her great surprise she found that she was hungry. Breakfast she had had none; now that the crisis had passed, her natural healthy appetite had returned. The feeling of faintness that she had struggled against for so long passed away.

The doctor came in, rubbing his hands softly together. He regretted the unfortunate occasion, but when he had been called in, Sir Charles was long past mortal aid. Evidently he had been dead for some hours.

"You are in a position to be quite sure of that?" Beatrice asked.

"Oh, quite," Dr. Andrews replied. "One's experience tells that. Sir Charles was quite stiff and cold. I should say that he had been dead quite four hours when the door was broken down."

Just for an instant the doctor hesitated and his easy manner deserted him.

"I must see Sir Charles's regular medical man before I can be quite definite on that point," he said. "I have no doubt that death was caused by natural means, at least I see no reason at present to believe anything to the contrary. Indeed, if any doubt remains after that, there must be a post mortem, of course. But still I hope that such a course will not be necessary."

In a vague way Beatrice felt uneasy. If this gentleman was not actually concealing something, he was not quite so satisfied as he assumed to be.

"I should like to see my father, if I may," Beatrice said quietly.

The doctor led the way to the bedroom and closed the door softly behind the girl. His face was a little grave and anxious as he walked down the stairs.

"You appear to be a friend of the family," he said to Mark as he stood in the hall. "There are symptoms about the case which frankly I don't like. There was no occasion to lacerate Miss Darryll's feelings unduly, but I must see the family doctor at once. It is just possible that you may happen to know who he is."

Mark was in a position to supply the desired information, and Dr. Andrews drove off, his face still very grave and thoughtful. Meanwhile Beatrice found herself alone with the dead body of her father. He was only partially undressed; he lay on the bed as if he had been overcome with a sudden illness or fatigue. The handsome boyish features were quite composed; there was a smile on the lips, and yet the expression on the face was one of pain. Sir Charles appeared to have died as he had lived—gay, careless, and easy to the last. Always neat, he had placed his studs and tie on the dressing-table; by them stood a little pile of letters which had evidently come by a recent post. They had been carefully cut open with a penknife, so that Beatrice could see they had been read.

There were tears in the girl's eyes now, for Beatrice recalled the time when Sir Charles had been a good father to her in the days before he had dissipated his fortune and started out with the intention of winning it back in the city. Those had been happy hours, Beatrice reflected.

There was nothing further in the room to call for

notice. On the carpet, in contrast to the crimson ground, lay what looked like a telegram. It was half folded, but there was no mistaking the grey paper. If there was anything wrong here, perhaps the telegram would throw a light on it. Beatrice picked up the message and flattened it on her hand. Then she read it with a puzzled face. Suddenly a flash of illumination came upon her. Her hand clenched the paper passionately.

"Is it possible," she muttered, "that he could have known? And yet the date and the day! Why, that coward must have known all the time."

A glance at the dead, placid face there recalled Beatrice to herself. Hastily she thrust the message in her corsage and quietly left the room. Some time had elapsed since Beatrice entered the hotel, but as yet the man she called her husband had not returned. It seemed strange, but Beatrice said nothing. She stood regarding her wedding finery with some feeling of disgust.

"I must have a room somewhere and change," she said; "it seems horrible to be walking about like this when my father is lying dead upstairs. Mark, my woman is here somewhere. Will you try and find her and send her to Lady Rashborough for something black and quite plain? Meanwhile, I'll go to a bedroom and get some of this finery off. The mere touch of it fills me with loathing."

Beatrice's maid was discovered at length, and despatched in hot haste to Lady Rashborough's. Beatrice had scarcely entered before Stephen Richford drove up. He looked anxious and white and sullen withal, and he favoured Mark with a particularly malevolent scowl.

Richford knew the relationship that had existed at one time between Mark and Beatrice.

"I suppose you must be excused under the circumstances for racing off with my wife in this fashion," he said hoarsely. It seemed to Mark that he had found time to drink somewhere, though, as a rule, that was not one of Richford's failings. "Where is she?"

"She has gone to change," Mark said. "This is a very unfortunate business, Mr. Richford."

Richford shrugged his shoulders with an assumption of indifference. His hand trembled slightly.

"Sir Charles was getting on in years," he said; "and Sir Charles had not troubled to give very great attention to the question of his health. In fact, Sir Charles had gone it steadily. But it seems now to me that so long as the doctors are satisfied as to the cause of death——"

"I am not at all sure the doctor is satisfied," Mark said significantly. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing, nothing," Richford stammered. "Nothing more than a twinge of that confounded neuralgia of mine."

CHAPTER VI

Beatrice came down from her room presently, dressed in quiet black. In her hand she carried not only the telegram but a letter she had taken from the dressing-table of the dead man.

The little group in the hall had by this time been augmented by the presence of Colonel Berrington; Stephen Richford had slipped off somewhere. Mark had not failed to notice the restlessness and agitation of his manner.

"I think I have got rid of everybody," Berrington said. "It has been a most distressing business, and I am afraid that there is worse to come. Dr. Andrews has just telephoned. He has seen Sir Charles's medical man, and they have decided that there must be an inquest. I don't suggest that anything is wrong, but there you are."

"I am not surprised," Beatrice said coldly, "I have been to my father's room looking over his papers. And I found a letter that puzzles me. It was written last night as the date shows, in the hotel, on hotel paper, and evidently delivered by hand, as the envelope proves. Look at this."

Colonel Berrington held out his hand for the envelope. He started slightly as he looked at the neat, clear handwriting. Something was evidently wrong here, Mark thought. The Colonel was a man of courage, as he very well knew, and yet his fingers trembled as he

glanced interrogatively at Beatrice before he drew the letter from the envelope.

"Yes," Beatrice said; "I want you to read it. I brought it down on purpose."

"There does not seem to be much," Berrington said. "As there is no heading and signature, the letter may be intended for anybody."

"Only my father's name happens to be on the envelope," Beatrice said quietly. "Pray read it aloud."

Berrington proceeded to do so. There were only two or three lines in which the writer said that she must see the recipient of the letter without delay, and that it was of no use to try and keep out of the way. There was nothing more; no threat or sign of anger, nothing to signify that there was any feeling at all. And yet so much might have been concealed behind those simple lines. Berrington looked grave, and trembled as he handed the letter back to Beatrice.

"Clearly it is our duty to find out who wrote that letter," Mark observed. "It was written in the hotel, probably by somebody dining here last night. It is just possible that it was written by someone who was staying in the hotel. In that case we can easily ascertain the name of the writer."

"How is that possible?" Berrington demanded. He asked the question quite nervously. "In a place so large as this, with so many visitors continually going and coming——"

"There is a rigid rule here," Mark proceeded to explain. "Every guest, even if only passing a single night under the roof, has to sign the visitors' book. With this letter in my hand I can compare signatures. If there is no signature like this characteristic hand

writing, then our task is no easy one. On the other hand, if there is——"

The speaker paused significantly. Berrington's agitation deepened. With all her distress and sorrow, Beatrice did not fail to notice it.

"Perhaps you will go down to the office and see at once, Mark," Beatrice suggested.

Ventmore went off obediently enough. Berrington stood watching him for a moment, then he turned to Beatrice and laid his hand gently on her arm.

"Believe me, this is not going to help anybody," he said in a low voice. "Unless I am greatly mistaken, I know who wrote that letter. What connection she had with your father and what the secret was between them I shall perhaps never know. But the lady who wrote that letter——"

"Ah," Beatrice cried, with a flash of sudden inspiration, "it was the grey lady, I am sure of it."

"You have guessed correctly," Berrington went on. "It was the person whom you have elected to call the grey lady. It was a great shock to me to recognize that handwriting. The secret is not wholly mine to tell, but for a long time I have been seeking the grey lady. I had not the remotest idea that she and Sir Charles had anything in common; little did I dream that she was here in this hotel last night. But whatever may be the meaning of this mystery, if there has been foul play here, the grey lady is quite innocent of it. Don't ask me to say any more, because I cannot, I dare not."

Beatrice nodded in sympathy. The brave, grave soldier by her side was terribly agitated; indeed Beatrice

could not have recognized him as being capable of such a display of emotion.

"I am going to believe in you both," she said. "Probably the grey lady was the last person to see my father alive. She may have told him some terrible news; she may have given him the shock that killed him. But there was another who knew——"

"What do you mean by that?" Berrington asked.

"Nothing. I have said too much. That is quite between myself and—and could possibly have had nothing to do with my father's death. Oh, if only Mark had arrived five minutes sooner!"

Berrington knew exactly what was passing through Beatrice's mind.

"A great pity, indeed," he said quietly. "What a difference moments make in our lives. Still——"

"Still there is always the doubt," Beatrice whispered eagerly. A constant throng of people passed through the great hall where the death of Sir Charles was already forgotten. "I am living on the doubt, Colonel Berrington; am I or am I not married to Stephen Richford?"

"I could not say," Berrington replied. "I have very little knowledge of these matters. As far as I could see, the marriage ceremony was completed, the ring was placed on your finger, therefore——"

"Therefore you think that I am married," Beatrice said. She was twisting the gold badge of servitude on her finger nervously. "I am going to find out for certain. The service was not quite finished; there was no exhortation, there was no signing of the register. Surely I am free if it is my desire to be free. After what I found to-day——"

Again Beatrice paused as if aware of the fact that she was saying too much. There was a certain expression of relief on her face as she saw the figure of Mark approaching.

"Well, have you done anything?" she asked eagerly. "Have you made any great discovery?"

"I have only been partially successful," Mark said. "I have identified the writing with a signature of a guest in the visitors' book. The lady came only yesterday, as the date is opposite her writing. She came without a maid and with very little luggage, and she called herself Mrs. Beacon Light."

"Beacon Light," Beatrice said reflectively. "It sounds like a nom de plume; it suggests the kind of name a lady novelist would assume. Too singular to be real. And are you quite sure that the lady wrote that letter to my father?"

"I should say there is very little doubt about it," Mark replied. "The handwritings are identical. It seems that Mrs. Beacon Light stayed here last night and dined in the red salon. She had breakfast here very early, and then she paid her bill and departed. The clerk cannot say where she went, for her small amount of baggage was placed in a hansom and the driver was told to go in the first instance to Peter Robinson's. That is everything that I could ascertain."

There was no more to be said for the present, and very little to be done. A tall, stiff man, with an air of Scotland Yard indelibly impressed upon him, came presently, and asked to be allowed to see Sir Charles's suite of rooms. He had been waited upon at his office, he explained, by the deceased baronet's medical man,

who had suggested the necessity for an inquest, which had been fixed upon for ten o'clock the following day. Under the circumstances the suite of rooms would be locked up and the seal of authority placed on them. The inspector was sincerely sorry to cause all this trouble and worry to Miss Darryll, but she would quite see that he was doing no more than his duty.

"But why all this fuss?" Stephen Richford demanded. He had come up at the same moment. Troubled and dazed as Beatrice was, she could not help noticing that Richford had been drinking. The thing was so unusual that it stood out all the more glaringly. "There's no occasion for an inquest. Dr. Oswin has told me more than once lately that Sir Charles was giving his heart a great deal too much to do. This thing has got to be prevented, I tell you."

"Very sorry, sir," the inspector said politely; "but it is already out of private hands. Both Dr. Oswin and Dr. Andrews have suggested an inquest; they have notified us, and, if they wished to change their minds now, I doubt if my chief would permit them."

Richford seemed to be on the point of some passionate outburst, but he checked himself. He laid his hand more or less familiarly on Beatrice's arm, and she could feel his fingers trembling.

"Very well," he said sulkily. "If you have made up your minds as to this course, I have no more to say. But there is nothing to gain by standing here all day. Beatrice, I have something to say to you."

"I am quite ready," Beatrice said. "I have also something to say to you. We will go on as far as my sitting-room. Please don't leave the hotel, Colonel Berrington; I may want you again."

The hard corners of Richford's mouth trembled, but he said nothing. He did not utter a word until the door of the sitting-room had closed upon Beatrice and himself. He motioned the girl to a chair, but she ignored the suggestion.

"It is a very awkward situation," Richford began. "As my wife——"

"I am glad you have come so quickly to the point," Beatrice said eagerly. "Am I your wife? I doubt it. I do not think I am your wife, because the ceremony was not quite completed and we did not sign the register. You know what my feelings have been all along; I have never made the slightest attempt to disguise them. If I had known that my father was dead—that he had died on the way to church, I should never have become Mrs. Stephen Richford. To save my father's good name I had consented to this sacrifice. My father is dead beyond the reach of trouble. If I had only known. If I had only known!"

The words came with a fierce whisper. They stung the listener as no outburst of contempt or scorn could. They told him clearly how the speaker loathed and despised him.

"Nobody did know," he sneered. "Nobody could possibly have known."

"That is not true," Beatrice cried. She had come a little closer to Richford; her cheeks were blazing with anger, her eyes flamed passionately. "It is a cowardly lie. There was one man who saw my father after his death, and I am going to prove the fact in a way that cannot possibly be disputed. One man was in my father's room after his death. That man saw my father lying there, and he crept away without giving

the slightest alarm. You may sneer, you may say that such a thing is impossible, that the man I allude to would have nothing to gain by such a course; but as I said before, I am going to prove it. Look at this telegram I hold in my hand. It was sent before ten o'clock to-day to the person to whom it is addressed. It evidently relates to some Stock Exchange business. The address is quite clear; the time the telegram was delivered is quite clear, too; and by the side of my father's body I found the telegram, which could only have been dropped there by the party to whom it was addressed. So that party knew that my father was dead, and that party made no alarm. Why?"

"Why," Richford stammered. "Why, because,—well, you see it is quite possible to explain——"

"It is not," Beatrice cried. "The telegram is addressed to you. It was you who called on my father; you who found him dead. And in your agitation you dropped that message. Then you grasped the fact that if the marriage was postponed it would never take place, that I was in a position to defy you. You locked my father's door; you said nothing; you made up your mind to let the ceremony go on. That accounts for your agitation, for the fact that you have been drinking. Cowardly scoundrel, what have you to say to this!"

"What are you going to do?" Richford asked sullenly.

"Unless you release me here and now," Beatrice cried, "I swear by Heaven that I am going to tell the truth!"

"Richford stood there shaking and quivering with passion." Page 49.

CHAPTER VII

Richford stood there shaking and quivering with passion, and yet not free from the vague terror that Beatrice had noticed all along. Beatrice could not repress a shudder as she looked at that evil, scowling face. To be with that man always, to share his home and his company, seemed to her a most impossible thing. She had lost her father; the future was black and hopeless before her, but she felt a strength and courage now, that she had been a stranger to for a long time. There was hope, too, which is a fine thing when allied with youth and vitality.

She need not live with this man; she had every excuse for not doing so. Beatrice cared very little, for the moment, whether she was married or not. It might possibly be that in the eyes of the law she was this man's wife; the law might compel her to share his home. But now Beatrice had a weapon in her hand and she knew how to use it.

"Give me that telegram," Richford said hoarsely. "Hand it over to me at once."

He advanced in a manner that was distinctly threatening. Certainly he would not have stopped at violence if violence would serve his end. But Beatrice was not afraid.

"I shall do nothing of the kind," she said. "You may as well strike me as look at me like that. If you use violence you may obtain possession of the telegram.

But I warn you that I shall not yield without a struggle that will arouse the whole hotel. I am not coming with you, and we part here and now. Oh, I am not in the least afraid."

Just at that moment it looked as if the scene of violence would take place. With an oath Richford grasped the girl by the wrist and drew her to him. A blow full in the face would have laid her senseless at his feet, then he could have helped himself to that priceless telegram. But Richford had been in the world long enough to knew how to control his temper when it suited him to do so. He forced something in the semblance of a smile to his lips.

"Don't let us discuss this question like two silly children," he said. "You have fairly caught me out. I did go to your father this morning—there was an urgent reason why I should see him. We need not go into that now, for it was purely on matters of business. If you ask me how I got into that room when the door was locked, I will tell you. Before I thought of marrying you and setting up a house of my own, I had that suite of rooms."

"Is all this material to our discussion?" Beatrice asked coldly.

"Yes, I think so. At any rate I never gave up the suite of rooms, and the keys are still in my possession. That is how I got in to see your father without anybody being the wiser. I was going to show him the very telegram which has fallen into your hands. But I found that Sir Charles was dead, and it was a great shock to me. I must have dropped that telegram in my agitation and forgotten it. So far you follow me, do you not?"

"I follow you," Beatrice said bitterly. "I quite understand; I admire your restraint and your cunning. You reasoned it all out in a flash. If you raised the alarm everybody would have known the truth in a few minutes. And, that being so, there would have been no marriage. You took all the risks, and fortune favoured the bold as fortune always does. Nothing happened until it was too late, and I was married to you. But there is one thing you failed to reckon upon—that my father is no longer a pawn in the game."

Beatrice was speaking quietly and steadily enough; she felt that the victory was in her hands now. And Richford had never coveted her so passionately as he did at this moment when he realized that she was lost to him for ever.

"My father's death leaves me free," the girl went on. "He is dead and nobody can touch him. If he had died yesterday the match would have been broken off, as you know. I was prepared to take my chance. If this vile thing had not happened, then I should have respected my wedding vows and made you as good a wife as I could. I should have hated and loathed it, but I should have become accustomed to it in time. But this vile action of yours makes all the difference. When you and I part after this painful conversation, we part for good. We shall be talked about; there will be a lot of idle gossip, but I care nothing for that. And if you raise a hand, if you try to use the law on your side, I produce that telegram and tell my story."

Again the look of mingled rage and terror came into Richford's eyes.

"You talk like a fool," he said hoarsely. "What can you possibly do to get a living? You are my wife;

you can never marry anybody so long as I am alive. You are very pretty, but you have been brought up to be utterly useless."

"I have strength and courage," Beatrice replied, "and they are worth a good deal. I can go into a shop if the worst comes to the worst. My relatives, the Rashboroughs——"

"Lady Rashborough will turn her back on you if you do this. She will be furious."

"Well, then, I must depend upon myself. But you are not going to say anything—for some reason you are too frightened to say anything."

"And all the wedding presents, the diamonds and the like?" Richford asked feebly.

"The wedding presents will go back to the senders. There is a plain clothes policeman keeping guard over them now—your diamonds are amongst the lot. I will see that they are safely sent to you. And I do not know that I need say any more."

Beatrice had reached the corridor by this time. She was passing Richford with her head in the air. It came to him suddenly that he had lost everything, that he was baffled and beaten. In a sudden spasm of rage he caught the girl by the shoulders in a savage grip. She gave a little moan of pain as she looked around for assistance. It came quite unexpectedly.

At the same moment Mark Ventmore was coming from his room. He took in the situation at a glance. With one bound he was by Richford's side, and he had wrenched his hands away. With a snarl Richford turned upon the man whom he knew to be his successful rival, and aimed a blow at him. Then Mark's fist shot out, and Richford crashed to the ground with a

livid red spot on his forehead. Sick and dizzy he scrambled to his feet.

"You are more than a match for me that way," he panted. "But there are other ways, my friend, of wiping that blow out. Look to yourself."

There was a deadly menace in the threat, so that Beatrice shuddered as she watched the retreating figure. She knew perfectly well that that blow would not be forgotten. Mark laughed as he heard, then his face changed and he sighed.

"What does it all mean, Beatrice?" he asked. "For that man to lay hands upon you and so soon after you are—but I cannot bring myself to say the word."

"He was not altogether without excuse, Mark," Beatrice said. "We have come to an understanding. Never shall I stay under the same roof with Stephen Richford."

"Well, thank God for that," Mark said fervently. "Something unexpected has happened!"

In a few words Beatrice told the story to which Mark listened with vivid interest. An expression of the deepest disgust came over his face as Beatrice finished her story and handed over the telegram. At the same time the feeling nearest her heart was one of relief.

"It was the act of a scoundrel, darling," he said. "And yet things might have been worse. For instance, you might not have found that telegram. But since you have done so, the game is all in your hands. You are quite right to defy that fellow and refuse to live with him. He dare not oppose you, Beatrice. Thank Heaven, I shall be able to think of you as pure and free from contamination. But what are you going to do?"

"I have not thought of that yet," Beatrice said with a faint smile. "For a day or two I shall get the Rashboroughs to give me a home. When my father's affairs come to be settled up there will be a little less than nothing for me to have. Still, I have some jewels which may bring me in a few hundred pounds. But I shall find something to do."

Mark shut his teeth tightly together to keep back the protestations of love that rose to his lips. It was no time to speak of that kind of thing. He felt that he had been tricked out of the only girl for whom he had ever cared, but, thank goodness, he would not have to think of her as dragging out a lengthening chain by the side of Stephen Richford. And Beatrice would find something to do—of that he felt certain.

"I will come and see you in a few days, dearest," he said. "Though you are bound to that man by the cruel sport of chance, you still belong to me. There can be no harm in my helping you. And may God bless and keep you wherever you go, darling."

Mark bent and kissed Beatrice's hand tenderly, and made his way down the stairs. There was nothing now to stay for; Beatrice would go to her friends, and the strange ending of the Richford-Darryll marriage would be food for the scandal-mongers for many a day to come. All these thoughts crowded into Mark's mind as he made his way down into the big dining-room for luncheon. He was sad and sick at heart, but man must eat, all the same. He did not look as if he could eat here at present, for every table was filled. The last seat had fallen to Richford, who found himself seated opposite to Colonel Berrington. Richford

would far rather have been anywhere else, but there was no help for it.

The Colonel bowed coldly to the other's surly nod. Richford belonged to a class that the gallant soldier frankly detested. He expressed no surprise at seeing Richford here; it was natural under the circumstances that Beatrice should keep to her own room. And Berrington had heard nothing of the matter of the telegram.

"Oh, never mind all that rubbish," Richford said testily, as the waiter passed the elaborate menu with its imposing array of dishes. "What's the good of all that foreign cat's meat to an honest Englishman? Give me a steak and plain potatoes and a decanter of brandy."

The brandy came before the steak, and Richford helped himself liberally to the liquid. Berrington was a little astonished. He had more than once heard Richford boast that he was positively a teetotaller. He usually held in contempt those who called themselves merely moderate drinkers.

"What a time they keep you here," Richford growled. "If I'd gone to one of those City places I should have got my steak in half the time. Oh, here the fellow comes. Now, then, I——"

Richford paused in his growling, and contemplated the red hot plate on which the steak was displayed with a queer gleam in his eyes and a clicking of the corners of his mouth. Just for the moment it seemed to Berrington as if his vis a vis was going to have a fit of some kind.

"There is salt in the plate," Richford gasped. "Who has taken the liberty of putting——"

He said no more; he seemed to be incapable of further speech. The waiter looked sympathetic; it was

no fault of his. And the salt was there, sure enough.

"It certainly is salt," the waiter said. "I did not notice it before. It's a lot of salt, and it is exactly in the shape of a rifle bullet; it's——When I was in South Africa——"

Berrington's glass clicked as he raised it to his lips. Just for an instant his face was as pale as that of the man opposite him. With a gesture Richford motioned the waiter away. Then he rose unsteadily from the table, and finished the rest of his brandy without any water at all. He crossed the room like a ghost. Directly he had passed the swinging doors Berrington rose and followed. He saw Richford in the distance entering a hansom; he called one himself. Evidently he had no desire for Richford to see him.

"Where shall I drive, sir?" the cabman asked.

"Keep that cab in sight without being seen," Berrington said hastily. "Do your work well, and it will be a sovereign in your pocket. Now drive on."

CHAPTER VIII

The cabman gave a knowing wink and touched his hat. Berrington lay back inside the hansom abstractedly, smoking a cigarette that he had lighted. His bronzed face was unusually pale and thoughtful; it was evident that he felt himself on no ordinary errand, though the situation appeared to be perfectly prosaic. One does not usually attach a romantic interest to a well-dressed military man in a hansom cab during broad daylight in London. But Berrington could have told otherwise.

"Poor little girl," he muttered to himself. "Sad as her fate is, I did not think it was quite so sad as this. We must do something to save her. What a fortunate thing it is that I have always had a love for the study of underground human nature, and that I should have found out so much that appears only normal to the average eye. That innocent patch of salt in the shape of a bullet, for instance. Thank goodness, I am on my long leave and have plenty of time on my hands. My dear little grey lady, even your affairs must remain in abeyance for the present."

The drive promised to be a long one, for half London seemed to have been traversed before the cabman looked down through the little peep-hole and asked for instructions, as the hansom in front had stopped.

"The gentleman inside is getting out, sir," he said. "He's stopped at the corner house."

"Go by it at a walk," Berrington commanded, "and see what house our man enters. After that I will tell you exactly what to do, driver. Only be careful as to the right house."

The cab pulled up at length once more, and the house was indicated. Berrington proceeded a little further, and then sent his own driver away rejoicing, a sovereign the richer for his task. Turning up his collar and pulling down his hat, Berrington retraced his steps.

He was enabled to take pretty good stock of the house Richford had entered, and without exciting suspicion, because there were trees on the opposite side of the road and seats beneath them. It was a fairly open part of London, with detached houses on the one side looking on to a kind of park. They were expensive houses, Berrington decided, houses that could not have been less than two hundred and fifty a year. They looked prosperous with their marble steps and conservatories on the right side of the wide doorways; there were good gardens behind and no basements. Berrington could see, too, by the hanging opals in the upper windows that these houses had electric lights.

"This is unusual, very unusual indeed," Berrington muttered to himself, as he sat as if tired on one of the seats under the trees. "The gentry who cultivate the doctrine that has for its cult a piece of salt in the shape of a bullet, don't as a rule favour desirable family mansions like these. Still, fortune might have favoured one of them. No. 100, Audley Place. And No. 100 is the recognized number of the clan. By the way, where am I?"

A passing policeman was in a position to answer the question. Audley Place was somewhat at the back of

Wandsworth Common, so that it was really a good way out of town. The policeman was friendly, mainly owing to the fact that he was an old soldier, and that he recognized Berrington as an officer immediately. He was full of information, too.

"Mostly rich City gents live in Audley Place, sir," he said. "There is one colonel, too—Colonel Foley of the East Shropshire Regiment."

"An old college chum and messmate of mine," Berrington said. "I followed Colonel Foley in the command of that very regiment. What house does he live in?"

"That's No. 14, sir," the delighted officer grinned. "Excuse the liberty, sir, but you must be Colonel Berrington, sir. I was with you all through the first Egyptian campaign."

Berrington blessed his own good fortune. Here was the very thing that he wanted.

"We'll fight our battles over again some other day," he said. "I am pretty sure that I shall see a great deal more of you—by the way, what is your name? Macklin. Thank you. Now tell me something as to who lives yonder at No. 100. I am not asking out of idle curiosity."

"I can't tell you the gentleman's name, sir," Macklin replied. "But I can find out. The people have not been there very long. A few good servants, but no men, no ladies so far as I can tell, and the master what you might call a confirmed invalid. Goes about in a bath chair which he hires from a regular keeper of this class of thing. Not a very old gent, but you can't quite tell, seeing that he is muffled up to his eyes. Very pale and feeble he looks."

Berrington muttered something to himself and his eyebrows contracted. Evidently he was a good deal puzzled by what he had heard.

"That is very strange," he said, "very strange indeed. I will not disguise from you, Macklin, that I have a very strong reason for wishing to know everything about No. 100, Audley Place. Keep your eyes open and glean all the information you possibly can. Talk to the servants and try to pump them. And write to me as soon as you have found out anything worth sending. Here is my card. I shall do no good by staying here any longer at present."

The policeman touched his helmet and strode on his way. Berrington strolled along under the friendly shadow of the trees till he had left Audley Place behind him. Once clear of the terrace he called a cab and was whirled back to town again.

Meanwhile, absolutely unconscious of the fact that he was being so closely shadowed, Richford had been driven out Wandsworth way. He did not look in the least like a modern millionaire of good health and enviable prospects as he drove along. His moody face was pale, his lips trembled, his eyes were red and bloodshot with the brandy that he had been drinking. The hand that controlled the market so frequently shook strangely as Richford pressed the bell of No. 100 Audley Place. There was no suggestion of tragedy or mystery about the neat parlourmaid who opened the door.

"Mr. Sartoris desires to see me," Richford said. "He sent me a messenger—a message to the Royal Palace Hotel. Will you please tell him I am here."

The neat parlourmaid opened the drawing-room door and ushered Richford in. It was a big room looking

on the street, but there was nothing about it to give the place the least touch of originality. The furniture was neat and substantial, as might have befitted the residence of a prosperous City man, the pictures were by well-known artists, the carpet gave to the feet like moss. There was nothing here to cause Richford to turn pale, and his lips to quiver.

He paced up and down the room uneasily, starting at every sound until the maid returned and asked if the gentleman would be good enough to step this way. Richford followed down a passage leading to the back of the house into a room that gave on to a great conservatory. It was a fine room, most exquisitely furnished; flowers were everywhere, the big dome-roofed conservatory was a vast blaze of them. The room was so warm, too, that Richford felt the moisture coming out on his face. By the fire a figure sat huddled up in a great invalid chair.

"So you have come," a thin voice said. "Most excellent Richford, you are here. I was loath to send for you on this auspicious occasion, but it could not be helped."

There was the faintest suggestion of a sneer in the thin voice. Richford crossed the room and took another chair by the side of the invalid. The face of the man who called himself Carl Sartoris was as pale as marble and as drawn as parchment, the forehead was hard and tangled with a mass of fair hair upon it, the lips were a little suggestive of cruelty. It was the dark eyes that gave an expression of life and vitality, surprising in so weak a frame. Those eyes held the spectator, they fascinated people by their marvellous vitality.

"What devil's work are you upon now?" Richford growled.

"My dear sir, you must not speak to an invalid like that," Sartoris said. "Do you not know that I am sensitive as to my own beloved flowers? It was my flowers that I asked you to come and see. Since you were here last, the room has been entirely redecorated. It seemed to me to be good that I should share my artistic joy with so congenial a companion."

"Damn your flowers!" Richford burst out passionately. "What a cruel, unfeeling fellow you are! Always the same, and will be the same till the devil comes for you."

"Which sad event you would regard with philosophic equanimity," Sartoris laughed. "So, we will get to business as soon as possible. I see that Sir Charles Darryll is dead. I want to know all about that affair without delay. What did he die of?"

"How should I know? Old age and too much pleasure. And that's all I can tell you. I found him first."

"Oh, indeed. The evening paper says nothing about that."

"For the simple reason that the evening papers don't know everything," Richford growled. "Quite early to-day I found Sir Charles dead in his bed. I dared not say a word about it, because, as you know, I was going to marry his daughter. But, of course, you all knew about that, too. You see if I had made my little discovery public, Beatrice would have known that death had freed her and her father from certain very unpleasant consequences that you and I wot of, and would have refused to meet me at the altar. So I locked the

door and discreetly said nothing, my good Sartoris."

The little man in the invalid chair rolled about horribly and silently.

"Good boy," he said. "You are a credit to your parents and the country you belong to. What next?"

"Why, the wedding, of course. Lord Rashborough, as head of the family, was giving Beatrice away. Sir Charles did not turn up, but nobody wondered, as he had never been known to attend to an appointment in his life. And so we were married."

Once more the little man shook with unholy mirth.

"And the girl knows nothing about it?" he asked. "I suppose you'll tell her some day when she is not quite so loving as she might be? Ho, ho; it is a joke after my own heart."

Richford laughed in his turn, then his face grew dark. He proceeded to tell the rest of the story. The little man in the chair became quieter and quieter, his face more like parchment than ever. His eyes blazed with a curious electric fire.

"So you have lost your wife before you have found her?" he asked. "You fool! you double-dyed fool! If that girl chooses to tell her story, suspicion falls on you. And if anybody makes a fuss and demands an inquest or anything of that kind——"

"They are going to hold an inquest, anyway," Richford said sulkily. "Dr. Andrews was in favour of it from the first, and the family doctor, Oswin, has agreed. The police came around and sealed up that suite of rooms before I left the hotel. But why this fuss?"

"Silence, fool!" came from the chair in a hissing whisper. "Let me have time to think. That sense

less act of folly of yours over the telegram bids fair to ruin us all. You will say so yourself when you hear all that I have to tell you. Oh, you idiot!"

"Why?" Richford protested. "How did I know Sir Charles was going to die? And if his death took place in a perfectly natural manner and there was no foul play——"

"Oh, if it did. Perhaps it was wrong on my part not to take you more fully into my confidence. But there is one thing certain. Listen to me, Richford. Whatever happens between now and this time to-morrow there must be no inquest on the body of Sir Charles Darryll!"

The words came with a fierce hissing indrawing of the speaker's breath. He tried to get up from his chair, and fell back with a curse of impotence.

"Push me along to the door," he said. "Take me to that little room behind the library where you have been before. I am going to show you something, and I'm going to reveal a plot to you. We shall want all your brutal bulldog courage to-night."

The chair slid along on its cushioned wheels, the door closed with a gentle spring, and, as it did, a female figure emerged from behind a great bank of flowers just inside the conservatory. She crossed on tip-toe to the door and as gently closed it. As the light fell it lit up the pale sad features of the grey lady—the Slave of Silence.

CHAPTER IX

It was with a sigh of relief that Beatrice found herself at length alone. There was nothing for her to do now but to get her belongings together and leave the hotel. There would be an inquest on the body of Sir Charles at ten o'clock the following morning, as the authorities had already informed her, but Beatrice had looked upon this as merely a formal affair. She would pack her things and leave them in Sir Charles's dressing-room—the door of which had not been sealed—and send for everything on the morrow. All her costly presents, including the wonderful diamonds from Stephen Richford, she had entirely forgotten. A somewhat tired detective was still watching the jewels in a room off the hall where the wedding breakfast was laid out. But the fact had escaped Beatrice's attention.

Lady Rashborough was having tea alone in her boudoir when Beatrice arrived. Her pretty little ladyship was not looking quite so amiable as usual and there was the suggestion of a frown on her face. She had been losing a great deal at bridge lately, and that was not the kind of pastime that Rashborough approved. He was very fond of his empty, hard, selfish, little wife, but he had put his foot down on gambling, and Lady Rashborough had been forced to give her promise to discontinue it. The little woman cared nothing for anyone but herself, and she had small sympathy for Beatrice.

"What are you doing here?" she asked pettishly. "Where is your husband?"

"That I cannot tell you," Beatrice replied. "You hardly expected that I should have started on my honeymoon under such circumstances, did you?"

"My dear child, don't talk nonsense! Of course not. The proper thing is to go to some very quiet hotel and dine respectably—to lie low till the funeral is over. Of course this is all very annoying, especially as you have such a lovely lot of new frocks and all the rest of it, but I dare say they will come in later on. Not that it matters, seeing that you have a husband who could stifle you in pretty frocks and never miss the money. What a funny girl you are, Bee. You don't seem to appreciate your good luck at all."

"You regard me as exceedingly lucky, then?" Beatrice asked quietly.

"My dear girl, lucky is not the word for it. Of course Stephen Richford is not what I call an ideal husband, but with his amazing riches——"

"Which are nothing to me, Adela," Beatrice said. "I have discovered the man to be a degraded and abandoned scoundrel. From the first I always hated and detested him; I only consented to marry him for the sake of my father. Adela, I am going to tell you the discovery that I made in my father's bedroom this morning."

In a few words Beatrice told her story. But if she expected any outburst of indignation from her listener, she was doomed to disappointment. The little figure in the big arm chair didn't move—there was a smile of contempt on her face.

"Good gracious, what a little thing to fuss about!"

she cried. "It seems to me that the man was paying you a compliment. If I had been in your place I should have said nothing till I wanted to get the whip hand of my husband. My dear child, you don't mean to say that you are going to take the matter seriously!"

Beatrice felt the unbidden tears gathering in her eyes. She had been sorely taxed and shaken to-day, and she was longing more than she knew for a little sympathy. People had told her before that Lady Rashborough had no heart, and she was beginning to believe it.

"Do you mean to say," Beatrice stammered, "do you really want me to believe—that——"

"Of course I do, you goose. Money is everything. I married Rashborough because it was the best thing that offered, and I did not want to overstay my market. It was all a question of money. I would have married a satyr if he had been rich enough. And you sit there telling me that you are going to leave Stephen Richford."

"I shall never speak to him again. He and I have finished. I have no money, no prospects, no anything. But I decline to return to Stephen Richford."

"And so you are going to have a fine scandal," Lady Rashborough cried, really angry at last. "You think you are going to hang about here posing as a victim till something turns up. I dare say that Rashborough would be on your side because he is of that peculiar class of silly billy, but you may be sure that I shall not stand it. As a matter of fact, you can't stay here, Beatrice. I rather like Richford; he gives me little tips, and he has helped me over my bridge account more than once. If he should come here to dinner——"

Beatrice rose, her pride in arms at once. It was put pretty well, but it was cold, and hard, and heartless, and the gist of it was that Beatrice was practically ordered out of the house. She had hoped to remain here a few weeks, at any rate until she could find rooms. She was pleased to recall that she had not sent her things.

"You need not trouble to put it any more plainly," she said coldly. "In the eyes of your Smart Set, I have done a foolish thing, and you decline to have me here for the present. Very well, I shall not appeal to Frank, though I am quite sure what he would say if I did. All the same, I could not tax the hospitality of one who tells me plainly that she does not want me."

Beatrice rose and moved towards the door. With a little toss of her head, Lady Rashborough took up the French novel she had been reading as Beatrice entered. Thus she wiped her hands of the whole affair; thus in a way she pronounced the verdict of Society upon Bee's foolish conduct. But the girl's heart was very heavy within her as she walked back to the Royal Palace Hotel. It was only an earnest of the hard things that were going to happen.

And she had no money, nothing beyond a stray sovereign or two in her purse. She had taken off most of her jewellery with the exception of an old diamond bangle of quaint design. She hated the sight of it now as she hated the sight of anything that suggested wealth and money. With a firm resolve in her mind, Beatrice turned into a large jeweller's shop in Bond Street. The firm was very well known to her; they had supplied the family for years with the costly trifles that women love. The head of the house would see her at

once, and to him Beatrice told her story. A little later, and with a comfortably lighter heart, she made her way back to the Royal Palace Hotel with a sum of money considerably over two hundred pounds in her purse.

The manager of the hotel was sympathetic. Unfortunately the house was full, but Beatrice could have Sir Charles's sitting-room and the dressing-room where a bed could be put up. And would Mrs. Richford—Beatrice started at the name—give instructions as to those presents?

"I had quite forgotten them," Beatrice said. "Will you please have everything, except some jewels that I will take care of, locked up in your safe. There are some diamonds which I am going to give into the hands of Mr. Richford at once. I am so sorry to trouble you."

But it was no trouble at all to the polite manager. He begged that Mrs. Richford would let him take everything off her hands. Wearily Beatrice crept down to dinner with a feeling that she would never want to eat anything again. She watched that brilliant throng about her sadly; she sat in the drawing-room after dinner, a thing apart from the rest. A handsome, foreign-looking woman came up to her and sat down on the same settee.

"I hope you will not think that I am intruding," the lady said. "Such a sad, sad time for you, dear. Did you ever hear your father speak of Countess de la Moray?"

Beatrice remembered the name perfectly well. She had often heard her father speak of the Countess in terms of praise. The lady smiled in a sad, retrospective way.

"We were very good friends," she said. "I recollect you in Paris when you were quite a little thing. It was just before your dear mother died. You used to be terribly fond of chocolates, I remember."

The lady rambled on in a pleasing way that Beatrice found to be soothing. Gradually and by slow degrees she began to draw out the girl's confidence. Beatrice was a little surprised to find that she was telling the Countess everything.

"You are quite right, my dear," she said quietly. "The heart first—always the heart first. It is the only way to happiness. Your father was a dear friend of mine, and I am going to be a friend of yours. I have no children; I had a daughter who would have been about your age had she lived."

The Countess sighed heavily.

"I would never have allowed a fate like yours to be hers. I go back home in a few days to my chateau near Paris. It is quiet and dull perhaps, but very soothing to the nerves. It would give me great pleasure for you to accompany me."

Beatrice thanked the kind speaker almost tearfully. It was the first touch of womanly sympathy she had received since her troubles had begun, and it went to her heart.

"It is very, very good of you," she said. "A friend is what I sorely need at present. When I think of your goodness to a comparative stranger like me——"

"Then don't think of it," the Countess said almost gaily. "Let us get rid of that horrible man first. You must return those fine diamonds to him. Oh, I know about the diamonds, because I read an account of

them in the papers. Perhaps you have already done so?"

"No," Beatrice said, "they are in my dressing-room at the present moment."

"Oh, the careless girl! But that shows how little you value that kind of thing. Well, General, and what do you want with me at this time of the evening?"

A tall, military man had lounged up to them. He was exquisitely preserved. He bowed over Beatrice's hand as he was introduced as General Gastang.

"Delighted to meet you," he said. "I knew your father slightly. Countess, your maid is wandering in a desolate way about the corridor, looking for you, with some story of a dressmaker."

"Ma foi, I had quite forgotten!" the Countess exclaimed. "Do not go from here, chérie; talk to the General till I return, which will not be long. Those dressmakers are the plague of one's life. I will be back as soon as possible."

The General's manner was easy and his tongue fluent. Beatrice had only to lean her head back and smile faintly from time to time. The General suddenly paused—so suddenly that Beatrice looked up and noticed the sudden pallor of his face, his air of agitation.

"You are not well?" the girl asked. "The heat of the room has been too much for you."

The General gasped something; with his head down he seemed to be avoiding the gaze of a man who had just come into the drawing-room. As the newcomer turned to speak to a lady, the General shot away from Beatrice's side, muttering something about a telegram. He had hardly vanished before Beatrice was conscious of a cold thrill.

After all she knew nothing of these people. Such scraps of her history as they had gleaned might have come from anybody. Then Beatrice had another thrill as she recollected the fact that she had told this strange Countess that the diamonds were in her dressing-room. Suppose those two were in league to——

Beatrice waited to speculate on this point no longer. She hurried from the room and up the stairs to her bedroom. The corridors were practically deserted at this time in the evening. Beatrice gave a sigh of relief to see that her door was shut. She placed her hand gently on the handle, but the door did not give.

It was locked on the inside! From within came whispering voices. In amaze, the girl recognized the fact that one of the voices belonged to Countess de la Moray, and the other to the man who called himself her husband, Stephen Richford.

There was nothing for it now but to stay and wait developments.

CHAPTER X

Beatrice had not long to wait. Only a few minutes elapsed before the door flew open and Richford came out so gently that Beatrice had barely time to step into a friendly doorway. Her senses were quick and alert now in the face of this unknown danger, and the girl did not fail to note the pale face and agitated features of the man who had so grievously harmed her. Evidently Richford had been drinking no more, but certainly he had had some great shock, the effects of which had not passed away. He muttered something as he passed Beatrice, and looked at his watch. Directly he had disappeared down the corridor, Beatrice stepped into her room.

The Countess was standing by the dressing-table picking up the odds and ends there in a careless kind of way, but evidently in an attitude of deep attention. Beatrice's feeling of alarm became somewhat less as she saw that the case of diamonds on the dressing-table had not been touched. If anything like a robbery had been contemplated she was in time to prevent it. Just for the moment it occurred to Beatrice to demand coldly the reason for the intrusion, but she thought the better of that. Clearly there was some conspiracy on foot here, and it would be bad policy to suggest that she suspected anything. So Beatrice forced a little smile on her lips as she crossed the room.

"I shall have to give you in charge as being a sus

picious character," she said. "I shall begin to believe that your dressmaker only existed in your imagination."

The Countess gave a little scream, and her face paled somewhat under her rouge. But she recovered herself with marvellous quickness. Her lips had ceased to tremble, she smiled gaily.

"I am fairly caught," she said. "There is nothing for it but to plead guilty and throw myself on the mercy of the court. You see, I have not taken the diamonds, though I have looked at them."

It was all so admirably and coolly said, that it might have deceived anybody who did not know quite so much as Beatrice. But she had made up her mind that no suspicion of the truth should come out. Quite carelessly she opened the lid of the jewel cases so that she might see for herself that she was not the victim of this magnificent adventuress.

But the gems were there right enough. Their marvellous rays seemed to fill the room with livid fire. Beatrice glanced at her companion; the latter had caught her underlip fiercely between her teeth, her hands were clenched. And Beatrice knew that but for the intervention of that stranger in the drawing-room and the sudden flight of the General, she would never have seen those diamonds again. And yet Stephen Richford had been in the same room with this brilliant adventuress! Beatrice would have given a great deal to see to the bottom of the mystery.

"Oh, it is indeed a narrow escape that you have had," the Countess said. "I was not feeling very well, so I sent my maid to ask you to come to my room. She said you had already gone, so I took the liberty of coming here. Is not that so?"

"Then we had perhaps better stay and talk here," Beatrice suggested. "Adeline, will you take this case down to the office and ask the manager to place it with my other valuables in the safe? Be very careful, because they are diamonds."

Adeline, who had just come in, took the case in her hand. The Countess had turned her back, but Beatrice caught sight of her face in the cheval glass. It was livid with fury, and all wrinkled up with greed and baffled cupidity. The girl was afraid to trust her voice for a moment. She knew now that unless she had taken this course, the diamonds would not have been hers much longer. A woman who could look like that was capable of anything. Some cunning plan, perhaps some plan that took violence within its grasp, would have been carried out before the evening was over. So alarmed was Beatrice that she followed Adeline to the door. She wanted to see the jewels safe and regain her lost self-possession at the same time. It seemed to be a critical moment.

"If you will excuse me," she said, "I had forgotten to give my maid another message."

The Countess nodded and smiled gaily. She was master of herself once more. Beatrice stepped out of the room and followed Adeline at a safe distance to the end of the stairs. So far as she knew to the contrary a confederate might be lingering about waiting for a signal. Surely enough, General Gastang was loitering in the hall smoking a cigarette. But he seemed to be powerless now, for he made no sign, and with a sigh of relief Beatrice saw Adeline emerge presently from the office minus the cases which she had previously carried.

"Now, I fancy I have finished my business for the

evening," Beatrice said. "I have been thinking over the very kind offer you made to me a little time ago. You can hardly understand how anybody as lonely as myself appreciates such kindness as yours."

The Countess raised her hands as if to ward off the gratitude. They were slim hands with many rings upon them, as Beatrice did not fail to notice.

And on the finger of the left hand something was hanging that looked like a wisp of silk thread.

"Excuse me," Beatrice said, "you have something attached to one of your rings. Let me remove it for you. That is all right. It seems very strange, but——"

Beatrice checked herself suddenly and walked rapidly across the room. She had made what in the light of recent events was a startling discovery. At first she had imagined that the long silken fluff was attached to one of the rings, but this her quick eyes had proved to be a mistake. On one of the slim fingers of the Countess was a thick smear of wax.

Beatrice could see a little of it sticking to the palm of the hand now. She understood what this meant. That neat little woman was by no means the sort of person to dabble habitually in tricks of that kind, and Beatrice suddenly recollected that wax was used for taking impressions of locks and keys and the like. But surely there could be nothing worth all that trouble in this room, she thought. Nor would anything of that kind have been necessary to get possession of the jewels. Besides, if any waxen impression of anything had been taken, Stephen Richford would have done it. Just for a moment it occurred to Beatrice that it would be a good idea to change her room, but she dismissed the

impulse as cowardly, and besides, the manager had advised her that he had not another room at his disposal in the hotel.

Still, she was on her guard now, and she made up her mind to slumber lightly to-night. After all the exciting events of the day, it was not likely that she would sleep at all. And yet she felt very dull and heavy; she could think of nothing to say, so that the Countess rose presently and proclaimed the fact that she was quite ready for bed herself.

"I am selfish," she said. "I am keeping you up, for which I should be ashamed of myself. Good-night, my dear, and pleasant dreams to you."

The speaker flitted away with a smile and a kiss of her jewelled fingers. Beatrice drew a long sigh of relief to find herself alone once more.

She locked the door carefully and commenced a thorough examination of the room. It was some time before her quick eyes gave her any clue to the meaning of the wax on the Countess's hands. Then she found it at last. There was another of the silken threads hanging on the lock of the door leading to the room where Sir Charles lay. On the official seal placed there by the police officers was a tiny thread of silk. It was not attached to the seal in any way. It came away in Beatrice's hands when she pulled it, as if it had been fixed there by gum. Beatrice knew better than that. On the silk was wax, as she discovered when her hand touched it. A piece of soft white wax had been pressed on the seal, and had left strong traces behind.

Now, what did this strange mystery mean? Beatrice asked herself. Why did anybody require an impression of that seal? What object could anyone have in

getting into the room where the dead man lay? The more Beatrice asked herself this question the more puzzled did she become. She thought it over till her head ached and her eyes grew heavy. So engrossed was she that she quite failed to notice several little impatient knocks at the door. Then the girl came to herself with a start, and opened the door to admit her maid, as she expected.

But it was not Adeline come back, but the Countess with a dazzling white silk wrap over her shoulders. She was profoundly apologetic, but what was she to do? Her maid had been taken ill and she had been commanded to bed by a doctor. The Countess was very sorry for Marie, but she had a little sympathy left for herself. It was impossible for her to unhook the back of her dress. Would Beatrice be so kind as to do it for her?

"Of course I will," Beatrice said. "It is awkward being without a maid. Let me shut the door."

It was no great task that Beatrice had set herself, but it was not rendered any more easy because the Countess pranced about the room as if unable to keep still. She held in her hand a smelling bottle with a powerful perfume that Beatrice had never smelt before. It was sweet yet pungent, and carried just a suggestion of a tonic perfume with it. But the task was accomplished at length.

"I fancy that is all you require," Beatrice said. "What scent is that you are using?"

"It is some new stuff from Paris," the Countess said carelessly. "It is supposed to be the most marvellous thing for headaches in the wide world. Per

sonally, I find it a little too strong. Do you like perfumes?"

"I am afraid they are a weakness of mine," Beatrice confessed. "It is very silly, I know, but it is so."

The Countess removed the glass stopper from the bottle.

"Try it, if you like," she said. "Only you must not take too much of it at first."

Beatrice placed the bottle to her nostrils. A delicious thrill passed through her veins. All sense of fatigue had gone; she felt conscious of only one thing, and that was the desire to lie down and sleep. In a dreamy way she watched the Countess depart and close the door behind her; then she crossed over to the bed and lay on it just as she was—her thoughts seemed to be steeped in sunshine.

When Beatrice awoke at length, it was broad daylight, and Adeline was leaning over her. The girl's face was white and her lips unsteady.

"I am glad you have come round, Miss," she said. "You wouldn't believe the trouble I have had to arouse you, and you such a light sleeper as a rule. Don't you feel well?"

"I never felt better in my life," Beatrice said. "I have slept for hours and hours. But it is for me to ask if you don't feel well, Adeline. Your face is so curiously white and your lips tremble. What is it? Has something happened? But that is quite out of the question. All the dreadful things came together yesterday. Tell me, what time is it, Adeline?"

"It's a little past ten, Miss," Adeline said in a low voice that shook a little. "On and off, I have been trying to wake you since eight o'clock. And there is a

gentleman to see you in the sitting-room as soon as you have time—two gentlemen, in fact."

Beatrice asked no further questions, though she could see from Adeline's manner that something out of the common had taken place. But Beatrice felt curiously strong and steady to-day. It seemed impossible that fate could have anything worse in store than had already befallen her. With a firm step she went into the sitting-room where two men rose and bowed gravely. One she recognized as the inspector of police who had come after the tragedy yesterday, the other was Dr. Andrews.

"You sent for me, gentlemen?" she said quietly. "It is a matter of the inquest, of course? Will you have to call me? I am afraid I can give you no information—my father never had anything the matter with him as far as I know. If you could spare me the pain——"

Dr. Andrews nodded gravely; he seemed unable to speak for the moment.

"It is not that," he said quietly. "If we spare you one pain we give you another. Miss Darryll, I should say Mrs. Richford, a terrible thing has happened, a strange, weird thing. As you know, the inquest was to have been to-day. Events have rendered that utterly impossible. Please be brave."

"You will not have to complain of me on that score," Beatrice whispered.

"Then it is this. By some strange means, certain people entered Sir Charles's room last night and carried him away. It is amazing, but the body of Sir Charles has disappeared!"

CHAPTER XI

Beatrice reached out a hand and steadied herself against a chair. Just for a moment the whole world seemed to be spinning around her. Brave and courageous as she was, these shocks, coming one after the other, had been too much for her. When she opened her eyes again she found that Mark Ventmore was standing by her side.

"Courage, darling," he whispered. "We seem to have come to the worst of everything. Whatever may be the result and meaning of this dastardly outrage, nothing can hurt your father."

The colour was slowly coming back into the girl's pallid lips. With an effort she struggled for the possession of herself. She was alone in the world, she had a position that would cause most of her women friends to turn coldly from her, but Mark remained. And there was always the feeling that she had nothing further to fear from Stephen Richford.

"I can bear it all now," she said. "Tell me everything, please."

"Up to the present there is very little to say," Inspector Field observed. "I came here a little before ten this morning to open Sir Charles's bedroom so as to be prepared for the visit of the jury and the coroner. After the decision arrived at by both doctors, of course the inquest to-day would have been quite formal. It would have been deferred for a few days pending the

post-mortem examination. I am putting it as delicately as possible."

"Oh, I know, I know," Beatrice said with a shudder. "Only it is a dreadful thing for a daughter to listen to. Will you go on, please?"

"In the course of my duty I have to see that the seals have not been tampered with. Of course in a large hotel like this, where guests are in the corridor all day and night, I never for a moment anticipated anything wrong. Still, I examined the seals carefully and they appeared to me to be absolutely intact. With my sergeant we broke the seals and entered the room, the door of which was locked. Imagine our astonishment when we found that the body of the poor gentleman had vanished. In all the extraordinary cases that have ever come under my notice, I never recollect anything so amazing as this."

It was amazing, stupendous—so much so, that nobody spoke for a little time. Beatrice had taken a seat and sat waiting for somebody to ask questions. She was no longer dazed and frightened; her brain was working rapidly. It seemed to her that she would be able to throw a light on this mysterious disappearance presently.

"Are you quite sure that the seals are intact?" Mark asked.

"If you had asked me that question half an hour ago, I should have said most assuredly so, sir," Field replied. "I looked carefully to see. We always do. How on earth a body could have been spirited away like this with people about till late, to say nothing of the night watchman going his rounds, and the night porter

down below—but we need not go into that yet. My seals appeared to be in perfect order."

"But that really could not have been the fact," Mark persisted. "I fancy we can dispense with the idea that Sir Charles was removed by spiritual agency. Now, would it not have been possible for anyone to have taken an impression of the seals?"

"Just possible," Field admitted. "But what would have been the use of——"

"A great deal of use, it seems to me," Mark went on. "But I will come to that presently. Let us take one thing at a time. For some reason or other, those scoundrels have found it imperatively necessary to spirit away the body of Sir Charles. Perhaps they are afraid of the result of a post-mortem. That is another point we need not bother about for the present. Did you give any orders to the watchman here to keep an eye on that door?"

"Well, I did," Field admitted. "I particularly mentioned the seals, in case any very zealous housemaid, imagining that somebody had been disfiguring the doors, should remove them."

"Then if the seals had been broken, the night watchman would have noticed it?"

"I should say that such a thing was highly possible," Field admitted with an admiring glance in the direction of his questioner. "Really, sir, you would make an admirable detective. You mean that the scoundrels might require some little time in the next room and that any interruption——"

"Precisely," Mark proceeded. "Let us admit, for the sake of argument, that these men were staying in the hotel last night. Where so many people come and go,

they would not be noticed, and, on the whole, that plan would be safer. If they were seen, even in the dead of night, in the corridor—possibly in slippers and pajamas—by the watchman, no suspicion would have been aroused. Previously they had managed to get an impression of the seal and made one like it. They then broke the seal and entered the room by means of a master key. The confederate outside immediately clapped on another seal, and those inside were quite safe until they were ready. After the body was stolen, another seal was affixed which gave them plenty of time and prevented discovery by the night watchman, to say nothing of the addition of mystery to the thing."

The inspector nodded approvingly. So far as he could see, the reasoning was perfectly clear. But then it did not tend to throw any light on the strange disappearance of the body.

"So far I follow you perfectly, sir," Field said. "Nothing could be clearer or more logical. In that way it would be comparatively easy to enter the bedroom and make preparations for the removal of the body without any chance of being interrupted. At this part the real trouble begins. The body is a bulky thing, and has to be removed from the hotel. How was that to be done? How could it be done without somebody knowing? That is where I am at fault."

"It could be done in this way," Mark said. "The body might have been removed to a bedroom close by and packed in a large trunk by somebody who ostensibly was going by a very early train."

"Pardon me," the inspector interrupted, "nobody went by an early train. We have gone into that most carefully. Of course a lot of people have left early to-

day—as they do every day—but, so far as I can hear, nobody in the least suspicious."

"Then it was done in another manner. It is not quite clear to me how, at present, although I have my idea on the subject. Before I could speak definitely on that point I should like to see the night watchman and the hall porter."

But neither of these officials was present. They had gone off duty at seven o'clock, and they did not return again till late in the afternoon. It seemed a pity to disturb their rest, but Field decided that they must be sent for—and indeed he had already dispatched a messenger for that purpose. Till the two men came to the hotel, nothing further could be done in that direction. There was a little pause here.

"I fancy I can throw some light on this," Beatrice said. "In the first place, will somebody ascertain for me whether the Countess de la Moray and General Gastang are still staying in the hotel? I feel pretty sure they are gone, but it is just possible that such may not be the case. Let this inquiry be made delicately, please."

Inspector Field departed to ask the question himself. He came back presently with the information that the General and the Countess had already gone, in fact they had not really been staying in the hotel at all—their luggage was elsewhere, as the hotel they generally favoured was full—they had only come to the Royal Palace Hotel for the night, and it had been their intention to proceed to Paris in the morning.

"Then it is General Gastang and the Countess de la Moray that we have to look after," Beatrice cried. "The Countess came to me last night in the drawing-

room. She professed to be an old friend of my father, and, indeed, I must confess that she knew a great deal about the family. She was very nice indeed, and asked me to go and stay with her near Paris. Being a little lonely just at present, I quite took to her. Subsequently the General was introduced to me. He brought a message to the Countess, who excused herself. Then some stranger came in and the General vanished. He was quite taken aback for a moment, and evidently went in deadly fear of being recognized. Of course this aroused my suspicions. I had heard of these well-dressed, good-class swindlers in hotels before, and immediately I thought of my jewels. I went straight to my room and the door was locked. People were talking inside and I waited. Then the door opened and a man came out and walked away."

"Would you recognize that man again, Miss?" Field asked eagerly.

"I should certainly be able to recognize him again," Beatrice said quietly. She passed the point over rapidly. Something prevented her—shame, perhaps—from saying it was the man who called himself her husband. "After that I entered my room. The Countess was taken aback, but very quickly she recovered herself. Then I noticed that there was a thread of silk sticking to her hands, and after that I further noticed that her hand was covered with wax. Even then the truth did not dawn upon me till I saw a similar thread sticking to the seal on the door leading to my father's room. And then I knew that the Countess had taken an impression of the seal. They did not dare to take the impression in the corridor, I suppose,

and that was why they hit upon the clever expedient of using the privacy of my room for the purpose."

"Excellent!" Field said. "Nothing could be better. Beyond the shadow of a doubt these people are at the bottom of the whole business. Did you frighten the lady, Miss?"

"Not in the least," Beatrice replied. "I was particularly careful not to arouse suspicions that I had noticed anything out of the common. But I knew perfectly well that I was just in time to save my diamonds. However, that has nothing to do with the question. The Countess came back very late, under the pretence that she required my services as her maid. She managed to drug me with some very powerful scent, I presume, with a view of using my room whilst I was unconscious, if any hitch took place. But you may be sure that these people are under the impression that nobody could possibly identify them with the outrage. There will not be any great difficulty in tracing them."

"Thanks to your skill and courage," Field said admiringly. "We can do nothing further till we hear from the night porter and his colleague. I will make a few inquiries in the hotel, and I shall be very glad, Miss, if you will write down for me as clear and as accurate a description as possible of the General and the Countess."

A little time later Beatrice found herself alone with Mark. Colonel Berrington was waiting down in the hall. Mark looked tenderly into Beatrice's pallid, beautiful face, and he gently stroked her head.

"This is a very dreadful business for you, darling," he said. "Your courage——"

"My courage can stand any strain so long as I know

that I am free of my husband," the girl said. "When I think of my troubles, and they begin to overcome me, I always go back to that reflection. It seems to lift me up and strengthen me. Mark, I believe I should have died, or killed myself, had I been compelled to be with that man."

"You have not seen any more of him, I suppose?" Mark asked.

"Last night," Beatrice whispered. "Mark, I did not tell the detective one thing—I felt that I really could not. I spoke of the man who was closeted in my room with the Countess. I said I would recognize him again. It was my husband, Stephen Richford."

Mark's face expressed his amazement. Before he could reply the door opened and Inspector Field came in again. His face was grave and stern.

"This is a fouler business than ever I imagined," he said. "Both hall porter and night watchman are missing. Neither has been seen at their lodgings since they left duty to-day."

CHAPTER XII

The story had gone abroad by this time. All London knew of the strange disappearance of the body of Sir Charles Darryll. Of course the wildest rumours were afloat, the cheaper newspapers had details that had been evolved from the brilliant imagination of creative reporters; a score of them had already besieged the manager of the Royal Palace Hotel and were making his life a burden to him. The thing was bad enough as it stood; enough damage had been done to the prestige of the hotel without making matters worse in this fashion.

There was nothing further to say at present except that the news was true, and that the police had no clue whatsoever for the moment.

"Not that it is the slightest use telling them anything of the kind," Field muttered. "Whenever there is a mystery the press always gives us the credit for the possession of a clue. In that way they very often succeed in scaring our game away altogether. I don't say that the papers are useless to us, but they do more harm than good."

All the same, Field was not quite at a loss to know what to do. Beatrice had given him a full and accurate description of the two adventurers who had vanished, leaving no trace behind them. They had suggested that all their belongings were at the European Hotel,

but a question or two asked there had proved that such was not the case.

"And yet they have gone and covered up their tracks behind them," Field said. "Why? Miss Darryll—I should say, Mrs. Richford—is quite sure that she did not alarm either of them. Then why did they disappear like this? Perhaps they were spotted by somebody else over another matter. Perhaps the gentleman who so scared our 'General' in the drawing-room of this hotel had something to do with the matter. We shan't get much further on the track of this interesting pair until I have had a talk with some of the foreign detectives."

"You can, at any rate, look after the missing hotel servants," Mark suggested.

But that was already being done, as Field proceeded to explain. It was just possible that they had been the victims of foul play. Most of the newspaper men had been cleared out by this time, and there being nothing further to learn, the hotel resumed its normal condition. People came and went as they usually do in such huge concerns; the mystery was discussed fitfully, but the many visitors had their own business to attend to, so that they did not heed the half score of quiet and sternfaced men who were searching the hotel everywhere. At the end of an hour there was no kind of trace of anything that would lead to the whereabouts of the missing men. Colonel Berrington came to the head of the grand stairway presently holding a little round object in his hand.

"I have found this," he said. "It is a button with the initials R. P. H. on it, evidently a button from the uniform of one of the servants. As there is a scrap

of cloth attached to it, the button has evidently been wrenched off, which points to a struggle having taken place. Don't you feel inclined to agree with me, Inspector?"

On the whole Inspector Field was inclined to agree. Would Colonel Berrington be so good as to take him to the exact spot where the button was found? The button had been discovered on the first landing, and had lodged on the edge of the parquet flooring on the red carpet. They were very thick carpets, as befitted the character of the hotel.

Inspector Field bent down and fumbled on the floor. He had touched a patch of something wet. When he rose his fingers were red as if the dye had come out of the carpet.

"Blood," he said, as if in answer to Berrington's interrogative glance. "Very stupid of us not to think of something like this before. But these carpets are so thick and of so dark a colour. Beyond doubt some deed of violence has taken place here. See."

The inspector smeared his hand further along the carpet. The red patch was very large. A little further along the wall there were other patches, and there was the mark of a blood-stained hand on the handle of a door which proved to be locked.

"Is anybody occupying this room at present?" Field asked a hotel servant.

"Not exactly, sir," the man replied. "That door gives on to one of the finest suites in the hotel. It is rented by the Rajah of Ahbad. His Highness is not here at present, but he comes and goes as he likes. He keeps the keys himself, and the door is only opened by

his steward, who comes along a day or two before his royal master."

"All the same they are going to be opened now," said Field grimly. "Go and tell the manager that I want him here at once. I suppose there are master keys to this."

But there were no master keys to the Royal suite; the locks had been selected by the Rajah himself. It was an hour or more later before a locksmith from Milner's managed to open the door. They were thick doors, sheet lined, and locked top and bottom. Field switched up the electric lights and made a survey of the rooms. The blinds were all down and the shutters up. Suddenly Inspector Field gave a grunt of satisfaction.

"We've got something here, at any rate," he said. "And the poor chap seems to be badly hurt. Carry him out gently and see if the doctor is still here."

A body lay on the floor; the hands and arms were secured to the sides by straps; a tightly rolled pad of black cloth was fixed in the poor fellow's mouth. There was a ghastly wound on the side of his head from which the blood was still oozing; a great deal of it had congealed on his collar. A slight groan proved that the victim was still alive. "It's the hall porter," the manager cried. "It's poor Benwort. What a horrible thing!"

"Looks like concussion of the brain," Field said. "Thank goodness, here's Dr. Andrews. We will make a further search of these rooms, for it's pretty certain that the other fellow is here also. Ah, I felt very sure that we should find him."

A second man, also in the livery of the hotel, lay by a sofa. He seemed to have fared better, for there was

no blood on his face, though a great swelling over his right ear testified to the fact that he had been severely handled. He was not insensible, but he hardly knew what he was talking about as he was placed on his feet.

"Tell us all about it," the inspector said encouragingly. "What really happened?"

"Don't ask me," Catton, the night watchman said, as he held his hands to his head. "My brain feels as if it had been squeezed dry. Somebody hit me on the head after a lady in grey came and fetched me. A little lady in grey, with a sad face and grey eyes."

Berrington started violently, and Mark looked up in surprise. The grey lady—Beatrice's Slave of Silence—seemed to run through this mystery like the thread of a story. It was an entirely interesting moment, but unhappily the night watchman could say no more.

"Don't worry me so," he whined. "Put some ice on my head and let me sleep. I dare say I shall be able to puzzle it out in time. Somebody carried something down the stairs; then the big door opened and the night porter whistled for a cab. That's all."

The speaker lurched forward and appeared to fall into a comatose state. There was nothing for it but to put him to bed without delay. Field looked puzzled.

"I suppose that poor fellow was talking coherently in snatches," he said. "No doubt just after he got that crack on the head he did see a bulky package taken downstairs. But then he says he heard the door open and a cab whistled for by the night porter. Now that's impossible, seeing that the night porter got his quietus also. Now who called up that cab? Evidently somebody did, and no doubt the cab came. Well, we shall

find that cab. Saunders, go at once and see what you can do in the direction of finding that cab."

The mystery seemed to get deeper and deeper the more Field got on the track. He could quite understand how it was that both of these hotel servants had been put out of action, so to speak, but who was the grey lady who had given the note of warning, and why had those two men been placed in the suite of rooms belonging to the Rajah of Ahbad? The gagging and the hiding were all right, and that line of policy gave all the more time to the ruffians who had done this thing. Also it was possible on reflection to understand why the Rajah's room had been chosen, as no search, but for the bloody door handle, would have been made there. But where had those people procured those patent Brahma lock keys from?

The wild supposition that the Rajah himself was in the business was absurd. That idea might be dismissed on the spot. The more Field thought of it the more was he puzzled. He would take an early opportunity of seeing the Rajah.

"He's a quiet sort of man," the hotel manager explained. "I should fancy that he has an English mother, by the look of him. Anyway, he is English to all intents and purposes, having been educated at Eton and Oxford. He only took these rooms a few months ago; he was brought here after a bad illness, and when he went away he was carried to his carriage. But they say he's all right now. But, Mr. Inspector, you don't mean to say that you think that the Rajah——"

"Has any hand in this business? Of course I don't," Field said testily. "I'm just a little put out

this morning, so you must forgive my bad temper. The more one digs into the thing, the more black and misty it becomes. I think I'll go as far as the Yard and have a talk to one or two of our foreign men. Well, Saunders?"

"Well, I've done some good," Saunders said. "I have not found the cabman we want, but I've got on the track of another who can tell me something useful. He's a night man, and he is waiting down in the hall for you at this moment, sir."

"I think I'll go along, if you don't mind," Berrington suggested.

Field had no objection to make, and together the two descended to the hall. A little, apple-faced, shrivelled-looking man was waiting for them. There was no reason to ask his occupation—London cabman was written all over him in large letters.

"I can't tell you much, sir," he said. "It was just past two when I heard the whistle here. I was waiting with my cab at the corner of Shepherd Street. It's out of my line a bit, but I pulled up there in the hopes of getting a return fare. When I heard the whistle I came up with my cab, but I was just a shade too late. There was another cab before me, a black cab with a black horse, a rather swell affair. The driver was wearing a fur coat and a very shiny top hat. We had a few words, but the hotel porter told me to be off, and I went back to the stand where I stayed till just daylight. Nobody else left the hotel in a cab."

"This is important," Field muttered. "By the way, would you recognize the hall porter again? You would! Then come this way and we will see if you can."

But the cabman was quite sure that the damaged man lying on the bed at the top of the hotel was not the same one who had ordered him away a few hours before. He was quite sure because the lights in the hotel portico were still full on, and he had seen the hall porter's face quite distinctly.

"A regular plant," Field exclaimed. "A clever thing indeed. Was the black cab empty when it came up, or was there anybody inside it?"

"Somebody was inside it," was the prompt reply. "A pale gentleman, very lame he was. He tried to get out of the cab but the driver pushed him back, and he and the hall porter hoisted the big trunk on top of the cab. And that's all, sir."

Berrington listened intently. He was struggling with some confused memory in which the grey lady and Stephen Richford were all mixed up together. Suddenly the flash of illumination came. He smote his hand on his knee.

"I've got it," he cried. "I've got it. The lame man of No. 100 Audley Place!"

CHAPTER XIII

Berrington's exclamation of surprise was not lost upon Inspector Field. He stood obviously waiting for the gallant officer to say something. As there was a somewhat long pause, the inspector took up the parable for himself.

"In a great many cases that come under our hands, so many give us a chance," he said. "We allow something for luck. More than once in looking up one business I have come across a burning clue of another."

"What is the meaning of all this philosophy, Mr. Field?" Berrington asked.

"Well, I think it is pretty obvious, if you care to see it. We are engaged, just for the present, on looking for a private hansom, painted black, in which is seated a lame gentleman. The rest of our investigation does not matter just now, because we have beyond doubt actually traced the parties who conveyed the body of Sir Charles from the hotel. When the lame gentleman is spoken of you say something about No. 100, Audley Place. It is quite obvious that you know something of the man, or at any rate you think you do. May I point out that it is your duty to help us if you can."

Berrington looked uncomfortable. As a matter of fact he had made up his mind to say nothing as to Audley Place.

"There are several Audley Places in the Directory,"

Field went on. "I am sure you would not put us to the trouble of looking them all up, sir. Tell me all you know. Anything that you may say will be treated as confidential."

"I quite see your reasoning," Berrington replied. "Let me tell you that I should have said nothing—for the present, at any rate—had I not betrayed myself. Look here, Field, I might just as well inform you that we are treading on very delicate ground here. As soon as I begin to speak, Sir Charles's daughter comes into the business."

"You mean Miss Darryll—Mrs. Richford, I should say. How, Colonel?"

"Because I am quite sure that she knows something of the matter. In the first place you must understand that the marriage was the reverse of a love match. Sir Charles's affairs were in anything but a prosperous condition at the time of his death."

"In fact he was on the point of being arrested in connection with a certain company," Field said coolly. "I got that information from the City Police. It was a mere piece of gossip, but I did not identify it as in any way connected with the subsequent tragedy."

"Well, I should not be surprised to hear that it had an important bearing on the mystery. As far as I could judge after the wedding there was a quarrel between Mr. and Mrs. Richford——"

"Ah!" Field exclaimed. His face was shrewd and eager. "Can you tell me what about?"

"Indeed, I cannot. I cannot even guess. But I can't see what that has to do with it."

"Can't you indeed, sir?" Field asked drily. "Mrs. Richford shall tell me herself, presently. But we are

getting no nearer to the lame gentleman in Audley Place."

"Oh, yes we are. Let us admit that quarrel. I am certain of it because yesterday Mr. Richford had luncheon at the same table as myself. He ordered a steak and potatoes. When it came, he asked the waiter who had been putting salt on his plate. Sure enough there was salt on the plate and in the shape of a bullet. Directly Richford saw that, his whole aspect changed. He was like one beside himself with terror. He did not know that I was watching him, he knew nothing beyond the horror of the moment."

"You mean that shaped salt had some hidden meaning, sir?" Field asked.

"I am certain of it. Now don't run your head up against the idea that you are on the track of some political society, or that Anarchism has anything to do with it. It so happens that I have seen that salt sign before in India under strange circumstances that we need not go into at the present moment. The man who pointed it out to me disappeared and was never heard of again. The sign was in his own plate at dinner. A little later I was enabled to get to the bottom of the whole thing; the story shall be told you in due course.

"Well, I wanted to see what Mr. Richford would do next. Was the sign an imperative one or not? Evidently it was, for he got up, finished his brandy, and left the table without having had a single mouthful of food. Under ordinary conditions I should have taken no action, but you see Mrs. Richford is a great friend of mine, and I was anxious to see how far her husband was in with these people. To make a long story short, I followed Richford's cab and traced him

to No. 100, Audley Place, which is somewhat at the back of Wandsworth Common. There I was so fortunate as to find a policeman who had been in my regiment, and he gave me all the information he could as to the inhabitants of the house. The gist of that information was that the owner of the house was a lame gentleman who sometimes went out in a bath chair. Now you do see why I cried out when the cabman finished his story to-day?"

Field nodded thoughtfully. He saw perfectly well. For a little time he was silent, piecing the puzzle together. On the whole he was more than satisfied with the morning's work.

"I see," he said at length. "The lame gentleman, of course, sent the message to Mr. Richford. Within a few hours the body of Sir Charles disappears. Why, then, was this message sent? So that the lame man could get posted in all his facts with a view to stealing the body. In other words, Mrs. Richford's husband was a party to that daring crime. Why that body was fetched away we cannot inquire into, at present. What I want to know, and what I must know, is what Mrs. Richford and her husband quarrelled about."

Berrington winced. He had no pleasant vision of Beatrice being cross-examined by this sharp, shrewd policeman. And yet the thing was inevitable. Field's eyes asked a question.

"All right, Inspector," Berrington said, not without some irritation. "I'll go and see the lady, and let her know what you have already found out. I suppose it is fatal to try and conceal anything. This comes of a lady marrying such a sweep as that."

Beatrice listened calmly enough to all Berrington had

to say. It was not nice to have to tell her story over again, but she decided to conceal nothing. She had done a foolish thing, a wrong thing to save her father, and the world was going to know the whole sordid truth. But so long as Mark stood by her, what did the opinion of the world matter?

"Ask Inspector Field in here," she said. "No, I do not blame you, my dear old friend. Is it not far better that everything should come out? A dreadful crime has been committed and the guilty should be punished, whoever they are."

Inspector Field came in, very sorry and very apologetic for the trouble he was causing. He was quite different from the hard man who had been cross-examining Berrington outside.

"I fancy you can give me certain information," he said. "I have some little hesitation in saying anything personal as to the character of Mr. Richford——"

"You need not hesitate," Beatrice said bitterly, "on my account. I am going to speak freely, and all the more so because I see the possibility of having to repeat it all in the witness box. I married my husband with the sole idea of saving my father from dis——"

"Unpleasantness," Field said swiftly. "There is no occasion for anything of that kind to come out in the witness box. For family reasons you became Mrs. Richford. There is no reason why your sacrifice should have been altogether in vain."

"That is very good of you," Beatrice said gratefully. "Let me say that I am not in love with the man whose name I am supposed to bear. Had anything happened to my father before yesterday, my marriage would never have taken place. My quarrel with my husband

was that he knew my father was dead two hours before the ceremony was fixed to take place."

Hardened as he was, Field started. This information was unexpected as it was dramatic.

"I am not speaking idly," Beatrice went on. "I came back here, directly my father's death came to my ears. In his room I found a telegram. It was dated yesterday, the hour was clearly marked upon it—about ten o'clock yesterday morning. That telegram was addressed to my husband; it was found by me close to my father's body. The doctor said that Sir Charles had been dead some hours before he was discovered. Therefore I had conclusive proof in my hands that my husband had seen my father's corpse and that he had stolen out of the room and said nothing, knowing that I should never be his wife if he spoke the truth."

"It seems almost incredible," Field muttered. "What did Mr. Richford say?"

"What could he do or say beyond admitting the truth of my accusation? Even his cunning failed before the production of that fateful telegram. He had to admit everything, he had to admit that the telegram belonged to him, that he had occasion to see my father very early on pressing business, and that he had not raised the alarm because he knew if he did so he would lose me. At one time the suite of rooms in which we stand was rented by Mr. Richford; indeed his term has not expired yet, and that is why my father came here. I can tell you little if any more. What I said to my husband does not matter in the least. I told him plainly that I had done with him, and I hope that I may never see him again."

Field had few questions to ask further. A hundred theories were flying through his nimble brain. Beatrice seemed to divine something of this.

"In common fairness I am bound to say that Mr. Richford could have had nothing to do with my father's death," she said. "In the first place he had everything to gain by Sir Charles keeping his health. I know the doctors are suspicious that there is foul play somewhere, but recollect that they are prepared to swear to my father's death some hours before his body was found. A little before ten, Mr. Richford must have been at home or he could never have had that telegram. Therefore it was after ten before he sought out my father, who, according to the medical view of the cause, had passed away hours before."

"That is very cleverly and logically reasoned," Field said, not without admiration. "And in any case Mr. Richford would be able to give a really convincing account of the reason why he remained silent—especially after a jury had seen you in the witness box."

It was a pretty compliment and a tribute to Field's sound judgment as to human nature, but Beatrice did not appear to heed his words.

"I had better finish and tell you everything," she said. "I have said everything I can, in common fairness to my husband. I feel convinced that if there was foul play he had no hand in it, no actual hand, that is. But there is another side to the question. I have already told you all about the Countess and the General. I told you how my suspicions were aroused, and when I came up to my room as quickly as possible—the door was shut and two people were talking inside. You asked me just now, Inspector Field, if I could recog

nize the man again—the man who was in the room when the Countess was actually taking impressions of the seals on the door, and I said I could. Can you guess who that man was?"

The inspector looked puzzled for a moment, then the light of illumination came over his face. He glanced up eagerly; his dark eyes were dancing.

"You don't mean to say that it was Mr. Richford?" he asked.

"Indeed I do," Beatrice said quietly, "I had intended to keep that piece of information to myself, but you have forced my hand. Of actual crime, of actual murder, I am quite sure that Stephen Richford is innocent. But as to the rest I cannot say. At any rate I have concealed nothing that is likely to injure the course of justice."

CHAPTER XIV

Inspector Field took up his hat and gloves from the chair where he had deposited them. He was satisfied, and more than satisfied with the interview. In a short time he had achieved excellent results.

"We will not trouble Mrs. Richford any more at present," he said. "It may be some consolation to her to know that I agree with all her reasonings. But there is plenty of work to do."

Field bowed himself out, followed by Berrington. The latter asked what the inspector was going to do.

"In the first place I am going down to the Yard," Field explained. "I am then going to get rid of my correspondence and have my dinner. After that till it gets dark I propose to pursue what Lord Beaconsfield called a policy of masterly inactivity for a time. Once it is really dark, I intend to go as far as Wandsworth Common, and learn something of the gentleman who is lame and has a private hansom painted black. You see, sir, the scene of the story is changed. The next act must be played out at Wandsworth."

"You have some settled plan in your mind?" Berrington asked.

"Indeed I have not, sir. I may make no more than a few simple inquiries and come home again. On the other hand, before morning I may find myself inside the house. I may even return with the lame gentleman as my prisoner. It is all in the air."

"By Jove," Berrington cried. "I should like to go with you. As an old campaigner, and one with some little knowledge of strategy I may be useful. Anything is better than sitting here doing nothing. Would you very much mind, Inspector?"

Field regarded the brown, eager, clever face and steadfast eyes of the questioner shrewdly.

"I shall be delighted, sir," he said heartily, "with one proviso—that you regard me as your senior officer and commander in this business. Military strategy is one thing, the hunting of criminals quite a different thing. I shall start from the Yard before ten o'clock, and even then I shall not make my way to Wandsworth direct. We are dealing with an exceedingly clever lot, and it is just possible that I may be watched. Therefore I shall disguise myself, and you had better do the same. Then you can meet me at eleven o'clock where you like."

"That's a bargain," Berrington said eagerly. "I'll go over to Wandsworth pretty early and try to see my police friend, Macklin. At eleven o'clock I shall be under the trees opposite Audley Place, waiting for you. Probably I shall assume the disguise of a sailor."

"Um, not a bad idea," Field remarked. "We will both be sailors just paid off from a ship and with money in our pockets. Sailors, in that condition who have assimilated a fair amount of liquid refreshment, do strange things. Oh, we shall be all right. Merchant seamen let us be, from the ship Severn, just home from South America. Good afternoon, sir."

It was nearly ten before Berrington reached the rendezvous. He was perfectly disguised as a sailor fresh from a tramp steamer, his clothes were dirty and grimy,

and the cap in his hand had a decided naval cock. So far as he could judge there were no lights visible at No. 100, opposite. He waited for Macklin to come along, which presently he did. The police officer looked suspiciously at the figure in a slumbering attitude on the seat, and passed before him.

"The police officer looked suspiciously at the figure." Page 107.

"Now, then," he said sharply. "What are you doing here? Come out of that."

Berrington came unsteadily to his feet and blinked into the lane of light made by the policeman's lantern. He was rather proud of his disguise and the way in which it was passing scrutiny.

"All right, Macklin," he said in his natural voice. "It's Colonel Berrington. Not quite the same sort of disguise that I tried to pass into the Madi Halfa camp with when you were on guard that night. Still it took you in, didn't it?"

"It did indeed, sir," Macklin said, not without admiration. "And might I beg to ask what manner of game the Colonel of my old regiment is up to in London at this hour?"

"We need not go into details, Macklin," Berrington said. "Regard me as your senior officer for a moment, and answer my questions without comment. As I told you yesterday, I am interested in that house opposite. Have you found out anything?"

"Nothing worth speaking about, sir," Macklin replied. "They seem to be just respectable people who have plenty of money and very few visitors. Last night about half past eleven the old gentleman went out in a cab, and came back about half past two with a friend who had a big box on the top of the cab. That's all I can tell you."

"Ah, perhaps that is more important than it seems," Berrington muttered. "Anything to-day?"

"Nothing to-day, sir. Oh, yes, there is. The parlourmaid reported to the man who is doing day duty here this week that the house would be closed till Saturday, and that the police were to keep an eye on the place at night. Looks as if they've gone, sir."

Berrington swore quietly and under his breath. It seemed to him as if he and Field were going to have their trouble for their pains. No. 100 was not the kind of house where people are unduly economical on the score of lights, and there was not one to be seen.

"I should like to go and have a prowl around," Berrington said, after a pause. "I suppose if I did, I shouldn't have any officious policeman to reckon with."

"Well, sir, I'm not quite sure," Macklin said dubiously. "Of course I know you to be a gentleman as wouldn't do anything in the least wrong, but there's my sergeant to consider. Still, as this is on my beat, no other officer is likely to see you."

"Good," Berrington exclaimed. "What time will you be back here again?"

Macklin calculated that he would reach the same spot again an hour or so later,—about eleven o'clock, to be exact. The hour tallied precisely with the coming of Field, and in the meantime Berrington was free to make what he could of the house opposite.

But there was precious little to be gained in that respect. The house was all fastened up, there were shutters to the windows on the ground floor; the garden was tried next, but there was no litter anywhere such as might have been caused by a hasty removal. Clearly

if the house was closed up it was only for a day or two, as the parlourmaid had told the policeman.

At the end of an hour Berrington was not a whit wiser than before.

He crossed over the road and there on a seat under the trees was a sailor like himself. Field did not assume to be asleep but was pulling at a short clay pipe.

"Come and sit down, sir," he said. "I've just come. As I anticipated, I am being watched. But I managed to give my shadowers quite a wrong impression and I passed from the house, where I keep a few stock disguises, under their very noses. They imagine that they are following me up West by this time."

"I am afraid all the trouble has been wasted," Berrington said irritably. "The birds have flown."

"Indeed, sir. And who did you get that valuable piece of information from?"

"From my friend the policeman that I told you about. The house is shut up for a few days and the authorities have been informed of the fact. I have been all around the house and it is as silent as the grave."

"Well, that might be merely a blind, after all," Field said cheerfully. "When did they go?"

"So far as I can gather from Macklin, they departed early this morning."

Field chuckled but said nothing. A little while later there was a thud of heavy boots on the pavement, and Macklin and his sergeant came, together. The latter was about to say something but Field produced his card and the effect was instantaneous.

"No, we don't want any assistance at all," the Scotland Yard official said. "All you can do is to go about

your work as if nothing was taking place. You may notice something suspicious presently at No. 100, across the road, but you are to ignore it. You understand?"

The sergeant nodded and touched his helmet; he understood perfectly well. The two passed on together and the sham sailors crossed the road. Very quietly Field proceeded to the back of the house. It was a little dark here, and he guided himself by pressing his fingers to the walls. Presently he stopped, and a low chuckle came from his lips.

"Discovery the first, sir," he said. "Press your hand on the wall here. What do you notice?"

But Berrington noticed nothing beyond the fact that the wall was quite warm. He said so, and the inspector chuckled once more. He seemed to be pleased about something.

"That should tell you a story, sir," he said. "That house is supposed to be empty; nobody has been here since early this morning. If you will look up, you will see that the blank wall terminates in a high chimney—obviously the kitchen chimney. This wall is quite hot, it is the back of the kitchen fireplace—so obviously, if those people went early to-day there would be very little fire, in fact the range would have been out long ago. And what do we find? A hot wall that tells of a good fire all day, a good fire at this moment, or these bricks would have cooled down before now. If you listen you will hear the boiler gently simmering."

It was all exactly as Field had said. Perhaps the servants had been sent away for a day or two, indeed, it was very probable that they had. But there was the big fire testifying to the fact that somebody was in the house at that very moment.

"We are going to take risks," Field whispered. "If we are discovered we shall be given into custody as two drunken sailors, given into the custody of your friend Macklin and his sergeant, from whom we shall probably escape. You may be very sure that we shall not be charged, for the simple reason that the people here don't want their names or anything about them to get into the papers; in fact, the less they see of the police the better they will be pleased. Come along."

Field strode around to the kitchen window. The shutters were up, but not so in the larder, which had no bars, and was only protected by a square of perforated zinc. The inspector took a tool from his pocket and with great care and dexterity, and without making the least noise, removed the zinc from its place. Then a lantern flamed out.

"Come along," said Field, "we can easily get through here. We shall be safe in the kitchen, for we know that the maids are not in the house."

For the present everything was absolutely plain sailing. And as Field had anticipated there was nobody in the kitchen and nobody in the corridor leading to the better part of the house. All the same, a big fire, recently made up, was roaring in the range, showing that the place was not quite deserted. And yet it was as silent as the grave.

It was the same in the hall, and the same in the living-rooms, where no lights gleamed. From somewhere upstairs came a sound as if somebody was gently filing some soft metal. The noise ceased presently to be followed by the rattle of a typewriter, or so it seemed. The two adventurers stood in the darkness of the dining-room listening; it seemed to them as if that rattle was

getting closer. Field flashed a light into the room, but it was quite empty; the polished mahogany of the table reflected the flowers on it.

Then suddenly the rattle grew louder, and Field hid his light under the slide. As suddenly as his light had faded out, the dining-room glowed in a perfect bank of shaded yellow light, as if by magic the table stood with a perfect meal, a dainty cold supper with glass and silver and crystal and gold-topped bottles upon it; the whole thing seemed a most wonderful piece of conjuring. At the same instant there was the rattle of a latch-key in the front door. Field pulled his companion into the darkness of the drawing-room doorway. A man came in, peeled off his coat, and entered the dining-room. Field gasped.

"What is the matter?" Berrington asked. "Do you know who it is?"

"Rather," Field replied, "I should say that I do. Why! that's no other than the Rajah of Ahbad! Well, if this doesn't beat all!"

CHAPTER XV

Used as he was to quick scenes and dramatic changes, Berrington was surprised for the moment. The thing was like some bewildering Eastern vision. A moment ago the place had been dull and dark, and now like a flash, warmth and light were there, to say nothing of the tasteful extravagance of the supper-table. Berrington could see the fruit and the flowers, the dainty confections and the costly wines. How had the thing been managed?

But it was no moment to speculate about that. So far it merely tended to prove the almost diabolical cleverness of the people with whom the police had to deal. The Rajah himself could be seen standing moodily in the doorway chewing a cigar between his strong, yellow teeth. Berrington observed him very carefully.

As one who knew India, Berrington was in a position to judge the man fairly well. As a matter of fact, the newcomer did not look in the least like an Eastern potentate. True, his skin was dark, but not more sallow than that of many a European. His hair was thick, but his eyes were dark blue, and his dress was eminently that of a man about town. With his public school and University education, the Rajah had passed for an Englishman.

"What sort of a reputation does he bear?" Berrington asked in a whisper.

"Shady," Field replied briefly. "What you call a

renegade, I should say. Has all the vices of both hemispheres, without the redeeming features of either. Low-class music halls, ballet dancers, prize-fighters and the like. At the same time he's got the good sense not to flaunt these vices before the public, and he knows how to conduct himself with dignity when there is any necessity for it. Despite his handsome income, he is frequently in dire need of money. Still, I should never have identified him with this business had I not seen him here. I had no idea that he even knew Sir Charles Darryll and Mr. Richford."

The Rajah stood there biting his nails impatiently, as if waiting for somebody. He crossed over to the table and opened a bottle of champagne to which he helped himself liberally. The fizz of the wine could be distinctly heard in the drawing-room.

"I'd give half my pension to know how that thing is worked," said Berrington. "A moment ago there was nothing on that table, and now look at it! It would have taken the staff of a large hotel half an hour to arrange a meal like that. The flowers alone would have occupied the time. The servants here——"

"You may bet your life that the servants know nothing about it," Field said. "They have been sent away right enough. I feel quite sure that they are innocent of everything. It would never do to let domestics talk of these matters."

The Rajah was pacing up and down the dining-room talking to himself. A moment later there was a rattle of a latchkey and two people came in. The first was a young man with the unmistakable stamp of the actor on him, smart, well groomed, clean shaven, the society actor of to-day. He was followed by an exceedingly

pretty, fair-haired woman, who might have belonged to the same profession. Just for the moment it occurred to Field that these were ordinary guests who knew nothing of the mystery of the house. There was nothing about either of them to connect them with crime or mystery.

They pitched their wraps carelessly on the hall table as if they had been there before, and made their way to the dining-room. The Rajah's face grew eager.

"Well, my children," he said in excellent English, "have you had any luck? Cora, dear, tell me that you have succeeded in our little counterplot."

The woman's pretty face grew hard. She pulled a chair up to the table and sat down.

"Give me some of that pâté and open a bottle of champagne," she said. "What with this doubling about and covering up one's tracks, I've had no time to think of food. The same remark applies to poor Reggie here. Haven't we succeeded well enough for you?"

"Well, yes, you managed the big thing all right, but that's not everything. You managed the big thing so well that the police are utterly baffled and don't know which way to look. But the stones, carissima, the sparkling stones. What of them?"

The woman gave a shrug of her ivory shoulders. She could be plainly seen by the watchers lost in the darkness of the drawing-room.

"The deplorable luck was against us," she said. "I actually had my hands upon the stones and nearly snatched them away under the very eyes of the adorable Richford. I said to myself we are not going to do his work for nothing. He followed me to the room where

the stones were and we talked. You see I had business in the room as you know. And Reggie here was downstairs, making himself agreeable to the fair owner of the stones, so that I had a free hand in the matter. If Reggie had not been so indiscreet as to leave the poor child——"

"But what could I do?" the man called Reggie protested. "Never was so cruel a piece of bad luck in the history of war. Who should come down but Langford?"

"But you were so carefully disguised that Langford could not possibly have known you," the woman said.

"I admit it. I positively had forgotten the fact for the moment. The sight of Langford was such a shock to me. On the spur of the moment I made my excuses and departed."

"Leaving the little girl uneasy and suspicious," said the woman, "so that she came up to her room where I was and walked off with the gems. I was very near to taking her by the throat and half strangling her. But there were greater issues at stake and I had to restrain my feelings. I had to smile and nod and play my part whilst the little lady was sending the jewels off to the safe custody of the hotel clerk. I could have danced with fury, I could have wept with rage. But what was the good?"

The Rajah swore roundly and passionately. He could be seen from the drawing-room, striding about the place and muttering as he went.

"It is more than unfortunate," he said. "If we could have got hold of those jewels we should have had a fortune in our grasp. We were quite justified in robbing Richford, who only serves me for his own ends.

He is a bully and a coward and he must pay the price. He says that he has no ready money, that his affairs are more desperate than we imagine. And yet he could find the cash to buy those diamonds."

"They always mean cash," the woman said. "It is a good thing for the wife of a speculator to be in possession of a lot of fine diamonds. It would have been a precious good thing for us, too, if Reggie had not lost his nerve last night."

"Have you any idea who those people are?" asked Berrington of his companion.

"Not personally," Field replied, "but I have a pretty shrewd idea. It is very good of them to come here, just as nature made them, and without disguises. Surely you know what they are talking about? The discussion is over Mrs. Richford's diamonds which she nearly lost, as she told me. Unless I am greatly mistaken, we are listening to a confession of the way in which that robbery had been planned. Stripped of their very clever disguises, these two people yonder are no other than Countess de la Moray and General Gastang."

Berrington nodded, wondering why he had not found them out before. From the dining-room came the sound of a match, as the Rajah lighted another cigar.

"We shall have to go back to our original scheme," he was saying. "There was never anything better. We must get the other man into this. He must be frightened. Send him the salt."

There was another rattle of the latchkey, and the watchers were not in the least surprised to see Richford come in, with the air of a man who is quite at home. He was looking white and anxious and a little annoyed

as he took off his coat and entered the dining-room. Unhappily he closed the door behind him, so that no more conversation could be heard.

"That's unlucky," Field said in a vexed tone. "What does that salt allusion mean? You recollect telling me that Richford was frightened by finding that salt on his plate?"

"It's a kind of Indian dodge," Berrington proceeded to explain. "It has to do with caste and religious observances and all that sort of thing. Don't be deceived with the idea that you are on the track of an Anarchist society or anything of that kind."

"Is it something more or less on the line of freemasonry, then?" Field asked.

"Well, yes, you can put it that way if you like," Berrington said thoughtfully. "I made a special study of that kind of thing in India, though I only came across the salt fetich a few times. It seemed to me to be more religious than anything else, though in one or two instances it was attended by tragedy. There was a young native prince who was a great friend of mine and he was about to be married to a princess who was as bright and intelligent as himself. She had been educated like himself in Europe, so that they were free from a deal of superstition and prejudice. The prince was dining at my bungalow one night when I noticed a little bullet of salt on his plate. It was useless to ask him how it got there for one could never have elicited the truth from any of the native servants. My friend got dreadfully pale for a moment, but he turned it off and he thought no more about the matter. But the next day the prince was found dead in his bed; he had shot himself with a revolver."

"And you never got to the bottom of it?" Field asked with pardonable curiosity.

"Never. There are mysteries in India that puzzle us as much as they did in the good old days of John Company. What's that noise?"

There was a sound like the rumble of wheels along the hall, and presently appeared a kind of invalid chair, self-propelled by its occupant, a little man with a pale face and dark eyes. He paused before the dining-room door and rattled the handle.

"Evidently the master of the house," Berrington suggested. "The lame man who can't walk. It was he who sent the message to Richford."

"Sure enough," Field exclaimed. "Must have been in the abduction business. Evidently the same gentleman who was waiting in the black cab outside the Royal Palace. Rather a nice looking man, with by no means unpleasant face. Hope they won't shut the door upon him."

Somebody opened the dining-room door at this moment and the lame man steered himself in. Where he had come from was a mystery, as the house had appeared to be quite empty when Berrington and his companion entered it. Clearly the man could not have come from the upper part of the premises, for his physical condition disposed of that suggestion.

"Well, my friends," the newcomer cried gaily, "very glad to see you all safe and sound again. So our little scheme has not been a failure. Richford, judging from the gloom on your brow, you have not had the luck you desire. You must be content with the knowledge that virtue brings its own reward. And yet if you only knew it you are the most fortunate of men. For your

sweet sake we have undertaken difficulties and dangers that——"

"Oh, shut up," Richford growled. "I don't understand what you are driving at. Anybody would think that you were no more than a silly child who had nothing to do but to attend to your flowers and stick your postage stamps in your album. And yet——"

"And yet I can give my attention to more serious matters," the cripple said with a sudden stern expression and in a voice that had a metallic ring in it. "You are right. And if you two have eaten and drunk enough we will get to business."

There was a little stir amongst the listeners, the Rajah pitching his cigar into the grate and coming forward eagerly. Evidently something was going to happen.

CHAPTER XVI

Cool and collected as he usually was, even Field was excited now. He crept as near to the drawing room door as he dared, and peeped into the ring of light, eagerly. He popped back hurriedly as the man called Reggie and the Rajah came into the hall and proceeded to enter a room opposite, under the direction of the little cripple. Richford seemed to be vague and irritated.

"What the deuce is the good of all this mystery?" he asked. "Why don't you come to the point, Sartoris? But no, you must always be so infernally close, just as if you were the only one of us who rejoices in the possession of brains."

"Well, so I am," Sartoris said, without the least display of temper. "You don't delude yourself that you are a person of intellect, surely? Cunning you have of a low order, the mean, vulgar cunning that enables people to make money in the city. But that is not intellect, my dear friend—intellect is quite another matter. We very nearly landed ourselves in a serious mess because I did not care to trust you too far. And when we were face to face with that mess, what good were you? What good was anybody besides myself? Where was the brain that schemed out everything and made success certain? True, I had allies upon whom I could depend—Reggie and Cora, for example. But they could have done nothing without me. And now

we have the thing in our hands again. Come along, then."

Richford subsided, muttering to himself. From the room opposite came the sound of somebody moving a heavy package of some kind, and presently the man called Reggie and the Rajah appeared shuffling a big case between them. The box scraped over the polished parquet floor, leaving deep scratches as it went; amidst a strained, breathing silence it was pushed into the dining-room. Sartoris watched these proceedings with a curious gleam in his eyes.

"So far, so good," he said. "All we want now is Bentwood. He's very late. Go out and see if you can make anything of him, Reggie. If that fellow has dared to get drunk to-night, I'll give him a lesson that will last him for the rest of his life."

The little man's voice grew harsh and grating. Evidently he was a man that it would be dangerous to trifle with. A curious silence fell over the little group; the whole room grew so still that Field could hear his companion breathing. They were perfectly safe up to now, but if anybody happened to go into the drawing-room for anything, and they were discovered, each knew that his life was not worth a minute's purchase. Very steadily Sartoris steered his chair to the side of the big case on the floor, and his hands began to fumble with the strings.

The front door opened with a bang that startled everybody, for nerves were strung up to high tension and the least noise came with a startling force. The door burst open, only to be as quietly closed, and a big man, with a red face and small red eyes, reeled

across the hall and almost collapsed in a heap on the floor.

"Night," he said unsteadily, "night, all of you. You may say that I've been drinking. Nothing of the kind. The man who says I've been drinking lies. Experiment. Nothing in the world but a lot of experiments which a braver man than I would shrink from. Sartoris, if you say I am drunk, then I say that you are a liar."

"I should be a liar if I agreed with you," Sartoris said. "The whole place reeks of drink."

"So it does," the newcomer said with amiability. "Upon my word, you yourselves seem to be doing remarkably well while I've been working for the good of the community. Give me a bottle of champagne, to begin with. Poor stuff, champagne, only fit for women. But then, there appears to be nothing else—why——"

The big red-faced man reached his hand out and Sartoris caught him a savage blow on the knuckles. The little man's face was livid with fury, his eyes flashed like electric points.

"Pig, beast, drunken hound," he screamed. "Have you no sense of shame or duty? After to-night I will give you a lesson. After to-night you shall know what it is to play with me."

The man called Bentwood lapsed into sudden dignity.

"Very well," he said. "Have it your own way. When you say that I am drunk you outrage my feelings. You don't seem to understand that you can't get on without me. If I like to snap my fingers in your face you are powerless. But I do nothing of the kind—such is not my nature. Give me a glass of brandy and I shall be myself again."

Just for a moment Sartoris seemed to be fighting down the rage that consumed him. It was evidently a big struggle, but the mastery came.

"Very well," he said. "I'll do as you want. Wait a moment."

The invalid carriage rolled rapidly across the room and down a long passage to the back of the house. When Sartoris came back again he had a glass in his hand and a cup of black coffee balanced on the chair before him. Bentwood snatched eagerly at the glass and drained it at a gulp. Then he pressed his hand to his heart and staggered back.

"My God, you have poisoned me," he gasped. "The pain! The pain! I can't breathe."

"You'll be all right in a moment," Sartoris said. "I don't profess to your wonderful medical knowledge, but some things I know, and one of them is how to treat a man in your condition. What you regard as poison is a strong dose of sal-volatile—as strong a dose as I dare venture to give even to a powerful man like you. Now drink this coffee."

There was a ring of command in the tone which was not to be disobeyed. As soon as Bentwood had regained his power of speech, he drank his coffee. After the harsh, astringent drug, the flavour was soothing and gratifying. In a marvellously short space of time the big man grew quiet and a little ashamed of himself. His face was less red, he became more quiet and subdued in his manner.

"I am truly sorry, Sartoris," he said. "I'm afraid I was very drunk and rude just now. But I was not entirely to blame. Would any man be entirely to blame who had led a life like mine! The things that I have

seen, the things that I should like to find out! Then the madness comes on me and I must drink or destroy myself. I fought for the possession of myself to-day until I was a mere nervous rag of a man, if I had fought much longer I should have blown my brains out. And what would you have done then?"

The man's tone was eager, almost passionate. Sartoris bent his head down so that the expression of his face could not be seen by anyone.

"Say no more about it," he said. "You are quite sober now, which is the important part of the case. I will discuss the other matter with you on a future occasion."

The speaker's tones were smooth enough, but his eyes gleamed like coals of fire. He was bending again and fumbling with the straps of the great packing case. Field, watching everything intently, asked Berrington what he thought of it all.

"I hardly know what to think," the latter whispered. "This has been a night of surprises—therefore you will be prepared to hear that I know the man Bentwood well."

"You mean that you knew him in India?" Field asked.

"Yes, years ago. He was an army surgeon, and quite the cleverest man at his profession that I ever had the privilege to meet. He might have made a large fortune in England, but he got into some trouble and had to leave the country. It was much the same in India. Bentwood had a positive genius for the occult and underground. After a time very few white people cared to associate with him and he became the companion of the dervishes and the mullahs and all that class, whose

secrets he learned. I believe he is the only European who ever went through the process of being buried alive. That secret was never betrayed before, and yet yonder fellow got to the bottom of it. Also he learned all the secret poisons that they use out yonder, and we were pretty sure that he was mixed up in the great scandal that followed the sad death of the Rajah of Abgalli. You recollect that?"

Field nodded. He had a fine memory for all stories of that kind.

"We always said that Bentwood was the actual culprit, and that he experimented with certain poisons that produced quite new results. Some said that the Rajah committed suicide. Perhaps the poison administered to him took that form. Anyway, Bentwood disappeared, and it was generally understood that he met his death by falling out of a boat when shooting sea fowl. That was the story that one of his servants brought back, but we could never ascertain how far that fellow was in his master's pay. Anyway, a year later one of our men came back from his long leave, saying that he had seen Bentwood at Monte Carlo, and that he appeared to be bursting with money. Another of ours was reported to have seen him after that, almost in rags, in London. Anyway, he is an amazingly clever man, and perhaps one of the greatest scamps that ever lived. Still, if we get any luck to-night, he will almost have shot his bolt."

"I think you may safely reckon upon that," Field said drily. "It's exceedingly lucky for me that I ran up against you in this way, Colonel. But for that accident I should have been utterly at fault. Anyway, I should not be here at this moment."

There was no chance for further talk, for by this time Sartoris had released the straps of the packing case and raised the lid. The others stood around him, looking white and anxious, with the exception of Bentwood, who was smoking a cigarette quite carelessly. With an impatient gesture, Sartoris pointed to the case by his side.

"Now, then," he said curtly, "are you people going to keep me waiting all night? Do you think that a cripple like me can do everything? Give a hand here, you men, whilst one of the others clears the table. Pull the cloth off."

There was a clatter of china and glass and a clink of bottles, at the sound of which Bentwood looked around with a sudden spasmodic grin on his face. But Sartoris scowled at him furiously, and he turned his watery gaze in another direction. The table was clear now, and the Rajah, with the help of the man called Reggie, and Richford, raised some inanimate object from the trunk. It was limp and heavy, it was swathed in sheets, like a lay figure or a mummy. As the strange thing was opened out it took the outlines of a human body, a dread object, full of the suggestion of crime and murder and violence. Berrington breathed hard as he watched.

"If we only dared to do something," he muttered. "I suppose it is easy to guess what they have there?"

"Easy enough, indeed, sir," Field said between his teeth. "It's the body of Sir Charles Darryll. There is a deeper mystery here than we are as yet aware of. They are laying the body out on that table as if for some operation. I don't know what to think; I——"

"Shut that door," Sartoris commanded in a hard

high voice. "There is a deuce of a draught coming in from somewhere. You don't want that, eh, Bentwood!"

Bentwood muttered that it was the last thing he did desire. The door closed with a bang, there was a long silence, broken at last by a feeble cry of pain, a cry something like that of a child who suffers under some drug. Berrington leaped to his feet. As he would have crossed the hall a figure came along—the figure of a woman in a grey dress. It was the grey lady that Beatrice had seen on that fateful evening, the woman who had sat by the side of Mark Ventmore in the Paris theatre. She wrung her hands in silent grief.

"Oh, if only there was somebody to help me," she said. "If God would only give to me and send to me a friend at this moment, I would pray——"

Berrington stepped out into the light of the hall.

"Your prayer has been answered," he said quietly. "I am here to help you, Mary."

CHAPTER XVII

The grey lady stood there, with her hands pressed to her heart, her great pathetic eyes dilated with a curious fear. It was a long time before she spoke, though it was easy to see that she had penetrated Berrington's disguise. But then, he had spoken in his natural voice, which made all the difference. It seemed to him that the grey lady would have fallen had he not put out his hand and supported her slender frame.

"Wait a bit," Berrington whispered. "Don't try to talk yet. You are surprised to see me here, Mary. And yet it is natural enough—you must know that I have been seeking you for years. Why have you carefully avoided me all this time?"

A little colour crept into the cheeks of the grey lady. Field had drawn into the background with a feeling that he was not wanted here. Yet he was not pleased at the unexpected contretemps. The detective had mapped out a line for himself, and he desired now to bring it to a successful conclusion. And yet the interruption might not altogether be without its good results. Field had, of course, already heard a great deal about the grey lady, and he did not doubt that the pathetic figure standing there in the doorway was the same person.

"You will not forget to be cautious," he whispered.

The grey lady started. She had not anticipated that anybody else was there.

"Who is that?" she asked. "And how did you get here?"

"Well, we got into the house by the pantry window," Berrington explained. He had himself well in hand again by this time. "I am afraid that we must have some kind of an understanding, Mary. Would you mind, Inspector?"

Field was understood to say that he had no objection so long as it did not lead to anything rash. He began to wish that he had half a dozen or so of his most trusted men with him. Meanwhile his hands were tied and he could do no more than wait developments. He had naturally a keen desire to know what was going on behind the closed door of the dining-room, but on that score he would have to possess his soul in patience for the time. He had the comfortable assurance that he could bag his birds, one by one, later on.

"Don't go out of earshot and don't betray yourself, sir," he said. Berrington gave the desired assurances and he and his companion passed quietly across the hall to a morning room beyond. This was at the back of the house, with a French window that gave on to the lawn. The grey lady softly undid the catch.

"That will be an easy way out for you, if necessary," she said. "If anybody comes in here you can slip out into the garden. And now, Philip, how did you find me?"

Berrington made no reply for the moment. He was looking at the pale features of his companion with something like a lovelight in his eyes. Looked at closely it was a beautiful face, despite its sorrow and the grey hair that crowned it. Berrington recollected the grey lady as a merry laughing girl, who seemed not to have

a single care in the world. His mind was very far away from Audley Place at that moment.

"How long since we last met, Mary!" he said.

The woman sighed and her eyes filled with tears. Berrington had struck a tender cord.

"Four months, four years, four centuries!" she said with a passionate catch of her voice. "You are not angry with me, Phil? I can see you are not angry with me."

"My dearest, no. When I look at you I can feel no anger in my heart against you. My God, what you must have suffered! The same and yet so different. All your colour has gone, the laughter from your eyes, the tender lines of your mouth. And yet at the outside your years cannot be more than thirty."

"Thirty-one," the other said mournfully. "And yet I seem to have lived such a long, long life. You think that I treated you very badly, Phil?"

"My dear Mary, how could I come to any other conclusion? You were engaged to me, we were going to be married, the very hour was fixed. Then you disappeared utterly, leaving nothing more than a note to say that I was to forget you and not seek you. I was to think of you as being utterly unworthy to become a good man's wife."

"If you had done so a great deal of trouble and anxiety would have been saved, Phil."

"Yes, but I declined to do anything of the kind," Berrington said eagerly. "I knew that in some way you were sacrificing yourself for others. And when I found that your brother had gone, I felt absolutely certain of it."

"Did you discover anything about him?" the grey lady asked anxiously.

"Dear Mary, there was nothing fresh to discover. Your love for Carl made you blind to his faults. Did we not all know what he was! Every man in India who knew him could have told you. It is a painful thing to say, but he was an utter blackguard. But for influence, he had been expelled the Civil Service long before he chose to vanish. It used to madden me to see the way in which he traded upon your affection for him. Oh, he was a bad man."

The red blood flamed into the cheeks of the listener. Berrington could see her hands clasped together.

"You are wrong," she said, "oh, I am sure you are wrong. Carl was a little selfish, perhaps, but then he was so brilliantly clever, so much sought after. And when he fell in love with—with the right woman, I was entirely happy. He was passionately in love, Philip."

Berrington gave a dissenting gesture. There was a bitter smile on his lips.

"Carl never cared for anyone but himself," he said. "It was a physical impossibility."

"Indeed you do him wrong, Phil. He was very much in earnest with Sir Charles Darryll's ward who came out with her brother and his wife to Simla. All was going brilliantly when a rival came on the scene. You were not in Simla at the time, and I daresay if you had been you would never have heard anything about that unhappy business. Whether the rival used his power unscrupulously or not I never knew, but there was a quarrel one day, out riding. Even Carl refused to speak of it. But his rival was never seen again, and

from that day to this Carl has been a physical wreck. He——"

"You don't mean to say," Berrington burst out, "you don't mean to say your brother is the Carl Sartoris who is master of this house?"

The woman hesitated, stammered, her face had grown very pale.

"You seem to know more than I imagined," she said. "Perhaps I shall understand better when I know what brings you here. But Carl Sartoris is my brother."

"So he has gone back to his mother's maiden name! Does an honest man want to do anything of that kind? But for the expression of your face, which is sweet and fair as ever, I should say that you were in this business. But I have only to glance at you to feel assured on that point. You say that your brother is more sinned against than sinning. Can you look me in the face and say that he has no past behind him, that he is not making a mystery now?"

The girl's face grew pale and she cast down her eyes. Berrington kept down his rising passion.

"You cannot answer me," he went on. "You find it impossible to do so. You are running great risks for a worthless creature who is as crooked in mind as he is in body."

"Oh, don't," Mary Sartoris said. "Don't say such terrible things, please; they hurt me."

"My dear girl, I am sorry, but it is best to state these things plainly. You may not know everything, but you can guess a great deal. Otherwise, why did you try and see Sir Charles Darryll the night before his death, why did you write him the note that was

found in his bedroom? And again, why did you stay in the hotel that night and try to warn the servants on night duty? You see, Mary, it is quite useless to try to keep the secret from me."

Mary Sartoris looked at the speaker with dilated eyes. For a moment she could not speak. And yet there were no signs of guilty terror on her face.

"I did not imagine that you knew so much," she said.

"I know more, but I would far rather know a great deal more," Berrington admitted. "Mind you, matters are out of my hands and the police are hot on the track. Why do you not confess everything and save yourself, Mary? For instance, you stand a chance of being placed in the dock on a charge of being concerned in the disappearance of Sir Charles Darryll's body."

"I am as innocent of that as the grave, Phil. I only did my best to try to prevent——"

"Oh, I know, I know," Berrington said impatiently. "But the fact remains that the body of Sir Charles Darryll was stolen for some vile purpose, and that the culprits are in grave danger. Your brother is at the bottom of this affair; he it was who drove up to the Royal Palace Hotel in that black hansom that took the body away. And yet you say that that man——"

"Is more sinned against than sinning," Mary Sartoris cried. "I say it still. Of course you regard me as blind and foolish, but then you do not know everything."

"It is not a matter of what I know," Berrington protested. "Of course I should believe every word that you tell me. But the police will take another view

of the matter altogether. Do you know what is going on behind that closed door yonder?"

The girl shuddered and hid her face in her hands. She seemed afraid to say anything. Berrington asked the question twice before he could get any reply.

"Indeed I don't," she said. "I am not altogether in my brother's confidence. I ventured to say something to him to-day and he was dreadfully angry. He locked me in my bedroom, but I managed to get the door of the dressing-room open and escaped that way. I was going to interfere when I saw you. There seem to be other people there."

"Oh, there are," Berrington said bitterly. "There are two adventurers, called Reggie and Cora, who very recently passed at the Royal Palace Hotel for General Gastang and Countess de la Moray. There is the scoundrel Stephen Richford who tricked Beatrice Darryll into marrying him, and then there is also a ruffian called Dr. James Bentwood. What was that?"

"It seemed to me like a cry of pain," Mary Sartoris said in a frozen whisper.

It was very like a cry of pain indeed, a fluttering, feeble cry ending in a moaning protest. Acting on the impulse of the moment, and forgetting Inspector Field altogether, Berrington crossed the hall and laid his hand on the knob of the door. Mary Sartoris darted after him, her face white with fear, and terror and anxiety in her accent.

"Don't do it," she said, "pray restrain yourself. There are mysteries here, strange, horrible mysteries that come from the East, of which you know nothing, despite the years you have passed in India. Oh, the danger that lies there!"

In spite of his courage, Berrington hesitated. He might have recovered his self-possession and returned to the drawing-room, only the strange feeble cry of pain was raised again. It was more than flesh and blood could stand, and in a sudden passion Berrington opened the door. He would have entered resolutely, but Mary pulled him back.

"The mischief has been done," she said hurriedly. "If anyone has to suffer let it be me. I have brought you to this pass and I must get you out as best I can. Carl, what is this?"

The girl thrust herself past Berrington who stood in the shade of the doorway. There was a sudden snarling, with a cry from the girl, as a blow tingled on her cheek. Somebody laughed as if approving this cowardly business.

With a cry of rage Berrington darted into the room. Instantly a pair of strong hands were laid on him and he was borne backwards. Just for a moment he lashed out freely and successfully and then the weight of numbers was too much for him. The dining-room door was closed again.

CHAPTER XVIII

Inspector Field swore a good round oath under his breath. He had not looked for an insane folly like this from a well-trained officer who might have been expected to keep his feelings in check. But, as Field sadly reflected, it was useless to anticipate anything rational when a woman came into the case.

Everything had been going beautifully and smoothly a few minutes ago, and now the plot was ruined. Field was anything but a timid man, he had been in too many tight places in his life to know the meaning of the word timidity, but then he had to exercise a certain discretion.

At the same time he was not blind to the fact that his military ally was in considerable danger. The only thing now would be to bluff the whole thing through, to pretend that the game was up and that the house was surrounded with police.

With this intention in his mind, Field crossed the hall and tried the dining-room door. He was not altogether surprised to find the door locked. He listened at the keyhole, but he could not hear anything whatever. Furthermore, the application of an eye to the keyhole disclosed the fact that the room was in darkness. Despite his courage a thrill ran down the spine of the inspector. There was some more than usually devilish work going on here.

"Well, it can't be helped," Field muttered. "It's

the fortune of war. One of us has come to grief, and if I stay here I may share the same fate, and I the only one left who knows anything of the secrets of the prison house. I'll run over and get assistance and we'll search the house. After all, my friend the Colonel has only himself to blame."

Without waiting for anything further, Field slipped out by the way he had come. Once in the road, he glanced back at the house, but the whole place seemed to be in pitchy darkness. There was nothing for it now but to make his way to the nearest police station, and get all the assistance possible. There was no trouble at the station across the Common, the mere mention of Field's name being sufficient. A few minutes later half a dozen constables in silent shoes were on their way to the scene of action. There was to be no fuss and bother; they decided to enter quietly and unostentatiously by the larder window, which was done without any noise whatever.

Once the exits were guarded, there was no necessity for further concealment. But though the lights were turned up all over the house and the most careful search made, not a sign of human life could be seen. Everybody had vanished, as if the whole thing had been a dream. Field, standing in the hall and biting his nails, was fain to admit that he was beaten.

How on earth had those people managed to efface themselves in that amazing manner? They had all apparently vanished off the face of the earth. And there was that bulky package too, that Field believed contained the body of Sir Charles. It was long past midnight before Field left the house, having taken precautions not to disturb anything, but even those precautions

might have been in vain. For all he knew to the contrary, the place might be watched by its late occupants who were laughing in their sleeves.

"No use staying here any longer, Macklin," he said disgustedly. "I shall have to go back on my tracks once more. Never do I take an amateur into my business plans again. But it looks as if he has paid for his indiscretion. Good night."

It was late into the following afternoon before Field saw Beatrice Darryll again. When he did so, he had nothing to report save failure. Beatrice listened with the greatest interest to what had taken place the night before, but her interest gave place to grave anxiety when she heard what had been the result of Colonel Berrington's daring action.

"Do you suppose that he is in real danger?" Beatrice asked.

"Well, I'm afraid he is," Field admitted. "You see we are dealing with the most daring and clever and unscrupulous gang of scoundrels that I ever encountered. They would not stick at murder or anything else if anybody crossed them. Mind you, it was a most foolish thing for the Colonel to do. Still, he is a soldier and a very resourceful man and he may pull through. Again these people may not have designs on his life; it is just possible that they might keep him a prisoner until their plans had been successfully carried out. Of course when the Colonel was talking to the grey lady to-night I was not supposed to listen. But I have very good ears, and they spoke loudly at times. I gathered that the scoundrel Sartoris was once engaged to a young lady who threw him over. Now it occurred to me that the young lady might give me an idea or two,

provided that she is in England at the present moment."

"Why should you think that she is not here?" Beatrice asked.

"Because the engagement took place at Simla. This young lady was staying with her brother and his wife; unfortunately I did not catch the name. The curious part of the affair is that she is a ward of your late father."

Beatrice looked puzzled for a moment. She did not quite understand.

"You mean that my father was guardian under a will or something of that kind?" she asked.

"That's it, miss," Field exclaimed. "We ought to be able to identify the young lady between us, especially as the affair only took place three years ago or so, as I understand. If you will pardon me for saying so, Sir Charles was a very careless gentleman, and hardly the man that a careful parent would choose as a guardian. The young lady's father must have known yours very intimately indeed, or very little, it does not matter which. Still, I don't suppose that Sir Charles had many of these affairs on hand. Now, see if you can recollect anything of the kind happening during the last three or four years, Miss Darryll."

Beatrice thought the matter over carefully for a moment. Her face lighted up presently.

"I fancy that I have it," she said. "Lord Edward Decié, who was a great friend of my father, died about three years ago. The two men did a lot of speculating together, and indeed Lord Edward passed for a shrewd and successful man. When he died I know my father was executor under the will and that he had some control over the Hon. Violet Decié. I never saw the girl,

because she went to India with a married brother, and, for all I know she is there still. I understood that she was rather an impulsive kind of girl who did wild things on the spur of the moment. But you can easily inquire."

Field's face expressed a guarded satisfaction. So far he was not very much out.

"That is the young lady, miss," he cried. "I'll put the inquiries on foot at once. And I don't think that I need detain you any longer."

"One minute," Beatrice said. "What about Colonel Berrington? What steps have you taken to find him? Are you going to have that house at Wandsworth watched?"

Field intimated that he was, though in his opinion it was time wasted.

"They will expect something of the kind, you see," he said. "Of course it is a help to me that my presence in the house was not suspected. They may conclude that Berrington was alone in the business, and on the other hand they may not conclude anything of the kind. But, all the same, I am going to have the house carefully watched."

Before the day was out the disappearance of Sir Charles's body was obscured by the strange absence of Colonel Berrington. Field would have kept this latter fact concealed as far as possible, but then Berrington's landlady had been his old nurse, and she was not rational in the matter at all. The authorities had promised to do all they could, though the press accused them of being exceedingly lax in the business. As a matter of fact, Field had given his chiefs an inkling of the situation, so that they were really doing their best all the time. A care

fully planned watch on the Wandsworth Common house had come to nothing, but the people there had not yet returned; indeed very little could have been done if they had.

And Field was turning in another direction. He had to trace the young lady who at one time had been engaged to Carl Sartoris, and he had found it a more difficult business than he had anticipated. It was a delicate business, too, calling for tactful manipulation. A somewhat talkative aunt of the young lady was found at length. She took Field for a lawyer who was seeking the Honorable Violet for her own advantage.

"Oh, yes. She has been back from India a long time," Lady Parkstone said. "Violet is a very strange and clever girl. Yes, she has been engaged more than once. But the engagements are always broken off. Violet was always in love with herself. But very clever, as I said before. At one time she bade fair to become quite a famous artist, and she has had stories in the magazines. Her last fad was the stage and that has lasted quite a long time. In fact she is on the stage now."

"In London, my lady?" Field asked. "She is not acting under her own name, of course?"

"No," Lady Parkstone explained. "She is Miss Adela Vane; at present she is playing at the Comedy Opera House. It is just possible that you know the name."

Field knew the name very well. He departed presently well satisfied with the progress that he had made. It was getting quite late by the time he had found out where Miss Vane lodged, but he had time to go back to Scotland Yard again. There, a note from the superin

tendent of the Wandsworth Police was awaiting him, asking him to go down as soon as possible. The note was vague but it suggested possibilities.

The Wandsworth authorities had not much to say, but they had one detail. Last night one of the men who was told to watch No. 100 had seen something. The windows were all shuttered from top to bottom, each shutter having a little ventilator in it. Field nodded, for he had noticed this himself.

"Very well, then," the superintendent went on. "So far as we know the house is empty. But is it? If so why should a light have been seen last night, behind the little round ventilator? The light came and went, and in a great flashing, dazzling kind of way for half an hour, and then stopped. It was as if a child was playing with the switch of the electric light."

Field nodded and smiled. He looked exceedingly pleased with himself.

"Guess I understand," he said. "Especially as we are seeking for a military gentleman. We'll go as far as Audley Place at once, and investigate. Only we shall have to call at the Post Office and borrow a clerk out of the telegraph department. Come along."

Field volunteered no explanation, and his puzzled colleague followed him out of the office. The telegraph operator and the others stood opposite the house in Audley Place till the patience of all was pretty well exhausted. Then suddenly the light began to flicker in the upper part of the house.

"Isn't that a message of some kind?" Field asked of the telegraph clerk.

"Right," the other said promptly. "That's a kind of telegraph dash and dot system. Whistle a bar from

'when we are married.' Thank you, sir. That's what the gentleman who is sending out those flash signals is asking somebody to do who happens to understand. That last lot of flashes means 'Thank the Lord!' Now he's getting to business. He wants to know who we are before he goes on."

"Can't you give it back again in any way?" Field asked. "Say it's me."

Very loudly the telegraphic operator tapped the pavement with his stick. It sounded quite meaningless, but the light in the house flared up and down in a triumphant kind of way. The flickering began once more and then stopped.

"It's Colonel Berrington," the clerk said presently. "He says you are not to bother about him in the least, as he is quite safe, and so long as he is in there the men are not likely to do anything rash. And here comes the gist of the message. You are to go to Edward Street in the Borough and keep an eye on one of the houses there,—the Colonel doesn't know which. And you are to go at once, he says."

CHAPTER XIX

Something had been accomplished, at any rate. It was good to know that Berrington was safe and as satisfied with his surroundings as it was possible to be under the circumstances. Though he was a prisoner, he seemed to have been able to obtain important information which he had managed to convey to the outside world without alarming his captors.

"It's not so bad altogether," Field said. "Though I am by no means pleased with the gallant Colonel, who has only himself to blame for the position in which he finds himself. You can all go back to the station, and I shall not want the telegraph gentleman, whose services have been so valuable. Of course, you will say nothing of what you have seen, sir."

The little telegraph clerk gave the desired assurance and went his way. But Field did not turn his steps in the direction of London all at once. For a long time he stood looking thoughtfully at the house in Audley Place. He was just about to turn away finally when the light began to flash and flicker again. It went on a little time and finally ceased.

"Now, has he forgotten something?" Field asked himself. "I wonder if it is possible——"

Field crept quietly towards the house, across the lawn, and made his way to the back by which he had entered the place on a previous occasion. As he expected, the glass removed by him had not been replaced,

so that he was free to enter if he pleased. It was a very risky proceeding under the circumstances, but Field decided to try it. He would be much better satisfied to gain speech with Berrington, though the latter's escape might have alarmed the criminals and sent them to cover again.

Field was inside the house again before he had made up his mind what to do. The place was very quiet, and it was evident that the servants had not returned. Perhaps there was nobody there besides Berrington, who was a prisoner in one of the upper rooms. That being the case it was by no means impossible to gain speech with him. Very carefully Field crept along the passages, listening with all his ears.

He had not gone far before he heard a sound as of somebody moving. That somebody was coming in his direction was certain. Field began to blame himself for his folly. If he fell into a trap now, everything would be ruined. He turned down a side passage, without the remotest idea where he was going, and came at length to a lighted room, at the end of which was a conservatory full of flowers. The conservatory was open to the room, so that the whole place was a veritable bower of blooms. On one side was a large bank of azaleas, behind which Field proceeded to hide himself. He had hardly done this when there was a kind of creaking sound, the door was pushed open, and Carl Sartoris entered in his chair. With great difficulty the cripple proceeded to crawl into a big arm-chair, after which he took from his pocket a wig and a pair of spectacles. He seemed to be expecting somebody. He gave a little cough, and immediately somebody in the hall began to talk.

"Mr. Sartoris is in the conservatory room, miss," a voice said, and Field had no difficulty in recognising the voice of the doctor, Bentwood. "Will you come this way, please?"

Field congratulated himself upon the line that he had taken. From behind the bank of flowers he could see pretty well himself, without being discovered. A pretty girl, with wonderfully beautiful fair hair and dark vivacious eyes, came into the room. She was not in the least timid; there was an air of eager expectation about her.

"This is very good of you," she said. "I understand that you sent for me. If you are not in a proper state of health to talk to me I can call again, Mr. Sartoris."

Just for the moment Sartoris made no reply. It seemed to Field that he was not altogether free from physical pain. He shaded his spectacled eyes with a trembling hand, as if the light proved a little too strong for him.

"It is not in the least inconvenient," he said. "I sent for you at this somewhat late hour because I may have to leave England to-morrow. If I do so it will be for some considerable time."

In his mind, Field differed. He had other views for the speaker. He was puzzled, too, at all these quick changes, and because there were so many threads in the plot.

"I can give you an hour," the girl said. "I must be in London by ten o'clock."

"Very well, I dare say we can manage it by that time. As I told you in my letter, I am a very old friend of your father. We were in one or two ventures

together, and some of them turned out to be very successful indeed. Did he ever mention my name?"

"I cannot call it to mind," the girl said. "And yet it is not a common name."

"It is not in the least common," Sartoris smiled. "Perhaps your father did not speak of me because we were not quite friends towards the last. At one time I was to be your guardian if anything happened to your father. But we need not go into that, because it is not material to the case at all." The girl nodded brightly, and her eyes expressed admiration of the beauty of the surroundings.

"I believe my guardian was Sir Charles Darryll," she said.

"So I understand," Sartoris proceeded in the same grave way. "It was a most extraordinary selection for a man with a keen business head like your father."

"But you are greatly mistaken," the girl exclaimed. "My father was a perfect child in business matters. Even I was capable of advising him for his good. I should say that there never lived a man who was so easily befooled as my father."

"Is that so?" Sartoris blurted out. "I'm—I mean, of course, yes, as to mere money, but he was clever enough in some ways. Still, the fact remains that he made Sir Charles Darryll your guardian. Did you ever trouble him at all?"

"I never so much as saw him, at least in a business sense."

"Ah," Sartoris cried. There was a deep ring in his voice. "Is that really a fact? You don't know then that certain papers and documents belonging to your

father passed to Sir Charles? Your father told you nothing of this?"

"Not a word, except in a joking way. He spoke of securities and mortgages and the like that were to be my fortune when he died. He told me to ask Sir Charles about them."

"Did you take the trouble to do so?"

The girl thought a moment before she replied.

"Once," she said. "Once I did say something to Sir Charles. He told me that every paper in his possession had been deposited with his lawyers."

Once more Sartoris shaded his eyes with his hand. Field could see his fingers shaking. In a hard voice Sartoris asked if the girl meant the family solicitor.

"No, I don't," she said without the slightest hesitation. "As a matter of fact the family solicitor would have nothing to do with Sir Charles—he found him too expensive. It was some little man in one of the Inns, Gray's Inn or Clement's Inn, who kept his creditors at bay. But more than that I am afraid I cannot tell you."

Sartoris muttered something that might have been the strangling of an oath. Field began to understand. Papers, and probably valuable papers, belonging to Sir Charles were necessary; and the gang of thieves was at a loss what to do without them.

"I dare say I can find out," Sartoris said. "If I do, I fancy you will benefit considerably. More than that I dare not venture for the present, my dear young lady, because so frequently these things turn out very differently. If you could think of the name of that solicitor——"

"Perhaps I might," the girl said. "I have a good

memory, especially for trifles. If I do recollect the name I will write you here. Do you know you remind me of a man I knew in India. He was much younger than you, of course, and different in many ways. And yet every time I look at you and hear your voice I think of him."

"As a matter of fact I never was in India at all," Sartoris said hastily. There was a nasty ring in his voice that caused the girl to look up, whereon Sartoris laughed, seeing that he had made a mistake. "Excuse me, but this neuralgia of mine is very troublesome to-night. And I am afraid that I am detaining you."

The girl muttered something soothing and sympathetic; at the same time she rose and crossed to the bell. But Sartoris merely reached out a hand and asked her to help him into his chair. He sank back into the wheeled contrivance at length with a sigh that might have been pain.

"I'll go as far as the door with you," he said. "No, I can move myself along. And I hope that you will come here again; I'll let you know when it is quite convenient. Don't forget that I may be the indirect means of bringing you a fortune. I am a very old gentleman, my dear; won't you give me a kiss? Are you very much offended?"

The girl laughed and blushed as she bent down and touched Sartoris's cheek with her lips. A moment later they were gone, and Field had emerged from his hiding-place. He had discovered all that he required, for the present, and he decided not to take any further risks. The confused pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fit together in his mind, but they were by no means complete yet. Without further adventure the

inspector crept back to the pantry and found himself at length in the road. He looked at the upstairs window whence the flickering signals had come, but it was all dark and still now, though it was not as yet late.

"So far, so good," Field muttered to himself. "It strikes me that that young lady is likely to be of service to me. I'll find out who she is and whence she comes. And now to go off to the Comedy and see if I can get in touch with the little actress who must play her part in more dramas than one. I wonder if I had better see her at the theatre or follow her to her rooms. I'll be guided by circumstances."

It was not more than half-past ten when Field reached the theatre. It was a popular house for the moment, where the management was running a kind of triple bill, consisting of one-act musical comedies, each of which contained the particular star artist. Two of the shows were already over, and the curtain was about to rise on the third, when Field reached the stage door. The inquiry for Miss Adela Vane was met by a surly request to know what was wanted. If the inquirer thought that he was going into the theatre he was jolly well mistaken.

"So you just be off, or I'll call the police," the crusty doorkeeper said. "One way or another, I'm pestered out of my life by you chaps. Oh, you can leave a message or a bouquet or something of that kind, but it's long odds it's shoved into the dusthole."

Field smiled as he produced his card and handed it over. The effect of the little square of shining pasteboard was marked and instantaneous. The man behind the bar was at once cringing and ready to do anything.

"I'm sure I beg your pardon, sir," he said, "but

we are pestered out of our lives from morning till night. I dare say I can get you a few words with Miss Vane, who does not come on the stage till the third piece. And from the bottom of my heart, I hope that there is nothing wrong, for a nicer young lady than Miss Vane——"

"There is nothing wrong at all," Field hastened to say. "On the whole I've changed my mind. Don't say a word to Miss Vane about me, it may alarm her. Give me a programme; I'll just slip into the house and see Miss Vane from the stalls. Thank you."

Field made his way round to the front of the house, and presenting his card at the box office, desired to have a seat for half an hour or so.

CHAPTER XX

The immaculately dressed young man in the office turned Field's card over doubtfully. He had every desire to oblige, he said, but really the house was packed to its utmost capacity. Also the well-dressed young man hoped that there would be nothing to disturb the harmony of the proceedings.

"You may make your mind quite easy on that score," said Field with a reassuring smile. "There will be no disturbance as far as I am concerned. I want to identify somebody whom I believe is in the house, and when that is done my work is finished. Never mind about a seat—let me stand by the side of the stalls so that I can pass for an official."

There was no difficulty whatever about this, and therefore Field stepped into the house as the curtain was going up on the last of the brilliant trifles of the evening. The house was packed to its utmost capacity with an audience that seemed decidedly to appreciate the bill of fare that had been prepared for their delectation.