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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Evil Shepherd, by E. Phillips Oppenheim
+#13 in our series by E. Phillips Oppenheim
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+Title: The Evil Shepherd
+
+Author: E. Phillips Oppenheim
+
+Release Date: May, 2004 [EBook #5743]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on August 21, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EVIL SHEPHERD ***
+
+
+Produced by an anonymous volunteer.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE EVIL SHEPHERD BY E. PHILIPS OPPENHEIM
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Francis Ledsam, alert, well-satisfied with himself and the world,
+the echo of a little buzz of congratulations still in his ears,
+paused on the steps of the modern Temple of Justice to light a
+cigarette before calling for a taxi to take him to his club.
+Visions of a whisky and soda--his throat was a little parched
+--and a rubber of easy-going bridge at his favourite table, were
+already before his eyes.  A woman who had followed him from the
+Court touched him on the shoulder.
+
+"Can I speak to you for a moment, Mr. Ledsam?"
+
+The barrister frowned slightly as he swung around to confront his
+questioner.  It was such a familiar form of address.
+
+"What do you want?" he asked, a little curtly.
+
+"A few minutes' conversation with you," was the calm reply.  "The
+matter is important."
+
+The woman's tone and manner, notwithstanding her plain,
+inconspicuous clothes, commanded attention.  Francis Ledsam was a
+little puzzled.  Small things meant much to him in life, and he
+had been looking forward almost with the zest of a schoolboy to
+that hour of relaxation at his club.  He was impatient of even a
+brief delay, a sentiment which he tried to express in his
+response.
+
+"What do you want to speak to me about?" he repeated bluntly.  "I
+shall be in my rooms in the Temple to-morrow morning, any time
+after eleven."
+
+"It is necessary for me to speak to you now," she insisted.
+"There is a tea-shop across the way.  Please accompany me there."
+
+Ledsam, a little surprised at the coolness of her request,
+subjected his accoster to a closer scrutiny.  As he did so, his
+irritation diminished.  He shrugged his shoulders slightly.
+
+"If you really have business with me," he said, "I will give you
+a few minutes."
+
+They crossed the street together, the woman self-possessed,
+negative, wholly without the embarrassment of one performing an
+unusual action.  Her companion felt the awakening of curiosity.
+Zealously though she had, to all appearance, endeavoured to
+conceal the fact, she was without a doubt personable.  Her voice
+and manner lacked nothing of refinement.  Yet her attraction to
+Francis Ledsam, who, although a perfectly normal human being, was
+no seeker after promiscuous adventures, did not lie in these
+externals.  As a barrister whose success at the criminal bar had
+been phenomenal, he had attained to a certain knowledge of human
+nature.  He was able, at any rate, to realise that this woman was
+no imposter.  He knew that she had vital things to say.
+
+They passed into the tea-shop and found an empty corner.  Ledsam
+hung up his hat and gave an order.  The woman slowly began to
+remove her gloves.  When she pushed back her veil, her vis-a-vis
+received almost a shock.  She was quite as good-looking as he had
+imagined, but she was far younger--she was indeed little more
+than a girl.  Her eyes were of a deep shade of hazel brown, her
+eyebrows were delicately marked, her features and poise
+admirable.  Yet her skin was entirely colourless.  She was as
+pale as one whose eyes have been closed in death.  Her lips,
+although in no way highly coloured, were like streaks of scarlet
+blossom upon a marble image.  The contrast between her appearance
+and that of her companion was curiously marked.  Francis Ledsam
+conformed in no way to the accepted physical type of his
+profession.  He was over six feet in height, broad-shouldered and
+powerfully made.  His features were cast in a large mould, he was
+of fair, almost sandy complexion, even his mouth was more
+humourous than incisive.  His eyes alone, grey and exceedingly
+magnetic, suggested the gifts which without a doubt lay behind
+his massive forehead.
+
+"I am anxious to avoid any possible mistake," she began.  "Your
+name is Francis Ledsam?"
+
+"It is," he admitted.
+
+"You are the very successful criminal barrister," she continued,
+"who has just been paid an extravagant fee to defend Oliver
+Hilditch."
+
+"I might take exception to the term 'extravagant'," Ledsam
+observed drily.  "Otherwise, your information appears to be
+singularly correct.  I do not know whether you have heard the
+verdict.  If not, you may be interested to know that I succeeded
+in obtaining the man's acquittal."
+
+"I know that you did," the woman replied.  "I was in the Court
+when the verdict was brought in.  It has since occurred to me
+that I should like you to understand exactly what you have done,
+the responsibility you have incurred."
+
+Ledsam raised his eyebrows.
+
+"Responsibility?" he repeated.  "What I have done is simple
+enough.  I have earned a very large fee and won my case."
+
+"You have secured the acquittal of Oliver Hilditch," she
+persisted.  "He is by this time a free man.  Now I am going to
+speak to you of that responsibility.  I am going to tell you a
+little about the man who owes his freedom to your eloquence."
+
+It was exactly twenty minutes after their entrance into the
+teashop when the woman finished her monologue.  She began to draw
+on her gloves again.  Before them were two untasted cups of tea
+and an untouched plate of bread and butter.  From a corner of the
+room the waitress was watching them curiously.
+
+"Good God!" Francis Ledsam exclaimed at last, suddenly realising
+his whereabouts.  "Do you mean to affirm solemnly that what you
+have been telling me is the truth?"
+
+The woman continued to button her gloves.  "It is the truth," she
+said.
+
+Ledsam sat up and looked around him.  He was a little dazed.  He
+had almost the feeling of a man recovering from the influence of
+some anaesthetic.  Before his eyes were still passing visions of
+terrible deeds, of naked, ugly passion, of man's unscrupulous
+savagery.  During those few minutes he had been transported to
+New York and Paris, London and Rome.  Crimes had been spoken of
+which made the murder for which Oliver Hilditch had just been
+tried seem like a trifling indiscretion.  Hard though his
+mentality, sternly matter-of-fact as was his outlook, he was
+still unable to fully believe in himself, his surroundings, or in
+this woman who had just dropped a veil over her ashen cheeks.
+Reason persisted in asserting itself.
+
+"But if you knew all this," he demanded, "why on earth didn't you
+come forward and give evidence?"
+
+"Because," she answered calmly, as she rose to her feet, "my
+evidence would not have been admissible.  I am Oliver Hilditch's
+wife."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Francis Ledsam arrived at his club, the Sheridan, an hour later
+than he had anticipated.  He nodded to the veteran hall-porter,
+hung up his hat and stick, and climbed the great staircase to the
+card-room without any distinct recollection of performing any of
+these simple and reasonable actions.  In the cardroom he
+exchanged a few greetings with friends, accepted without comment
+or without the slightest tinge of gratification a little chorus
+of chafing congratulations upon his latest triumph, and left the
+room without any inclination to play, although there was a vacant
+place at his favourite table.  From sheer purposelessness he
+wandered back again into the hall, and here came his first gleam
+of returning sensation.  He came face to face with his most
+intimate friend, Andrew Wilmore.  The latter, who had just hung
+up his coat and hat, greeted him with a growl of welcome.
+
+"So you've brought it off again, Francis!"
+
+"Touch and go," the barrister remarked.  "I managed to squeak
+home."
+
+Wilmore laid his hand upon his friend's shoulder and led the way
+towards two easy-chairs in the lounge.
+
+"I tell you what it is, old chap," he confided, "you'll be making
+yourself unpopular before long.  Another criminal at large,
+thanks to that glib tongue and subtle brain of yours.  The crooks
+of London will present you with a testimonial when you're made a
+judge."
+
+"So you think that Oliver Hilditch was guilty, then?" Francis
+asked curiously.
+
+"My dear fellow, how do I know or care?" was the indifferent
+reply.  "I shouldn't have thought that there had been any doubt
+about it.  You probably know, anyway."
+
+"That's just what I didn't when I got up to make my speech,"
+Francis assured his friend emphatically.  "The fellow was given
+an opportunity of making a clean breast of it, of course--Wensley,
+his lawyer, advised him to, in fact--but the story he told me
+was precisely the story he told at the inquest."
+
+They were established now in their easy-chairs, and Wilmore
+summoned a waiter.
+
+"Two large whiskies and sodas," he ordered.  "Francis," he went
+on, studying his companion intently, "what's the matter with you?
+You don't look as though your few days in the country last week
+had done you any good."
+
+Francis glanced around as though to be sure that they were alone.
+
+"I was all right when I came up, Andrew," he muttered.  "This
+case has upset me."
+
+"Upset you?  But why the dickens should it?" the other demanded,
+in a puzzled tone.  "It was quite an ordinary case, in its way,
+and you won it."
+
+"I won it," Francis admitted.
+
+"Your defence was the most ingenious thing I ever heard."
+
+"Mostly suggested, now I come to think of it," the barrister
+remarked grimly, "by the prisoner himself."
+
+"But why are you upset about it, anyway?" Wilmore persisted.
+
+Francis rose to his feet, shook himself, and with his elbow
+resting upon the mantelpiece leaned down towards his friend.  He
+could not rid himself altogether of this sense of unreality.  He
+had the feeling that he had passed through one of the great
+crises of his life.
+
+"I'll tell you, Andrew.  You're about the only man in the world I
+could tell.  I've gone crazy."
+
+"I thought you looked as though you'd been seeing spooks,"
+Wilmore murmured sympathetically.
+
+"I have seen a spook," Francis rejoined, with almost passionate
+seriousness, "a spook who lifted an invisible curtain with
+invisible fingers, and pointed to such a drama of horrors as De
+Quincey, Poe and Sue combined could never have imagined.  Oliver
+Hilditch was guilty, Andrew.  He murdered the man Jordan--murdered
+him in cold blood."
+
+"I'm not surprised to hear that," was the somewhat puzzled reply.
+
+"He was guilty, Andrew, not only of the murder of this man, his
+partner, but of innumerable other crimes and brutalities,"
+Francis went on.  "He is a fiend in human form, if ever there was
+one, and I have set him loose once more to prey upon Society.  I
+am morally responsible for his next robbery, his next murder, the
+continued purgatory of those forced to associate with him."
+
+"You're dotty, Francis," his friend declared shortly.
+
+"I told you I was crazy," was the desperate reply.  "So would you
+be if you'd sat opposite that woman for half-an-hour, and heard
+her story."
+
+"What woman?" Wilmore demanded, leaning forward in his chair and
+gazing at his friend with increasing uneasiness.
+
+"A woman who met me outside the Court and told me the story of
+Oliver Hilditch's life."
+
+"A stranger?"
+
+"A complete stranger to me.  It transpired that she was his
+wife."
+
+Wilmore lit a cigarette.
+
+"Believe her?"
+
+"There are times when one doesn't believe or disbelieve," Francis
+answered.  "One knows."
+
+Wilmore nodded.
+
+"All the same, you're crazy," he declared.  "Even if you did save
+the fellow from the gallows, you were only doing your job, doing
+your duty to the best of poor ability.  You had no reason to
+believe him guilty."
+
+"That's just as it happened," Francis pointed out.  "I really
+didn't care at the time whether he was or not.  I had to proceed
+on the assumption that he was not, of course, but on the other
+hand I should have fought just as hard for him if I had known him
+to be guilty."
+
+"And you wouldn't now--to-morrow, say?"
+
+"Never again."
+
+"Because of that woman's story?"
+
+"Because of the woman."
+
+There was a short silence.  Then Wilmore asked a very obvious
+question.
+
+"What sort of a person was she?"
+
+Francis Ledsam was several moments before he replied.  The
+question was one which he had been expecting, one which he had
+already asked himself many times, yet he was unprepared with any
+definite reply.
+
+"I wish I could answer you, Andrew," his friend confessed.  "As a
+matter of fact, I can't.  I can only speak of the impression she
+left upon me, and you are about the only person breathing to whom
+I could speak of that."
+
+Wilmore nodded sympathetically.  He knew that, man of the world
+though Francis Ledsam appeared, he was nevertheless a highly
+imaginative person, something of an idealist as regards women,
+unwilling as a rule to discuss them, keeping them, in a general
+way, outside his daily life.
+
+"Go ahead, old fellow," he invited.  "You know I understand."
+
+"She left the impression upon me," Francis continued quietly, "of
+a woman who had ceased to live.  She was young, she was beautiful,
+she had all the gifts--culture, poise and breeding--but she had
+ceased to live.  We sat with a marble table between us, and a
+few feet of oil-covered floor.  Those few feet, Andrew, were like
+an impassable gulf.  She spoke from the shores of another world.
+I listened and answered, spoke and listened again.  And when she
+told her story, she went.  I can't shake off the effect she had
+upon me, Andrew.  I feel as though I had taken a step to the
+right or to the left over the edge of the world."
+
+Andrew Wilmore studied his friend thoughtfully.
+
+He was full of sympathy and understanding.  His one desire at
+that moment was not to make a mistake.  He decided to leave
+unasked the obvious question.
+
+"I know," he said simply.  "Are you dining anywhere?"
+
+"I thought of staying on here," was the indifferent reply.
+
+"We won't do anything of the sort," Wilmore insisted.  "There's
+scarcely a soul in to-night, and the place is too humpy for a man
+who's been seeing spooks.  Get back to your rooms and change.
+I'll wait here."
+
+"What about you?"
+
+"I have some clothes in my locker.  Don't be long.  And, by-the-bye,
+which shall it be--Bohemia or Mayfair?  I'll telephone for a table.
+London's so infernally full, these days."
+
+Francis hesitated.
+
+"I really don't care," he confessed.  "Now I think of it, I shall
+be glad to get away from here, though.  I don't want any more
+congratulations on saving Oliver Hilditch's life.  Let's go where
+we are least likely to meet any one we know."
+
+"Respectability and a starched shirt-front, then," Wilmore
+decided.  "We'll go to Claridge's."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+The two men occupied a table set against the wall, not far from
+the entrance to the restaurant, and throughout the progress of
+the earlier part of their meal were able to watch the constant
+incoming stream of their fellow-guests.  They were, in their way,
+an interesting contrast physically, neither of them good-looking
+according to ordinary standards, but both with many pleasant
+characteristics.  Andrew Wilmore, slight and dark, with sallow
+cheeks and brown eyes, looked very much what he was--a moderately
+successful journalist and writer of stories, a keen golfer, a
+bachelor who preferred a pipe to cigars, and lived at Richmond
+because he could not find a flat in London which he could afford,
+large enough for his somewhat expansive habits.  Francis Ledsam
+was of a sturdier type, with features perhaps better known to the
+world owing to the constant activities of the cartoonist.  His
+reputation during the last few years had carried him,
+notwithstanding his comparative youth--he was only thirty-five
+years of age--into the very front ranks of his profession, and
+his income was one of which men spoke with bated breath.  He came
+of a family of landed proprietors, whose younger sons for
+generations had drifted always either to the Bar or the Law, and
+his name was well known in the purlieus of Lincoln's Inn before
+he himself had made it famous.  He was a persistent refuser of
+invitations, and his acquaintances in the fashionable world were
+comparatively few.  Yet every now and then he felt a mild
+interest in the people whom his companion assiduously pointed out
+to him.
+
+"A fashionable restaurant, Francis, is rather like your Law
+Courts--it levels people up," the latter remarked.  "Louis, the
+head-waiter, is the judge, and the position allotted in the room
+is the sentence.  I wonder who is going to have the little table
+next but one to us.  Some favoured person, evidently."
+
+Francis glanced in the direction indicated without curiosity.
+The table in question was laid for two and was distinguished by a
+wonderful cluster of red roses.
+
+"Why is it," the novelist continued speculatively, "that,
+whenever we take another man's wife out, we think it necessary to
+order red roses?"
+
+"And why is it," Francis queried, a little grimly, "that a dear
+fellow like you, Andrew, believes it his duty to talk of trifles
+for his pal's sake, when all the time he is thinking of something
+else?  I know you're dying to talk about the Hilditch case,
+aren't you?  Well, go ahead."
+
+"I'm only interested in this last development," Wilmore
+confessed.  "Of course, I read the newspaper reports.  To tell
+you the truth, for a murder trial it seemed to me to rather lack
+colour."
+
+"It was a very simple and straightforward case," Francis said
+slowly.  "Oliver Hilditch is the principal partner in an American
+financial company which has recently opened offices in the West
+End.  He seems to have arrived in England about two years ago, to
+have taken a house in Hill Street, and to have spent a great deal
+of money.  A month or so ago, his partner from New York arrived
+in London, a man named Jordan of whom nothing was known.  It has
+since transpired, however, that his journey to Europe was
+undertaken because he was unable to obtain certain figures
+relating to the business, from Hilditch.  Oliver Hilditch met him
+at Southampton, travelled with him to London and found him a room
+at the Savoy.  The next day, the whole of the time seems to have
+been spent in the office, and it is certain, from the evidence of
+the clerk, that some disagreement took place between the two men.
+They dined together, however, apparently on good terms, at the
+Cafe Royal, and parted in Regent Street soon after ten.  At
+twelve o'clock, Jordan's body was picked up on the pavement in
+Hill Street, within a few paces of Heidrich's door.  He had been
+stabbed through the heart with some needle-like weapon, and was
+quite dead."
+
+"Was there any vital cause of quarrel between them?" Wilmore
+enquired.
+
+"Impossible to say," Francis replied.  "The financial position of
+the company depends entirely upon the value of a large quantity
+of speculative bonds, but as there was only one clerk employed,
+it was impossible to get at any figures.  Hilditch declared that
+Jordan had only a small share in the business, from which he had
+drawn a considerable income for years, and that he had not the
+slightest cause for complaint."
+
+"What were Hilditch's movements that evening?" Wilmore asked.
+
+"Not a soul seems to have seen him after he left Regent Street,"
+was the somewhat puzzled answer.  "His own story was quite
+straightforward and has never been contradicted.  He let himself
+into his house with a latch-key after his return from the Cafe
+Royal, drank a whisky and soda in the library, and went to bed
+before half-past eleven.  The whole affair--"
+
+Francis broke off abruptly in the middle of his sentence.  He sat
+with his eyes fixed upon the door, silent and speechless.
+
+"What in Heaven's name is the matter, old fellow?" Wilmore
+demanded, gazing at his companion in blank amazement.
+
+The latter pulled himself together with an effort.  The sight of
+the two new arrivals talking to Louis on the threshold of the
+restaurant, seemed for the moment to have drawn every scrap of
+colour from his cheeks.  Nevertheless, his recovery was almost
+instantaneous.
+
+"If you want to know any more," he said calmly,  "you had better
+go and ask him to tell you the whole story himself.  There he
+is."
+
+"And the woman with him?" Wilmore exclaimed under his breath.
+
+"His wife!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+To reach their table, the one concerning which Francis and his
+friend had been speculating, the new arrivals, piloted by Louis,
+had to pass within a few feet of the two men.  The woman, serene,
+coldly beautiful, dressed like a Frenchwoman in unrelieved black,
+with extraordinary attention to details, passed them by with a
+careless glance and subsided into the chair which Louis was
+holding.  Her companion, however, as he recognised Francis
+hesitated.  His expression of somewhat austere gloom was
+lightened.  A pleasant but tentative smile parted his lips.  He
+ventured upon a salutation, half a nod, half a more formal bow, a
+salutation which Francis instinctively returned.  Andrew Wilmore
+looked on with curiosity.
+
+"So that is Oliver Hilditch," he murmured.
+
+"That is the man," Francis observed, "of whom last evening half
+the people in this restaurant were probably asking themselves
+whether or not he was guilty of murder.  To-night they will be
+wondering what he is going to order for dinner.  It is a strange
+world."
+
+"Strange indeed," Wilmore assented.  "This afternoon he was in
+the dock, with his fate in the balance--the condemned cell or a
+favoured table at Claridge's.  And your meeting! One can imagine
+him gripping your hands, with tears in his eyes, his voice broken
+with emotion, sobbing out his thanks. And instead you exchange
+polite bows.  I would not have missed this situation for anything."
+
+"Tradesman!" Francis scoffed.  "One can guess already at the plot
+of your next novel."
+
+"He has courage," Wilmore declared.  "He has also a very
+beautiful companion.  Were you serious, Francis, when you told me
+that that was his wife?"
+
+"She herself was my informant," was the quiet reply.
+
+Wilmore was puzzled.
+
+"But she passed you just now without even a glance of
+recognition, and I thought you told me at the club this afternoon
+that all your knowledge of his evil ways came from her.  Besides,
+she looks at least twenty years younger than he does."
+
+Francis, who had been watching his glass filled with champagne,
+raised it to his lips and drank its contents steadily to the last
+drop.
+
+"I can only tell you what I know, Andrew," he said, as he set
+down the empty glass.  "The woman who is with him now is the
+woman who spoke to me outside the Old Bailey this afternoon.  We
+went to a tea-shop together.  She told me the story of his
+career.  I have never listened to so horrible a recital in my
+life."
+
+"And yet they are here together, dining tete-a-tete, on a night
+when it must have needed more than ordinary courage for either of
+them to have been seen in public at all," Wilmore pointed out.
+
+"It is as astounding to me as it is to you," Francis confessed.
+"From the way she spoke, I should never have dreamed that they
+were living together."
+
+"And from his appearance," Wilmore remarked, as he called the
+waiter to bring some cigarettes, "I should never have imagined
+that he was anything else save a high-principled, well-born,
+straightforward sort of chap.  I never saw a less criminal type
+of face."
+
+They each in turn glanced at the subject of their discussion.
+Oliver Hilditch's good-looks had been the subject of many press
+comments during the last few days.  They were certainly
+undeniable.  His face was a little lined but his hair was thick
+and brown.  His features were regular, his forehead high and
+thoughtful, his mouth a trifle thin but straight and shapely.
+Francis gazed at him like a man entranced.  The hours seemed to
+have slipped away.  He was back in the tea-shop, listening to the
+woman who spoke of terrible things.  He felt again his shivering
+abhorrence of her cold, clearly narrated story.  Again he shrank
+from the horrors from which with merciless fingers she had
+stripped the coverings.  He seemed to see once more the agony in
+her white face, to hear the eternal pain aching and throbbing in
+her monotonous tone.  He rose suddenly to his feet.
+
+"Andrew," he begged, "tell the fellow to bring the bill outside.
+We'll have our coffee and liqueurs there."
+
+Wilmore acquiesced willingly enough, but even as they turned
+towards the door Francis realised what was in store for him.
+Oliver Hilditch had risen to his feet.  With a courteous little
+gesture he intercepted the passer-by.  Francis found himself
+standing side by side with the man for whose life he had pleaded
+that afternoon, within a few feet of the woman whose terrible
+story seemed to have poisoned the very atmosphere he breathed,
+to have shown him a new horror in life, to have temporarily,
+at any rate, undermined every joy and ambition he possessed.
+
+"Mr. Ledsam," Hilditch said, speaking with quiet dignity, "I hope
+that you will forgive the liberty I take in speaking to you here.
+I looked for you the moment I was free this afternoon, but found
+that you had left the Court.  I owe you my good name, probably my
+life.  Thanks are poor things but they must be spoken."
+
+"You owe me nothing at all," Francis replied, in a tone which
+even he found harsh.  "I had a brief before me and a cause to
+plead.  It was a chapter out of my daily work."
+
+"That work can be well done or ill," the other reminded him
+gently.  "In your case, my presence here proves how well it was
+done.  I wish to present you to my wife, who shares my
+gratitude."
+
+Francis bowed to the woman, who now, at her husband's words,
+raised her eyes.  For the first time he saw her smile.  It seemed
+to him that the effort made her less beautiful.
+
+"Your pleading was very wonderful, Mr. Ledsam," she said, a very
+subtle note of mockery faintly apparent in her tone.  "We poor
+mortals find it difficult to understand that with you all that
+show of passionate earnestness is merely--what did you call it?
+--a chapter in your day's work?  It is a great gift to be able
+to argue from the brain and plead as though from the heart."
+
+"We will not detain Mr. Ledsam," Oliver Hilditch interposed, a
+little hastily.  "He perhaps does not care to be addressed in
+public by a client who still carries with him the atmosphere of
+the prison.  My wife and I wondered, Mr. Ledsam, whether you
+would be good enough to dine with us one night.  I think I could
+interest you by telling you more about my case than you know at
+present, and it would give us a further opportunity, and a more
+seemly one, for expressing our gratitude."
+
+Francis had recovered himself by this time.  He was after all a
+man of parts, and though he still had the feeling that he had
+been through one of the most momentous days of his life, his
+savoir faire was making its inevitable reappearance.  He knew
+very well that the idea of that dinner would be horrible to him.
+He also knew that he would willingly cancel every engagement he
+had rather than miss it.
+
+"You are very kind," he murmured.
+
+"Are we fortunate enough to find you disengaged," Hilditch
+suggested, "to-morrow evening?"
+
+"I am quite free," was the ready response.
+
+"That suits you, Margaret?" Hilditch asked, turning courteously
+to his wife.
+
+For a single moment her eyes were fixed upon those of her
+prospective guest.  He read their message which pleaded for his
+refusal, and he denied it.
+
+"To-morrow evening will suit me as well as any other," she
+acquiesced, after a brief pause.
+
+"At eight o'clock, then--number 10 b, Hill Street," Hilditch
+concluded.
+
+Francis bowed and turned away with a murmured word of polite
+assent.  Outside, he found Wilmore deep in the discussion of the
+merits of various old brandies with an interested maitre d'hotel.
+
+"Any choice, Francis?" his host enquired.
+
+"None whatever," was the prompt reply, "only, for God's sake,
+give me a double one quickly!"
+
+The two men were on the point of departure when Oliver Hilditch
+and his wife left the restaurant.  As though conscious that they
+had become the subject of discussion, as indeed was the case,
+thanks to the busy whispering of the various waiters, they passed
+without lingering through the lounge into the entrance hall,
+where Francis and Andrew Wilmore were already waiting for a
+taxicab.  Almost as they appeared, a new arrival was ushered
+through the main entrance, followed by porters carrying luggage.
+He brushed past Francis so closely that the latter looked into
+his face, half attracted and half repelled by the waxen-like
+complexion, the piercing eyes, and the dignified carriage of the
+man whose arrival seemed to be creating some stir in the hotel.
+A reception clerk and a deputy manager had already hastened
+forward.  The newcomer waved them back for a moment.  Bareheaded,
+he had taken Margaret Hilditch's hands in his and raised them to
+his lips.
+
+"I came as quickly as I could," he said.  "There was the usual
+delay, of course, at Marseilles, and the trains on were terrible.
+So all has ended well."
+
+Oliver Hilditch, standing by, remained speechless.  It seemed for
+a moment as though his self-control were subjected to a severe
+strain.
+
+"I had the good fortune," he interposed, in a low tone, "to be
+wonderfully defended.  Mr. Ledsam here--"
+
+He glanced around.  Francis, with some idea of what was coming,
+obeyed an imaginary summons from the head-porter, touched Andrew
+Wilmore upon the shoulder, and hastened without a backward glance
+through the swing-doors.  Wilmore turned up his coat-collar and
+looked doubtfully up at the rain.
+
+"I say, old chap," he protested, "you don't really mean to walk?"
+
+Francis thrust his hand through his friend's arm and wheeled him
+round into Davies Street.
+
+"I don't care what the mischief we do, Andrew," he confided, "but
+couldn't you see what was going to happen?  Oliver Hilditch was
+going to introduce me as his preserver to the man who had just
+arrived!"
+
+"Are you afflicted with modesty, all of a sudden?" Wilmore
+grumbled.
+
+"No, remorse," was the terse reply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Indecision had never been one of Francis Ledsam's faults, but
+four times during the following day he wrote out a carefully
+worded telegraphic message to Mrs. Oliver Hilditch, 10 b, Hill
+Street, regretting his inability to dine that night, and each
+time he destroyed it.  He carried the first message around
+Richmond golf course with him, intending to dispatch his caddy
+with it immediately on the conclusion of the round.  The fresh
+air, however, and the concentration required by the game, seemed
+to dispel the nervous apprehensions with which he had anticipated
+his visit, and over an aperitif in the club bar he tore the
+telegram into small pieces and found himself even able to derive
+a certain half-fearful pleasure from the thought of meeting again
+the woman who, together with her terrible story, had never for
+one moment been out of his thoughts.  Andrew Wilmore, who had
+observed his action, spoke of it as they settled down to lunch.
+
+"So you are going to keep your engagement tonight, Francis?" he
+observed.
+
+The latter nodded.
+
+"After all, why not?" he asked, a little defiantly.  "It ought to
+be interesting."
+
+"Well, there's nothing of the sordid criminal, at any rate, about
+Oliver Hilditch," Wilmore declared.  "Neither, if one comes to
+think of it, does his wife appear to be the prototype of
+suffering virtue.  I wonder if you are wise to go, Francis?"
+
+"Why not?" the man who had asked himself that question a dozen
+times already, demanded.
+
+"Because," Wilmore replied coolly, "underneath that steely
+hardness of manner for which your profession is responsible, you
+have a vein of sentiment, of chivalrous sentiment, I should say,
+which some day or other is bound to get you into trouble.  The
+woman is beautiful enough to turn any one's head.  As a matter of
+fact, I believe that you are more than half in love with her
+already."
+
+Francis Ledsam sat where the sunlight fell upon his strong,
+forceful face, shone, too, upon the table with its simple but
+pleasant appointments, upon the tankard of beer by his side, upon
+the plate of roast beef to which he was already doing ample
+justice.  He laughed with the easy confidence of a man awakened
+from some haunting nightmare, relieved to find his feet once more
+firm upon the ground.
+
+"I have been a fool to take the whole matter so seriously,
+Andrew," he declared.  "I expect to walk back to Clarges Street
+to-night, disillusioned.  The man will probably present me with a
+gold pencil-case, and the woman--"
+
+"Well, what about the woman?" Wilmore asked, after a brief pause.
+
+"Oh, I don't know!" Francis declared, a little impatiently.  "The
+woman is the mystery, of course.  Probably my brain was a little
+over-excited when I came out of Court, and what I imagined to be
+an epic was nothing more than a tissue of exaggerations from a
+disappointed wife.  I'm sure I'm doing the right thing to go
+there ....  What about a four-ball this afternoon, Andrew?"
+
+The four-ball match was played and won in normal fashion.  The
+two men returned to town together afterwards, Wilmore to the club
+and Francis to his rooms in Clarges Street to prepare for dinner.
+At a few minutes to eight he rang the bell of number 10 b, Hill
+Street, and found his host and hostess awaiting him in the small
+drawing-room into which he was ushered.  It seemed to him that
+the woman, still colourless, again marvellously gowned, greeted
+him coldly.  His host, however, was almost too effusive.  There
+was no other guest, but the prompt announcement of dinner
+dispelled what might have been a few moments of embarrassment
+after Oliver Hilditch's almost too cordial greeting.  The woman
+laid her fingers upon her guest's coat-sleeve.  The trio crossed
+the little hall almost in silence.
+
+Dinner was served in a small white Georgian dining-room, with
+every appurtenance of almost Sybaritic luxury.  The only light in
+the room was thrown upon the table by two purple-shaded electric
+lamps, and the servants who waited seemed to pass backwards and
+forwards like shadows in some mysterious twilight--even the faces
+of the three diners themselves were out of the little pool of
+light until they leaned forward.  The dinner was chosen with
+taste and restraint, the wines were not only costly but rare.  A
+watchful butler, attended now and then by a trim parlour-maid,
+superintended the service.  Only once, when she ordered a bowl of
+flowers removed from the table, did their mistress address either
+of them.  Conversation after the first few amenities speedily
+became almost a monologue.  One man talked whilst the others
+listened, and the man who talked was Oliver Hilditch.  He
+possessed the rare gift of imparting colour and actuality in a
+few phrases to the strange places of which he spoke, of bringing
+the very thrill of strange happenings into the shadowy room.  It
+seemed that there was scarcely a country of the world which he
+had not visited, a country, that is to say, where men congregate,
+for he admitted from the first that he was a city worshipper,
+that the empty places possessed no charm for him.
+
+"I am not even a sportsman," he confessed once, half
+apologetically, in reply to a question from his guest.  "I have
+passed down the great rivers of the world without a thought of
+salmon, and I have driven through the forest lands and across the
+mountains behind a giant locomotive, without a thought of the
+beasts which might be lurking there, waiting to be killed.  My
+only desire has been to reach the next place where men and women
+were."
+
+"Irrespective of nationality?" Francis queried.
+
+"Absolutely.  I have never minded much of what race--I have the
+trick of tongues rather strangely developed--but I like the
+feeling of human beings around me.  I like the smell and sound
+and atmosphere of a great city.  Then all my senses are awake,
+but life becomes almost turgid in my veins during the dreary
+hours of passing from one place to another."
+
+"Do you rule out scenery as well as sport from amongst the joys
+of travel?" Francis enquired.
+
+"I am ashamed to make such a confession," his host answered, "but
+I have never lingered for a single unnecessary moment to look at
+the most wonderful landscape in the world.  On the other hand, I
+have lounged for hours in the narrowest streets of Pekin, in the
+markets of Shanghai, along Broadway in New York, on the
+boulevards in Paris, outside the Auditorium in Chicago.  These
+are the obvious places where humanity presses the thickest, but I
+know of others.  Some day we will talk of them."
+
+Francis, too, although that evening, through sheer lack of
+sympathy, he refused to admit it, shared to some extent
+Hilditch's passionate interest in his fellow-creatures, and
+notwithstanding the strange confusion of thought into which he
+had been thrown during the last twenty-four hours, he felt
+something of the pungency of life, the thrill of new and
+appealing surroundings, as he sat in his high-backed chair,
+sipping his wonderful wine, eating almost mechanically what was
+set before him, fascinated through all his being by his strange
+company.
+
+For three days he had cast occasional glances at this man, seated
+in the criminal dock with a gaoler on either side of him, his
+fine, nervous features gaining an added distinction from the
+sordidness of his surroundings.  Now, in the garb of
+civilisation, seated amidst luxury to which he was obviously
+accustomed, with a becoming light upon his face and this strange,
+fascinating flow of words proceeding always from his lips, the
+man, from every external point of view, seemed amongst the chosen
+ones of the world.  The contrast was in itself amazing.  And then
+the woman!  Francis looked at her but seldom, and when he did it
+was with a curious sense of mental disturbance; poignant but
+unanalysable.
+
+It was amazing to see her here, opposite the man of whom she had
+told him that ghastly story, mistress of his house, to all
+appearance his consort, apparently engrossed in his polished
+conversation, yet with that subtle withholding of her real self
+which Francis rather imagined than felt, and which somehow seemed
+to imply her fierce resentment of her husband's re-entry into the
+arena of life.  It was a situation so strange that Francis,
+becoming more and more subject to its influence, was inclined to
+wonder whether he had not met with some accident on his way from
+the Court, and whether this was not one of the heated nightmares
+following unconsciousness.
+
+"Tell me," he asked his host, during one of the brief pauses in
+the conversation, "have you ever tried to analyse this interest
+of yours in human beings and crowded cities, this hatred of
+solitude and empty spaces?"
+
+Oliver Hilditch smiled thoughtfully, and gazed at a salted almond
+which he was just balancing between the tips of his fingers.
+
+"I think," he said simply, "it is because I have no soul."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The three diners lingered for only a short time over their
+dessert.  Afterwards, they passed together into a very delightful
+library on the other side of the round, stone-paved hall.
+Hilditch excused himself for a moment.
+
+"I have some cigars which I keep in my dressing-room," he
+explained, "and which I am anxious for you to try.  There is an
+electric stove there and I can regulate the temperature."
+
+He departed, closing the door behind him.  Francis came a little
+further into the room.  His hostess, who had subsided into an
+easy-chair and was holding a screen between her face and the
+fire, motioned him to, seat himself opposite.  He did so without
+words.  He felt curiously and ridiculously tongue-tied.  He fell
+to studying the woman instead of attempting the banality of
+pointless speech.  From the smooth gloss of her burnished hair,
+to the daintiness of her low, black brocaded shoes, she
+represented, so far as her physical and outward self were
+concerned, absolute perfection.  No ornament was amiss, no line
+or curve of her figure other than perfectly graceful.  Yet even
+the fire's glow which she had seemed to dread brought no flush of
+colour to her cheeks.  Her appearance of complete lifelessness
+remained.  It was as though some sort of crust had formed about
+her being, a condition which her very physical perfection seemed
+to render the more incomprehensible.
+
+"You are surprised to see me here living with my husband, after
+what I told you yesterday afternoon?" she said calmly, breaking
+at last the silence which had reigned between them.
+
+"I am," he admitted.
+
+"It seems unnatural to you, I suppose?"
+
+"Entirely."
+
+"You still believe all that I told you?"
+
+"I must."
+
+She looked at the door and raised her head a little, as though
+either listening or adjudging the time before her husband would
+return.  Then she glanced across at him once more.
+
+"Hatred," she said, "does not always drive away.  Sometimes it
+attracts.  Sometimes the person who hates can scarcely bear the
+other out of his sight.  That is where hate and love are somewhat
+alike."
+
+The room was warm but Francis was conscious of shivering.  She
+raised her finger warningly.  It seemed typical of the woman,
+somehow, that the message could not be conveyed by any glance or
+gesture.
+
+"He is coming," she whispered.
+
+Oliver Hilditch reappeared, carrying cigars wrapped in gold foil
+which he had brought with him from Cuba, the tobacco of which was
+a revelation to his guest.  The two men smoked and sipped their
+coffee and brandy.  The woman sat with half-closed eyes.  It was
+obvious that Hilditch was still in the mood for speech.
+
+"I will tell you, Mr. Ledsam," he said, "why I am so happy to
+have you here this evening.  In the first place, I desire to
+tender you once more my thanks for your very brilliant efforts on
+my behalf.  The very fact that I am able to offer you hospitality
+at all is without a doubt due to these."
+
+"I only did what I was paid to do," Francis insisted, a little
+harshly.  "You must remember that these things come in the day's
+work with us."
+
+His host nodded.
+
+"Naturally," he murmured.  "There was another reason, too, why I
+was anxious to meet you, Mr. Ledsam," he continued.  "You have
+gathered already that I am something of a crank.  I have a
+profound detestation of all sentimentality and affected morals.
+It is a relief to me to come into contact with a man who is free
+from that bourgeois incubus to modern enterprise--a conscience."
+
+"Is that your estimate of me?" Francis asked.
+
+"Why not?  You practise your profession in the criminal courts,
+do you not?"
+
+"That is well-known," was the brief reply.
+
+"What measure of conscience can a man have," Oliver Hilditch
+argued blandly, "who pleads for the innocent and guilty alike
+with the same simulated fervour?  Confess, now, Mr. Ledsam--there
+is no object in being hypocritical in this matter--have you not
+often pleaded for the guilty as though you believed them
+innocent?"
+
+"That has sometimes been my duty," Francis acknowledged.
+
+Hilditch laughed scornfully.
+
+"It is all part of the great hypocrisy of society," he proclaimed.
+"You have an extra glass of champagne for dinner at night and are
+congratulated by your friends because you have helped some poor
+devil to cheat the law, while all the time you know perfectly
+well, and so do your high-minded friends, that your whole
+attitude during those two hours of eloquence has been a lie.
+That is what first attracted me to you, Mr. Ledsam."
+
+"I am sorry to hear it," Francis commented coldly.  "The ethics
+of my profession--"
+
+His host stopped him with a little wave of the hand.
+
+"Spare me that," he begged.  "While we are on the subject,
+though, I have a question to ask you.  My lawyer told me,
+directly after he had briefed you, that, although it would make
+no real difference to your pleading, it would be just as well for
+me to keep up my bluff of being innocent, even in private
+conversation with you.  Why was that?"
+
+"For the very obvious reason," Francis told him, "that we are not
+all such rogues and vagabonds as you seem to think.  There is
+more satisfaction to me, at any rate, in saving an innocent man's
+life than a guilty one's."
+
+Hilditch laughed as though amused.
+
+"Come," he threatened, "I am going to be ill-natured.  You have
+shown signs of smugness, a quality which I detest.  I am going to
+rob you of some part of your self-satisfaction.  Of course I
+killed Jordan.  I killed him in the very chair in which you are
+now sitting."
+
+There was a moment's intense silence.  The woman was still
+fanning herself lazily.  Francis leaned forward in his place.
+
+"I do not wish to hear this!" he exclaimed harshly.
+
+"Don't be foolish," his host replied, rising to his feet and
+strolling across the room.  "You know the whole trouble of the
+prosecution.  They couldn't discover the weapon, or anything like
+it, with which the deed was done.  Now I'll show you something
+ingenious."
+
+Francis followed the other's movements with fascinated eyes.  The
+woman scarcely turned her head.  Hilditch paused at the further
+end of the room, where there were a couple of gun cases, some
+fishing rods and a bag, of golf clubs.  From the latter he
+extracted a very ordinary-looking putter, and with it in his
+hands strolled back to them.
+
+"Do you play golf, Ledsam?" he asked.  "What do you think of
+that?"
+
+Francis took the putter into his hand.  It was a very ordinary
+club, which had apparently seen a good deal of service, so much,
+indeed, that the leather wrapping at the top was commencing to
+unroll.  The maker's name was on the back of the blade, also the
+name of the professional from whom it had been purchased.
+Francis swung the implement mechanically with his wrists.
+
+"There seems to be nothing extraordinary about the club," he
+pronounced.  "It is very much like a cleek I putt with myself."
+
+"Yet it contains a secret which would most certainly have hanged
+me," Oliver Hilditch declared pleasantly.  "See!"
+
+He held the shaft firmly in one hand and bent the blade away from
+it.  In a moment or two it yielded and he commenced to unscrew
+it.  A little exclamation escaped from Francis' lips.  The woman
+looked on with tired eyes.
+
+"The join in the steel," Hilditch pointed out, "is so fine as to
+be undistinguishable by the naked eye.  Yet when the blade comes
+off, like this, you see that although the weight is absolutely
+adjusted, the inside is hollow.  The dagger itself is encased in
+this cotton wool to avoid any rattling.  I put it away in rather
+a hurry the last time I used it, and as you see I forgot to clean
+it."
+
+Francis staggered back and gripped at the mantelpiece.  His eyes
+were filled with horror.  Very slowly, and with the air of one
+engaged upon some interesting task, Oliver Hilditch had removed
+the blood-stained sheath of cotton wool from around the thin
+blade of a marvellous-looking stiletto, on which was also a long
+stain of encrusted blood.
+
+"There is a handle," he went on, "which is perhaps the most
+ingenious thing of all.  You touch a spring here, and behold!"
+
+He pressed down two tiny supports which opened upon hinges about
+four inches from the top of the handle.  There was now a complete
+hilt.
+
+"With this little weapon," he explained, "the point is so
+sharpened and the steel so wonderful that it is not necessary to
+stab.  It has the perfection of a surgical instrument.  You have
+only to lean it against a certain point in a man's anatomy, lunge
+ever so little and the whole thing is done.  Come here, Mr.
+Ledsam, and I will show you the exact spot."
+
+Francis made no movement.  His eyes were fixed upon the weapon.
+
+"If I had only known!" he muttered.
+
+"My dear fellow, if you had," the other protested soothingly,
+"you know perfectly well that it would not have made the
+slightest difference.  Perhaps that little break in your voice
+would not have come quite so naturally, the little sweep of your
+arm towards me, the man whom a moment's thoughtlessness might
+sweep into Eternity, would have been a little stiffer, but what
+matter?  You would still have done your best and you would
+probably still have succeeded.  You don't care about trifling
+with Eternity, eh?  Very well, I will find the place for you."
+
+Hilditch's fingers strayed along his shirt-front until he found
+a certain spot.  Then he leaned the dagger against it, his
+forefinger and second finger pressed against the hilt.  His eyes
+were fixed upon his guest's.  He seemed genuinely interested.
+Francis, glancing away for a moment, was suddenly conscious of
+a new horror.  The woman had leaned a little forward in her
+easy-chair until she had attained almost a crouching position.
+Her eyes seemed to be measuring the distance from where she sat
+to that quivering thread of steel.
+
+"You see, Ledsam," his host went on, "that point driven now at
+that angle would go clean through the vital part of my heart.
+And it needs no force, either--just the slow pressure of these
+two fingers.  What did you say, Margaret?" he enquired, breaking
+off abruptly.
+
+The woman was seated upon the very edge of her chair, her eyes
+rivetted upon the dagger.  There was no change in her face, not a
+tremor in her tone.
+
+"I said nothing," she replied.  "I did not speak at all.  I was
+just watching."
+
+Hilditch turned back to his guest.
+
+"These two fingers," he repeated, "and a flick of the wrist
+--very little more than would be necessary for a thirty yard putt
+right across the green."
+
+Francis had recovered himself, had found his bearings to a
+certain extent.
+
+"I am sorry that you have told me this, Mr. Hilditch," he said, a
+little stiffly.
+
+"Why?" was the puzzled reply.  "I thought you would be
+interested."
+
+"I am interested to this extent," Francis declared, "I shall
+accept no more cases such as yours unless I am convinced of my
+client's innocence.  I look upon your confession to me as being
+in the worst possible taste, and I regret very much my efforts on
+your behalf."
+
+The woman was listening intently.  Hilditch's expression was one
+of cynical wonder.  Francis rose to his feet and moved across to
+his hostess.
+
+"Mrs. Hilditch," he said, "will you allow me to make my
+apologies?  Your husband and I have arrived at an understanding
+--or perhaps I should say a misunderstanding--which renders the
+acceptance of any further hospitality on my part impossible."
+
+She held out the tips of her fingers.
+
+"I had no idea," she observed, with gentle sarcasm, "that you
+barristers were such purists morally.  I thought you were rather
+proud of being the last hope of the criminal classes."
+
+"Madam," Francis replied, "I am not proud of having saved the
+life of a self-confessed murderer, even though that man may be
+your husband."
+
+Hilditch was laughing softly to himself as he escorted his
+departing guest to the door.
+
+"You have a quaint sense of humour," Francis remarked.
+
+"Forgive me," Oliver Hilditch begged, "but your last few words
+rather appealed to me.  You must be a person of very scanty
+perceptions if you could spend the evening here and not
+understand that my death is the one thing in the world which
+would make my wife happy."
+
+Francis walked home with these last words ringing in his ears.
+They seemed with him even in that brief period of troubled sleep
+which came to him when he had regained his rooms and turned in.
+They were there in the middle of the night when he was awakened,
+shivering, by the shrill summons of his telephone bell.  He stood
+quaking before the instrument in his pajamas.  It was the voice
+which, by reason of some ghastly premonition, he had dreaded to
+hear--level, composed, emotionless.
+
+"Mr. Ledsam?" she enquired.
+
+"I am Francis Ledsam," he assented.  "Who wants me?"
+
+"It is Margaret Hilditch speaking," she announced.  "I felt that
+I must ring up and tell you of a very strange thing which
+happened after you left this evening."
+
+"Go on," he begged hoarsely.
+
+"After you left," she went on, "my husband persisted in playing
+with that curious dagger.  He laid it against his heart, and
+seated himself in the chair which Mr. Jordan had occupied, in the
+same attitude.  It was what he called a reconstruction.  While he
+was holding it there, I think that he must have had a fit, or it
+may have been remorse, we shall never know.  He called out and I
+hurried across the room to him.  I tried to snatch the dagger
+away--I did so, in fact--but I must have been too late.  He had
+already applied that slight movement of the fingers which was
+necessary.  The doctor has just left.  He says that death must
+have been instantaneous."
+
+"But this is horrible!" Francis cried out into the well of
+darkness.
+
+"A person is on the way from Scotland Yard," the voice continued,
+without change or tremor.  "When he has satisfied himself, I am
+going to bed.  He is here now.  Good-night!"
+
+Francis tried to speak again but his words beat against a wall of
+silence.  He sat upon the edge of the bed, shivering.  In that
+moment of agony he seemed to hear again the echo of Oliver
+Hilditch's mocking words:
+
+"My death is the one thing in the world which would make my wife
+happy!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+There was a good deal of speculation at the Sheridan Club, of
+which he was a popular and much envied member, as to the cause
+for the complete disappearance from their midst of Francis Ledsam
+since the culmination of the Hilditch tragedy.
+
+"Sent back four topping briefs, to my knowledge, last week," one
+of the legal luminaries of the place announced to a little group
+of friends and fellow-members over a before-dinner cocktail.
+
+"Griggs offered him the defence of William Bull, the Chippenham
+murderer, and he refused it," another remarked.  "Griggs wrote
+him personally, and the reply came from the Brancaster Golf Club!
+It isn't like Ledsam to be taking golfing holidays in the middle
+of the session."
+
+"There's nothing wrong with Ledsam," declared a gruff voice from
+the corner.  "And don't gossip, you fellows, at the top of your
+voices like a lot of old women.  He'll be calling here for me in
+a moment or two."
+
+They all looked around.  Andrew Wilmore rose slowly to his feet
+and emerged from behind the sheets of an evening paper.  He laid
+his hand upon the shoulder of a friend, and glanced towards the
+door.
+
+"Ledsam's had a touch of nerves," he confided.  "There's been
+nothing else the matter with him.  We've been down at the Dormy
+House at Brancaster and he's as right as a trivet now.  That
+Hilditch affair did him in completely."
+
+"I don't see why," one of the bystanders observed.  "He got
+Hilditch off all right.  One of the finest addresses to a jury I
+ever heard."
+
+"That's just the point," Wilmore explained "You see, Ledsam had
+no idea that Hilditch was really guilty, and for two hours that
+afternoon he literally fought for his life, and in the end
+wrested a verdict from the jury, against the judge's summing up,
+by sheer magnetism or eloquence or whatever you fellows like to
+call it.  The very night after, Hilditch confesses his guilt and
+commits suicide."
+
+"I still don't see where Ledsam's worry comes in," the legal
+luminary remarked.  "The fact that the man was guilty is rather a
+feather in the cap of his counsel.  Shows how jolly good his
+pleading must have been."
+
+"Just so," Wilmore agreed, "but Ledsam, as you know, is a very
+conscientious sort of fellow, and very sensitive, too.  The whole
+thing was a shock to him."
+
+"It must have been a queer experience," a novelist remarked from
+the outskirts of the group, "to dine with a man whose life you
+have juggled away from the law, and then have him explain his
+crime to you, and the exact manner of its accomplishment.  Seems
+to bring one amongst the goats, somehow."
+
+"Bit of a shock, no doubt," the lawyer assented, "but I still
+don't understand Ledsam's sending back all his briefs.  He's not
+going to chuck the profession, is he?"
+
+"Not by any means," Wilmore declared.  "I think he has an idea,
+though, that he doesn't want to accept any briefs unless he is
+convinced that the person whom he has to represent is innocent,
+and lawyers don't like that sort of thing, you know.  You can't
+pick and choose, even when you have Leadsam's gifts."
+
+"The fact of it is," the novelist commented, "Francis Ledsam
+isn't callous enough to be associated with you money-grubbing
+dispensers of the law.  He'd be all right as Public Prosecutor, a
+sort of Sir Galahad waving the banner of virtue, but he hates to
+stuff his pockets at the expense of the criminal classes."
+
+"Who the mischief are the criminal classes?" a police court
+magistrate demanded.  "Personally, I call war profiteering
+criminal, I call a good many Stock Exchange deals criminal, and,"
+he added, turning to a member of the committee who was hovering
+in the background, "I call it criminal to expect us to drink
+French vermouth like this."
+
+"There is another point of view," the latter retorted.  "I call
+it a crime to expect a body of intelligent men to administer
+without emolument to the greed of such a crowd of rotters.
+You'll get the right stuff next week."
+
+The hall-porter approached and addressed Wilmore.
+
+"Mr. Ledsam is outside in a taxi, sir," he announced.
+
+"Outside in a taxi?" the lawyer repeated.  "Why on earth can't he
+come in?"
+
+"I never heard such rot," another declared.  "Let's go and rope
+him in."
+
+"Mr. Ledsam desired me to say, sir," the hall porter continued,
+"to any of his friends who might be here, that he will be in to
+lunch to-morrow."
+
+"Leave him to me till then," Wilmore begged.  "He'll be all right
+directly.  He's simply altering his bearings and taking his time
+about it.  If he's promised to lunch here to-morrow, he will.
+He's as near as possible through the wood.  Coming up in the
+train, he suggested a little conversation to-night and afterwards
+the normal life.  He means it, too.  There's nothing neurotic
+about Ledsam."
+
+The magistrate nodded.
+
+"Run along, then, my merry Andrew," he said, "but see that Ledsam
+keeps his word about to-morrow."
+
+
+Andrew Wilmore plunged boldly into the forbidden subject later on
+that evening, as the two men sat side by side at one of the wall
+tables in Soto's famous club restaurant.  They had consumed an
+excellent dinner.  An empty champagne bottle had just been
+removed, double liqueur brandies had taken its place.  Francis,
+with an air of complete and even exuberant humanity, had lit a
+huge cigar.  The moment seemed propitious.
+
+"Francis," his friend began, "they say at the club that you
+refused to be briefed in the Chippenham affair."
+
+"Quite true," was the calm reply.  "I told Griggs that I wouldn't
+have anything to do with it."
+
+Wilmore knew then that all was well.  Francis' old air of
+strength and decision had returned.  His voice was firm, his eyes
+were clear and bright.  His manner seemed even to invite
+questioning.
+
+"I think I know why," Wilmore said, "but I should like you to
+tell me in your own words."
+
+Francis glanced around as though to be sure that they were not
+overheard.
+
+"Because," he replied, dropping his voice a little but still
+speaking with great distinctness, "William Bull is a cunning and
+dangerous criminal whom I should prefer to see hanged."
+
+"You know that?"
+
+"I know that."
+
+"It would be a great achievement to get him off," Wilmore
+persisted.  "The evidence is very weak in places."
+
+"I believe that I could get him off," was the confident reply.
+"That is why I will not touch the brief.  I think," Francis
+continued, "that I have already conveyed it to you indirectly,
+but here you are in plain words, Andrew.  I have made up my mind
+that I will defend no man in future unless I am convinced of his
+innocence."
+
+"That means--"
+
+"It means practically the end of my career at the bar," Francis
+admitted.  "I realise that absolutely: Fortunately, as you know,
+I am not dependent upon my earnings, and I have had a wonderful
+ten years."
+
+"This is all because of the Hilditch affair, I suppose?"
+
+"Entirely."
+
+Wilmore was still a little puzzled.
+
+"You seem to imagine that you have something on your conscience
+as regards that business," he said boldly.
+
+"I have," was the calm reply.
+
+"Come," Wilmore protested, "I don't quite follow your line of
+thought.  Granted that Hilditch was a desperate criminal whom by
+the exercise of your special gifts you saved from the law, surely
+his tragic death balanced the account between you and Society?"
+
+"It might have done," Francis admitted, "if he had really
+committed suicide."
+
+Wilmore was genuinely startled.  He looked at his companion
+curiously.
+
+"What the devil do you mean, old chap?" he demanded.  "Your own
+evidence at the inquest was practically conclusive as to that."
+
+Francis glanced around him with apparent indifference but in
+reality with keen and stealthy care.  On their right was a glass
+division, through which the sound of their voices could not
+possibly penetrate.  On their left was an empty space, and a
+table beyond was occupied by a well-known cinema magnate engaged
+in testing the attractions in daily life of a would-be film star.
+Nevertheless, Francis' voice was scarcely raised above a whisper.
+
+"My evidence at the coroner's inquest," he confided, "was a
+subtly concocted tissue of lies.  I committed perjury freely.
+That is the real reason why I've been a little on the nervy side
+lately, and why I took these few months out of harness."
+
+"Good God!" Wilmore exclaimed, setting down untasted the glass of
+brandy which he had just raised to his lips.
+
+"I want to finish this matter up," Francis continued calmly, "by
+making a clean breast of it to you, because from to-night I am
+starting afresh, with new interests in my life, what will
+practically amount to a new career.  That is why I preferred not
+to dine at the club to-night, although I am looking forward to
+seeing them all again.  I wanted instead to have this
+conversation with you.  I lied at the inquest when I said that
+the relations between Oliver Hilditch and his wife that night
+seemed perfectly normal.  I lied when I said that I knew of no
+cause for ill-will between them.  I lied when I said that I left
+them on friendly terms.  I lied when I said that Oliver Hilditch
+seemed depressed and nervous.  I lied when I said that he
+expressed the deepest remorse for what he had done.  There was
+every indication that night, of the hate which I happen to know
+existed between the woman and the man.  I have not the faintest
+doubt in my mind but that she murdered him.  In my judgment, she
+was perfectly justified in doing so."
+
+There followed a brief but enforced silence as some late arrivals
+passed their table.  The room was well-ventilated but Andrew
+Wilmore felt suddenly hot and choking.  A woman, one of the
+little group of newcomers, glanced towards Francis curiously.
+
+"Francis Ledsam, the criminal barrister," her companion
+whispered,--"the man who got Oliver Hilditch off.  The man with
+him is Andrew Wilmore, the novelist.  Discussing a case, I
+expect."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+The little party of late diners passed on their way to the
+further end of the room, leaving a wave of artificiality behind,
+or was it, Andrew Wilmore wondered, in a moment of half-dazed
+speculation, that it was they and the rest of the gay company who
+represented the real things, and he and his companion who were
+playing a sombre part in some unreal and gloomier world.
+Francis' voice, however, when he recommenced his diatribe, was
+calm and matter-of-fact enough.
+
+"You see," he continued, argumentatively, "I was morally and
+actually responsible for the man's being brought back into
+Society.  And far worse than that, I was responsible for his
+being thrust back again upon his wife.  Ergo, I was also
+responsible for what she did that night.  The matter seems as
+plain as a pikestaff to me.  I did what I could to atone, rightly
+or wrongly it doesn't matter, because it is over and done with.
+There you are, old fellow, now you know what's been making me
+nervy.  I've committed wholesale perjury, but I acted according
+to my conscience and I think according to justice.  The thing has
+worried me, I admit, but it has passed, and I'm glad it's off my
+chest.  One more liqueur, Andrew, and if you want to we'll talk
+about my plans for the future."
+
+The brandy was brought.  Wilmore studied his friend curiously,
+not without some relief.  Francis had lost the harassed and
+nervous appearance upon which his club friends had commented,
+which had been noticeable, even, to a diminishing extent, upon
+the golf course at Brancaster.  He was alert and eager.  He had
+the air of a man upon the threshold of some enterprise dear to
+his heart.
+
+"I have been through a queer experience," Francis continued
+presently, as he sipped his second liqueur.  "Not only had I
+rather less than twelve hours to make up my mind whether I should
+commit a serious offence against the law, but a sensation which I
+always hoped that I might experience, has come to me in what I
+suppose I must call most unfortunate fashion."
+
+"The woman?" Wilmore ventured.
+
+Francis assented gloomily.  There was a moment's silence.
+Wilmore, the metaphysician, saw then a strange thing.  He saw a
+light steal across his friend's stern face.  He saw his eyes for
+a moment soften, the hard mouth relax, something incredible,
+transforming, shine, as it were, out of the man's soul in that
+moment of self-revelation.  It was gone like the momentary
+passing of a strange gleam of sunshine across a leaden sea, but
+those few seconds were sufficient.  Wilmore knew well enough what
+had happened.
+
+"Oliver Hilditch's wife," Francis went on, after a few minutes'
+pause, "presents an enigma which at present I cannot hope to
+solve.  The fact that she received her husband back again,
+knowing what he was and what he was capable of, is inexplicable
+to me.  The woman herself is a mystery.  I do not know what lies
+behind her extraordinary immobility.  Feeling she must have, and
+courage, or she would never have dared to have ridded herself of
+the scourge of her life.  But beyond that my judgment tells me
+nothing.  I only know that sooner or later I shall seek her out.
+I shall discover all that I want to know, one way or the other.
+It may be for happiness--it may be the end of the things that
+count."
+
+"I guessed this," Wilmore admitted, with a little shiver which he
+was wholly unable to repress.
+
+Francis nodded.
+
+"Then keep it to yourself, my dear fellow," he begged, "like
+everything else I am telling you tonight.  I have come out of my
+experience changed in many ways," he continued, "but, leaving out
+that one secret chapter, this is the dominant factor which looms
+up before me.  I bring into life a new aversion, almost a
+passion, Andrew, born in a tea-shop in the city, and ministered
+to by all that has happened since.  I have lost that sort of
+indifference which my profession engenders towards crime.  I am
+at war with the criminal, sometimes, I hope, in the Courts of
+Justice, but forever out of them.  I am no longer indifferent as
+to whether men do good or evil so long as they do not cross my
+path.  I am a hunter of sin.  I am out to destroy.  There's a
+touch of melodrama in this for you, Andrew," he concluded, with a
+little laugh, "but, my God, I'm in earnest!"
+
+"What does this mean so far as regards the routine of your daily
+life?" Wilmore asked curiously.
+
+"Well, it brings us to the point we discussed down at
+Brancaster," Francis replied.  "It will affect my work to this
+extent.  I shall not accept any brief unless, after reading the
+evidence, I feel convinced that the accused is innocent."
+
+"That's all very well," Wilmore observed, "but you know what it
+will mean, don't you?  Lawyers aren't likely to single you out
+for a brief without ever feeling sure whether you will accept it
+or not."
+
+"That doesn't worry me," Francis declared.  "I don't need the
+fees, fortunately, and I can always pick up enough work to keep
+me going by attending Sessions.  One thing I can promise you--I
+certainly shall not sit in my rooms and wait for things to
+happen.  Mine is a militant spirit and it needs the outlet of
+action."
+
+"Action, yes, but how?" Wilmore queried.  "You can't be always
+hanging about the courts, waiting for the chance of defending
+some poor devil who's been wrongfully accused--there aren't
+enough of them, for one thing.  On the other hand, you can't walk
+down Regent Street, brandishing a two-edged sword and hunting for
+pickpockets."
+
+Francis smiled.
+
+"Nothing so flamboyant, I can assure you, Andrew," he replied;
+"nor shall I play the amateur detective with his mouth open for
+mysteries.  But listen," he went on earnestly.  "I've had some
+experience, as you know, and, notwithstanding the Oliver
+Hilditch's of the world, I can generally tell a criminal when I
+meet him face to face.  There are plenty of them about, too,
+Andrew--as many in this place as any other.  I am not going to be
+content with a negative position as regards evildoers.  I am
+going to set my heel on as many of the human vermin of this city
+as I can find."
+
+"A laudable, a most exhilarating and delightful pursuit!  `human
+vermin,' too, is excellent.  It opens up a new and fascinating
+vista for the modern sportsman.  My congratulations!"
+
+It was an interruption of peculiar and wonderful significance,
+but Francis did not for the moment appreciate the fact.  Turning
+his head, he simply saw a complete stranger seated unaccountably
+at the next table, who had butted into a private conversation and
+whose tone of gentle sarcasm, therefore, was the more offensive.
+
+"Who the devil are you, sir," he demanded, "and where did you
+come from?"
+
+The newcomer showed no resentment at Francis' little outburst.
+He simply smiled with deprecating amiability--a tall, spare man,
+with lean, hard face, complexion almost unnaturally white; black
+hair, plentifully besprinkled with grey; a thin, cynical mouth,
+notwithstanding its distinctly humourous curve, and keen, almost
+brilliant dark eyes.  He was dressed in ordinary dinner garb; his
+linen and jewellery was indeed in the best possible taste.
+Francis, at his second glance, was troubled with a vague sense of
+familiarity.
+
+"Let me answer your last question first, sir," the intruder
+begged.  "I was seated alone, several tables away, when the
+couple next to you went out, and having had pointed out to me the
+other evening at Claridge's Hotel, and knowing well by repute,
+the great barrister, Mr. Francis Ledsam, and his friend the
+world-famed novelist, Mr. Andrew Wilmore, I--er--unobtrusively
+made my way, half a yard at a time, in your direction--and here I
+am.  I came stealthily, you may object?  Without a doubt.  If I
+had come in any other fashion, I should have disturbed a
+conversation in which I was much interested."
+
+"Could you find it convenient," Francis asked, with icy
+politeness, "to return to your own table, stealthily or not, as
+you choose?"
+
+The newcomer showed no signs of moving.
+
+"In after years," he declared, "you would be the first to regret
+the fact if I did so.  This is a momentous meeting.  It gives me
+an opportunity of expressing my deep gratitude to you, Mr.
+Ledsam, for the wonderful evidence you tendered at the inquest
+upon the body of my son-in-law, Oliver Hilditch."
+
+Francis turned in his place and looked steadily at this unsought-for
+companion, learning nothing, however, from the half-mocking smile
+and imperturbable expression.
+
+"Your son-in-law?" he repeated.  "Do you mean to say that you are
+the father of--of Oliver Hilditch's wife?"
+
+"Widow," the other corrected gently.  "I have that honour.  You
+will understand, therefore, that I feel myself on this, the first
+opportunity, compelled to tender my sincere thanks for evidence
+so chivalrously offered, so flawlessly truthful."
+
+Francis was a man accustomed to self-control, but he clenched his
+hands so that his finger nails dug into his flesh.  He was filled
+with an insane and unreasoning resentment against this man whose
+words were biting into his conscience.  Nevertheless, he kept his
+tone level.
+
+"I do not desire your gratitude," he said, "nor, if you will
+permit me to say so, your further acquaintance."
+
+The stranger shook his head regretfully.
+
+"You are wrong," he protested.  "We were bound, in any case, to
+know one another.  Shall I tell you why?  You have just declared
+yourself anxious to set your heel upon the criminals of the
+world.  I have the distinction of being perhaps the most famous
+patron of that maligned class now living--and my neck is at your
+service."
+
+"You appear to me," Francis said suavely, "to be a buffoon."
+
+It might have been fancy, but Francis could have sworn that he
+saw the glitter of a sovereign malevolence in the other's dark
+eyes.  If so, it was but a passing weakness, for a moment later
+the half good-natured, half cynical smile was back again upon the
+man's lips.
+
+"If so, I am at least a buffoon of parts," was the prompt
+rejoinder.  "I will, if you choose, prove myself."
+
+There was a moment's silence.  Wilmore was leaning forward in his
+place, studying the newcomer earnestly.  An impatient invective
+was somehow stifled upon Francis' lips.
+
+"Within a few yards of this place, sometime before the closing
+hour to-night," the intruder continued, earnestly yet with a
+curious absence of any human quality in his hard tone, "there
+will be a disturbance, and probably what you would call a crime
+will be committed.  Will you use your vaunted gifts to hunt down
+the desperate criminal, and, in your own picturesque phraseology,
+set your heel upon his neck?  Success may bring you fame, and the
+trail may lead--well, who knows where?"
+
+Afterwards, both Francis and Andrew Wilmore marvelled at
+themselves, unable at any time to find any reasonable explanation
+of their conduct, for they answered this man neither with
+ridicule, rudeness nor civility.  They simply stared at him,
+impressed with the convincing arrogance of his challenge and
+unable to find words of reply.  They received his mocking
+farewell without any form of reciprocation or sign of resentment.
+They watched him leave the room, a dignified, distinguished
+figure, sped on his way with marks of the deepest respect by
+waiters, maitres d'hotels and even the manager himself.  They
+behaved, indeed, as they both admitted afterwards, like a couple
+of moonstruck idiots.  When he had finally disappeared, however,
+they looked at one another and the spell was broken.
+
+"Well, I'm damned!" Francis exclaimed.  "Soto, come here at
+once."
+
+The manager hastened smilingly to their table.
+
+"Soto," Francis invoked, "tell us quickly--tell us the name of
+the gentleman who has just gone out, and who he is?"
+
+Soto was amazed.
+
+"You don't know Sir Timothy Brast, sir?" he exclaimed.  "Why, he
+is supposed to be one of the richest men in the world!  He spends
+money like water.  They say that when he is in England, his place
+down the river alone costs a thousand pounds a week.  When he
+gives a party here, we can find nothing good enough.  He is our
+most generous client."
+
+"Sir Timothy Brast," Wilmore repeated.  "Yes, I have heard of
+him."
+
+"Why, everybody knows Sir Timothy," Soto went on eloquently.  "He
+is the greatest living patron of boxing.  He found the money for
+the last international fight."
+
+"Does he often come in alone like this?" Francis asked curiously.
+
+"Either alone," Soto replied, "or with a very large party.  He
+entertains magnificently."
+
+"I've seen his name in the paper in connection with something or
+other, during the last few weeks," Wilmore remarked reflectively.
+
+"Probably about two months ago, sir," Soto suggested.  "He gave a
+donation of ten thousand pounds to the Society for the Prevention
+of Cruelty to Animals, and they made him a Vice President.... In
+one moment, sir."
+
+The manager hurried away to receive a newly-arrived guest.
+Francis and his friend exchanged a wondering glance.
+
+"Father of Oliver Hilditch's wife," Wilmore observed, "the most
+munificent patron of boxing in the world, Vice President of
+the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and
+self-confessed arch-criminal!  He pulled our legs pretty well!"
+
+"I suppose so," Francis assented absently.
+
+Wilmore glanced at his watch.
+
+"What about moving on somewhere?" he suggested.  "We might go
+into the Alhambra for half-an-hour, if you like.  The last act of
+the show is the best."
+
+Francis shook his head.
+
+"We've got to see this thing out," he replied.  "Have you
+forgotten that our friend promised us a sensation before we
+left?"
+
+Wilmore began to laugh a little derisively.  Then, suddenly aware
+of some lack of sympathy between himself and his friend, he broke
+off and glanced curiously at the latter.
+
+"You're not taking him seriously, are you?" he enquired.
+
+Francis nodded.
+
+"Certainly I am," he confessed.
+
+"You don't believe that he was getting at us?"
+
+"Not for a moment."
+
+"You believe that something is going to happen here in this
+place, or quite close?"
+
+"I am convinced of it," was the calm reply.
+
+Wilmore was silent.  For a moment he was troubled with his old
+fears as to his friend's condition.  A glance, however, at
+Francis' set face and equable, watchful air, reassured him.
+
+"We must see the thing through, of course, then," he assented.
+"Let us see if we can spot the actors in the coming drama."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+It happened that the two men, waiting in the vestibule of the
+restaurant for Francis' car to crawl up to the entrance through
+the fog which had unexpectedly rolled up, heard the slight
+altercation which was afterwards referred to as preceding the
+tragedy.  The two young people concerned were standing only a few
+feet away, the girl pretty, a little peevish, an ordinary type;
+her companion, whose boyish features were marred with dissipation,
+a very passable example of the young man about town going a little
+beyond his tether.
+
+"It's no good standing here, Victor!" the girl exclaimed,
+frowning.  "The commissionaire's been gone ages already, and
+there are two others before us for taxis."
+
+"We can't walk," her escort replied gloomily.  "It's a foul
+night.  Nothing to do but wait, what?  Let's go back and have
+another drink."
+
+The girl stamped her satin-shod foot impatiently.
+
+"Don't be silly," she expostulated.  "You know I promised Clara
+we'd be there early."
+
+"All very well," the young man grumbled, "but what can we do?  We
+shall have to wait our turn."
+
+"Why can't you slip out and look for a taxi yourself?" she
+suggested.  "Do, Victor," she added, squeezing his arm.  "You're
+so clever at picking them up."
+
+He made a little grimace, but lit a cigarette and turned up his
+coat collar.
+
+"I'll do my best," he promised.  "Don't go on without me."
+
+"Try up towards Charing Cross Road, not the other way," she
+advised earnestly.
+
+"Right-oh!" he replied, which illuminative form of assent, a word
+spoken as he plunged unwillingly into the thick obscurity on the
+other side of the revolving doors, was probably the last he ever
+uttered on earth.
+
+Left alone, the girl began to shiver, as though suddenly cold.
+She turned around and glanced hurriedly back into the restaurant.
+At that moment she met the steady, questioning scrutiny of
+Francis' eyes.  She stood as though transfixed.  Then came the
+sound which every one talked of for months afterwards, the sound
+which no one who heard it ever forgot--the death cry of Victor
+Bidlake, followed a second afterwards by a muffled report.  A
+strain of frenzied surprise seemed mingled with the horror.
+Afterwards, silence.
+
+There was the sound of some commotion outside, the sound of
+hurried footsteps and agitated voices.  Then a terrible little
+procession appeared.  Something--it seemed to be a shapeless heap
+of clothes--was carried in and laid upon the floor, in the little
+space between the revolving doors and the inner entrance.  Two
+blue-liveried attendants kept back the horrified but curious
+crowd.  Francis, vaguely recognised as being somehow or other
+connected with the law, was one of the few people allowed to
+remain whilst a doctor, fetched out from the dancing-room,
+kneeled over the prostrate form.  He felt that he knew beforehand
+the horrible verdict which the latter whispered in his ear after
+his brief examination.
+
+"Quite dead!  A ghastly business!"
+
+Francis gazed at the hole in the shirt-front, disfigured also by
+a scorching stain.
+
+"A bullet?" he asked.
+
+The doctor nodded.
+
+"Fired within a foot of the poor fellow's heart," he whispered.
+"The murderer wasn't taking any chances, whoever he was."
+
+"Have the police been sent for?"
+
+The head-porter stepped forward.
+
+"There was a policeman within a few yards of the spot, sir," he
+replied.  "He's gone down to keep every one away from the place
+where we found the body.  We've telephoned to Scotland Yard for
+an inspector."
+
+The doctor rose to his feet.
+
+"Nothing more can be done," he pronounced.  "Keep the people out
+of here whilst I go and fetch my hat and coat.  Afterwards, I'll
+take the body to the mortuary when the ambulance arrives."
+
+An attendant pushed his way through the crowd of people on the
+inner side of the door.
+
+"Miss Daisy Hyslop, young lady who was with Mr. Bidlake, has just
+fainted in the ladies' room, sir," he announced.  "Could you
+come?"
+
+"I'll be there immediately," the doctor promised.
+
+The rest of the proceedings followed a normal course.  The police
+arrived, took various notes, the ambulance followed a little
+later, the body was removed, and the little crowd of guests,
+still infected with a sort of awed excitement, were allowed to
+take their leave.  Francis and Wilmore drove almost in silence to
+the former's rooms in Clarges Street.
+
+"Come up and have a drink, Andrew," Francis invited.
+
+"I need it," was the half-choked response.
+
+Francis led the way in silence up the two flights of stairs into
+his sitting-room, mixed whiskies and sodas from the decanter and
+syphon which stood upon the sideboard, and motioned his friend to
+an easy-chair.  Then he gave form to the thought which had been
+haunting them both.
+
+"What about our friend Sir Timothy Brast?" he enquired.  "Do you
+believe now that he was pulling our legs?"
+
+Wilmore dabbed his forehead with his handkerchief.  It was a
+chilly evening, but there were drops of perspiration still
+standing there.
+
+"Francis," he confessed, "it's horrible!  I don't think realism
+like this attracts me.  It's horrible!  What are we going to do?"
+
+"Nothing for the present," was the brief reply.  "If we were to
+tell our story, we should only be laughed at.  What there is to
+be done falls to my lot."
+
+"Had the police anything to say about it?" Wilmore asked.
+
+"Only a few words," Francis replied.  "Shopland has it in hand.
+A good man but unimaginative.  I've come across him in one or two
+cases lately.  You'll find a little bit like this in the papers
+to-morrow: 'The murder is believed to have been committed by one
+of the gang of desperadoes who have infested the west-end during
+the last few months.'  You remember the assault in the Albany
+Court Yard, and the sandbagging in Shepherd Market only last
+week?"
+
+"That seems to let Sir Timothy out," Wilmore remarked.
+
+"There are many motives for crime besides robbery," Francis
+declared.  "Don't be afraid, Andrew, that I am going to turn
+amateur detective and make the unravelment of this case all the
+more difficult for Scotland Yard.  If I interfere, it will be on
+a certainty.  Andrew, don't think I'm mad but I've taken up the
+challenge our great philanthropist flung at me to-night.  I've
+very little interest in who killed this boy Victor Bidlake, or
+why, but I'm convinced of one thing--Brast knew about it, and if
+he is posing as a patron of crime on a great scale, sooner or
+later I shall get him.  He may think himself safe, and he may
+have the courage of Beelzebub--he seems rather that type--but if
+my presentiment about him--comes true, his number's up.  I can
+almost divine the meaning of his breaking in upon our
+conversation to-night.  He needs an enemy--he is thirsting for
+danger.  He has found it!"
+
+Wilmore filled his pipe thoughtfully.  At the first whiff of
+tobacco he began to feel more normal.
+
+"After all, Francis," he said, "aren't we a little overstrung
+to-night?  Sir Timothy Brast is no adventurer.  He is a prince
+in the city, a persona grata wherever he chooses to go.  He isn't
+a hanger-on in Society.  He isn't even dependent upon Bohemia for
+his entertainment.  You can't seriously imagine that a man with
+his possessions is likely to risk his life and liberty in
+becoming the inspiration of a band of cutthroats?"
+
+Francis smiled.  He, too, had lit his pipe and had thrown himself
+into his favourite chair.  He smiled confidently across at his
+friend.
+
+"A millionaire with brains," he argued, "is just the one person
+in the world likely to weary of all ordinary forms of diversion.
+I begin to remember things about him already.  Haven't you heard
+about his wonderful parties down at The Walled House?"
+
+Wilmore struck the table by his side with his clenched fist.
+
+"By George, that's it!" he exclaimed.  "Who hasn't!"
+
+"I remember Baker talking about one last year," Francis
+continued, "never any details, but all kinds of mysterious hints
+--a sort of mixture between a Roman orgy and a chapter from the
+'Arabian Nights'--singers from Petrograd, dancers from Africa and
+fighting men from Chicago."
+
+"The fellow's magnificent, at any rate," Wilmore remarked.
+
+His host smoked furiously for a moment.
+
+"That's the worst of these multi-millionaires," he declared.
+"They think they can rule the world, traffic in human souls, buy
+morals, mock at the law.  We shall see!"
+
+"Do you know the thing that I found most interesting about him?"
+Wilmore asked.
+
+"His black opals," the other suggested.  "You're by the way of
+being a collector, aren't you?"
+
+Wilmore shook his head.
+
+"The fact that he is the father of Oliver Hilditch's widow."
+
+Francis sat quite still for a moment.  There was a complete
+change in his expression.  He looked like a man who has received
+a shock.
+
+"I forgot that," he muttered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Francis met Shopland one morning about a week later, on his way
+from Clarges Street to his chambers in the Temple.  The detective
+raised his hat and would have passed on, but Francis accosted
+him.
+
+"Any progress, Mr. Shopland?" he enquired.
+
+The detective fingered his small, sandy moustache.  He was an
+insignificant-looking little man, undersized, with thin frame and
+watery eyes.  His mouth, however, was hard, and there were some
+tell-tale little lines at its corners.
+
+"None whatever, I am sorry to say, Mr. Ledsam," he admitted.  "At
+present we are quite in the dark."
+
+"You found the weapon, I hear?"
+
+Shopland nodded.
+
+"It was just an ordinary service revolver, dating from the time
+of the war, exactly like a hundred thousand others.  The
+enquiries we were able to make from it came to nothing."
+
+"Where was it picked up?"
+
+"In the middle of the waste plot of ground next to Soto's.  The
+murderer evidently threw it there the moment he had discharged
+it.  He must have been wearing rubber-soled shoes, for not a soul
+heard him go."
+
+Francis nodded thoughtfully.
+
+"I wonder," he said, after a slight pause, "whether it ever
+occurred to you to interview Miss Daisy Hyslop, the young lady
+who was with Bidlake on the night of his murder?"
+
+"I called upon her the day afterwards," the detective answered.
+
+"She had nothing to say?"
+
+"Nothing whatever."
+
+"Indirectly, of course," Francis continued, "the poor girl was
+the cause of his death.  If she had not insisted upon his going
+out for a taxicab, the man who was loitering about would probably
+have never got hold of him."
+
+The detective glanced up furtively at the speaker.  He seemed to
+reflect for a moment.
+
+"I gathered," he said, "in conversation with the commissionaire,
+that Miss Hyslop was a little impatient that night.  It seems,
+however, that she was anxious to get to a ball which was being
+given down in Kensington."
+
+"There was a ball, was there?" Francis asked.
+
+"Without a doubt," the detective replied.  "It was given by a
+Miss Clara Bultiwell.  She happens to remember urging Miss Hyslop
+to come on as early as possible."
+
+"So that's that," Francis observed.
+
+"Just so, Mr. Ledsam," the detective murmured.
+
+They were walking along the Mall now, eastwards.  The detective,
+who seemed to have been just a saunterer, had accommodated
+himself to Francis' destination.
+
+"Let me see, there was nothing stolen from the young man's
+person, was there?" Francis asked presently.
+
+"Apparently nothing at all, sir."
+
+"And I gather that you have made every possible enquiry as to the
+young man's relations with his friends?"
+
+"So far as one can learn, sir, they seem to have been perfectly
+amicable."
+
+"Of course," Francis remarked presently, "this may have been
+quite a purposeless affair.  The deed may have been committed by
+a man who was practically a lunatic, without any motive or reason
+whatever."
+
+"Precisely so, sir," the detective agreed.
+
+"But, all the same, I don't think it was."
+
+"Neither do I, sir."
+
+Francis smiled slightly.
+
+"Shopland," he said, "if there is no further external evidence to
+be collected, I suggest that there is only one person likely to
+prove of assistance to you."
+
+"And that one person, sir?"
+
+"Miss Daisy Hyslop."
+
+"The young lady whom I have already seen?"
+
+Francis nodded.
+
+"The young lady whom you have already seen," he assented.  "At
+the same time, Mr. Shopland, we must remember this.  If Miss
+Hyslop has any knowledge of the facts which are behind Mr.
+Bidlake's murder, it is more likely to be to her interest to keep
+them to herself, than to give them away to the police free gratis
+and for nothing.  Do you follow me?"
+
+"Precisely, sir."
+
+"That being so," Francis continued, "I am going to make a
+proposition to you for what it is worth.  Where were you going
+when I met you this morning, Shopland?"
+
+"To call upon you in Clarges Street, sir."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I was going to ask you if you would be so kind as to call upon
+Miss Daisy Hyslop, sir."
+
+Francis smiled.
+
+"Great minds," he murmured.  "I will see the young lady this
+afternoon, Shopland."
+
+The detective raised his hat.  They had reached the spot where
+his companion turned off by the Horse Guards Parade.
+
+"I may hope to hear from you, then, sir?"
+
+"Within the course of a day or two, perhaps earlier," Francis
+promised.
+
+
+Francis continued his walk along the Embankment to his chambers
+in the Temple.  He glanced in the outer office as he passed to
+his consulting room.
+
+"Anything fresh, Angrave?" he asked his head-clerk.
+
+"Nothing whatever, sir," was the quiet reply.
+
+He passed on to his own den--a bare room with long windows
+looking out over the gardens.  He glanced at the two or three
+letters which lay on his desk, none of them of the least
+interest, and leaning back in his chair commenced to fill his
+pipe.  There was a knock at the door.  Fawsitt, a young beginner
+at the bar, in whom he had taken some interest and who deviled
+for him, presented himself.
+
+"Can I have a word with you, Mr. Ledsam?" he asked.
+
+"By all means," was the prompt response.  "Sit down."
+
+Fawsitt seated himself on the other side of the table.  He had a
+long, thin face, dark, narrow eyes, unwholesome complexion, a
+slightly hooked nose, and teeth discoloured through constant
+smoking.  His fingers, too, bore the tell-tale yellow stains.
+
+"Mr. Ledsam," he said, "I think, with your permission, I should
+like to leave at the end of my next three months."
+
+Francis glanced across at him.
+
+"Sorry to hear that, Fawsitt.  Are you going to work for any one
+else?"
+
+"I haven't made arrangements yet, sir," the young man replied.
+"I thought of offering myself to Mr. Barnes."
+
+"Why do you want to leave me?" Francis asked.
+
+"There isn't enough for me to do, sir."
+
+Francis lit his pipe.
+
+"It's probably just a lull, Fawsitt," he remarked.
+
+"I don't think so, sir."
+
+"The devil!  You've been gossiping with some of these solicitors'
+clerks, Fawsitt."
+
+"I shouldn't call it gossiping, sir.  I am always interested to
+hear anything that may concern our--my future.  I have reason to
+believe, sir, that we are being passed over for briefs."
+
+"The reason being?"
+
+"One can't pick and choose, sir.  One shouldn't, anyway."
+
+Francis smiled.
+
+"You evidently don't approve of any measure of personal choice as
+to the work which one takes up."
+
+"Certainly I do not, sir, in our profession.  The only brief I
+would refuse would be a losing or an ill-paid one.  I don't
+conceive it to be our business to prejudge a case."
+
+"I see," Francis murmured.  "Go on, Fawsitt."
+
+"There's a rumour about," the young man continued, "that you are
+only going to plead where the chances are that your client is
+innocent."
+
+"There's some truth in that," Francis admitted.
+
+"If I could leave a little before the three months, sir, I should
+be glad," Fawsitt said.  "I look at the matter from an entirely
+different point of view."
+
+"You shall leave when you like, of course, Fawsitt, but tell me
+what that point of view is?"
+
+"Just this, sir.  The simplest-minded idiot who ever stammered
+through his address, can get an innocent prisoner off if he knows
+enough of the facts and the law.  To my mind, the real triumph in
+our profession is to be able to unwind the meshes of damning
+facts and force a verdict for an indubitably guilty client."
+
+"How does the moral side of that appeal to you?" his senior
+enquired.
+
+"I didn't become a barrister to study morals, or even to consider
+them," was the somewhat caustic reply.  "When once a brief is in
+my mind, it is a matter of brain, cunning and resource.  The
+guiltier a man, the greater the success if you can get him off."
+
+"And turn him loose again upon Society?"
+
+"It isn't our job to consider that, sir.  The moral question is
+only confusing in the matter.  Our job is to make use of the law
+for the benefit of our client.  That's what we're paid for.
+That's the measure of our success or failure."
+
+Francis nodded.
+
+"Very reasonably put, Fawsitt," he conceded.  "I'll give you a
+letter to Barnes whenever you like."
+
+"I should be glad if you would do so, sir," the young man said.
+"I'm only wasting my time here ...."
+
+Francis wrote a letter of recommendation to Barnes, the great K.C.,
+considered a stray brief which had found its way in, and strolled
+up towards the Milan as the hour approached luncheon-time.  In the
+American bar of that palatial hotel he found the young man he was
+looking for--a flaxen-haired youth who was seated upon one of the
+small tables, with his feet upon a chair, laying down the law to
+a little group of acquaintances.  He greeted Francis cordially
+but without that due measure of respect which nineteen should
+accord to thirty-five.
+
+"Cheerio, my elderly relative!" he exclaimed.  "Have a cocktail."
+
+Francis nodded assent.
+
+"Come into this corner with me for a moment, Charles," he
+invited.  "I have a word for your ear."
+
+The young man rose and sat by his uncle's side on a settee.
+
+"In my declining years," the latter began, "I find myself
+reverting to the follies of youth.  I require a letter of
+introduction from you to a young lady of your acquaintance."
+
+"The devil!  Not one of my own special little pets, I hope?"
+
+"Her name is Miss Daisy Hyslop," Francis announced.
+
+Lord Charles Southover pursed his lips and whistled.  He glanced
+at Francis sideways.
+
+"Is this the beginning of a campaign amongst the butterflies," he
+enquired, "because, if so, I feel it my duty, uncle, to address
+to you a few words of solemn warning.  Miss Daisy Hyslop is hot
+stuff."
+
+"Look here, young fellow," Francis said equably, "I don't know
+what the state of your exchequer is--"
+
+"I owe you forty," Lord Charles interrupted.  "Spring another
+tenner, make it fifty, that is, and the letter of introduction I
+will write for you will bring tears of gratitude to your eyes."
+
+"I'll spring the tenner," Francis promised, "but you'll write
+just what I tell you--no more and no less."
+
+"Anything extra for keeping mum at home?" the young man ventured
+tentatively.
+
+"You're a nice sort of nephew to have!" Francis declared.
+"Abandon these futile attempts at blackmail and just come this
+way to the writing-table."
+
+"You've got the tenner with you?" the young man asked anxiously.
+
+Francis produced a well-filled pocketbook.  His nephew led the
+way to a writing-table, lit a cigarette which he stuck into the
+corner of his mouth, and in painstaking fashion wrote the few
+lines which Francis dictated.  The ten pounds changed hands.
+
+"Have one with me for luck?" the young man invited brightly.
+"No?  Perhaps you're right," he added, in valedictory fashion.
+"You'd better keep your head clear for Daisy!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Miss Daisy Hyslop received Francis that afternoon, in the
+sitting-room of her little suite at the Milan.  Her welcoming
+smile was plaintive and a little subdued, her manner undeniably
+gracious.  She was dressed in black, a wonderful background for
+her really gorgeous hair, and her deportment indicated a recent
+loss.
+
+"How nice of you to come and see me," she murmured, with a
+lingering touch of the fingers.  "Do take that easy-chair,
+please, and sit down and talk to me.  Your roses were beautiful,
+but whatever made you send them to me?"
+
+"Impulse," he answered.
+
+She laughed softly.
+
+"Then please yield to such impulses as often as you feel them,"
+she begged.  "I adore flowers.  Just now, too," she added, with a
+little sigh, "anything is welcome which helps to keep my mind off
+my own affairs."
+
+"It was very good of you to let me come," he declared.  "I can
+quite understand that you don't feel like seeing many people just
+now."
+
+Francis' manner, although deferential and courteous, had
+nevertheless some quality of aloofness in it to which she was
+unused and which she was quick to recognise.  The smile, faded
+from her face.  She seemed suddenly not quite so young.
+
+"Haven't I seen you before somewhere quite lately?" she asked, a
+little sharply.
+
+"You saw me at Soto's, the night that Victor Bidlake was
+murdered," he reminded her.  "I stood quite close to you both
+while you were waiting for your taxi."
+
+The animation evoked by this call from a presumably new admirer,
+suddenly left her.  She became nervous and constrained.  She
+glanced again at his card.
+
+"Don't tell me," she begged, "that you have come to ask me any
+questions about that night!  I simply could not bear it.  The
+police have been here twice, and I had nothing to tell them,
+absolutely nothing."
+
+"Quite right," he assented soothingly.  "Police have such a
+clumsy way of expecting valuable information for nothing.  I'm
+always glad to hear of their being disappointed."
+
+She studied her visitor for a moment carefully.  Then she turned
+to the table by her side, picked up a note and read it through.
+
+"Lord Southover tells me here," she said, "that you are just a
+pal of his who wants to make my acquaintance.  He doesn't say
+why."
+
+"Is that necessary?" Francis asked good-naturedly.
+
+She moved in her chair a little nervously, crossing and
+uncrossing her legs more than once.  Her white silk stockings
+underneath her black skirt were exceedingly effective, a fact of
+which she never lost consciousness, although at that moment she
+was scarcely inspired to play the coquette.
+
+"I'd like to think it wasn't," she admitted frankly.
+
+"I've seen you repeatedly upon the stage," he told her, "and,
+though musical comedy is rather out of my line, I have always
+admired you immensely."
+
+She studied him once more almost wistfully.
+
+"You look very nice," she acknowledged, "but you don't look at
+all the kind of man who admires girls who do the sort of rubbish
+I do on the stage."
+
+"What do I look like?" he asked, smiling.
+
+"A man with a purpose," she answered.
+
+"I begin to think," he ventured, "that we shall get on.  You are
+really a very astute young lady."
+
+"You are quite sure you're not one of these amateur detectives
+one reads about?" she demanded.
+
+"Certainly not," he assured her.  "I will confess that I am
+interested in Victor Bidlake's death, and I should like to
+discover the truth about it, but I have a reason for that which I
+may tell you some day.  It has nothing whatever to do with the
+young man himself.  To the best of my belief, I never saw or
+heard of him before in my life.  My interest lies with another
+person.  You have lost a great friend, I know.  If you felt
+disposed to tell me the whole story,  it might make such a
+difference."
+
+She sighed.  Her confidence was returning--also her self-pity.
+The latter at once betrayed itself.
+
+"You see," she confided, "Victor and I were engaged to be
+married, so naturally I let him help me a little.  I shan't be
+able to stay on here now.  They are bothering me about their bill
+already," she added, with a side-glance at an envelope which
+stood on a table by her side.
+
+He drew a little nearer to her.
+
+"Miss Hyslop--" he began.
+
+"Daisy," she interrupted.
+
+"Miss Daisy Hyslop, then," he continued, smiling, "I suggested
+just now that I did not want to come and bother you for
+information without any return.  If I can be of any assistance to
+you in that matter," he added, glancing towards the envelope, "I
+shall be very pleased."
+
+She sighed gratefully.
+
+"Just till Victor's people return to town," she said.  "I know
+that they mean to do something for me."
+
+"How much?" he asked.
+
+"Two hundred pounds would keep me going," she told him.
+
+He wrote out a cheque.  Miss Hyslop drew a sigh of relief as she
+laid it on one side with the envelope.  Then she swung round in
+her chair to face him where he sat at the writing-table.
+
+"I am afraid you will think that what I have to tell is very
+insignificant," she confessed.  "Victor was one of those boys who
+always fancied themselves bored.  He was bored with polo, bored
+with motoring, bored with the country and bored with town.  Then
+quite suddenly during the last few weeks he seemed changed.  All
+that he would tell me was that he had found a new interest in
+life.  I don't know what it was but I don't think it was a nice
+one.  He seemed to drop all his old friends, too, and go about
+with a new set altogether--not a nice set at all.  He used to
+stay out all night, and he quite gave up going to dances and
+places where he could take me.  Once or twice he came here in
+the afternoon, dead beat, without having been to bed at all,
+and before he could say half-a-dozen words he was asleep in my
+easy-chair.  He used to mutter such horrible things that I had
+to wake him up."
+
+"Was he ever short of money?" Francis asked.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Not seriously," she answered.  "He was quite well-off, besides
+what his people allowed him.  I was going to have a wonderful
+settlement as soon as our engagement was announced.  However, to
+go on with what I was telling you, the very night before--it
+happened--he came in to see me, looking like nothing on earth.
+He cried like a baby, behaved like a lunatic, and called himself
+all manner of names.  He had had a great deal too much to drink,
+and I gathered that he had seen something horrible.  It was then
+he asked me to dine with him the next night, and told me that he
+was going to break altogether with his new friends.  Something in
+connection with them seemed to have given him a terrible fright."
+
+Francis nodded.  He had the tact to abandon his curiosity at this
+precise point.
+
+"The old story," he declared, "bad company and rotten habits.  I
+suppose some one got to know that the young man usually carried a
+great deal of money about with him."
+
+"It was so foolish of him," she assented eagerly: "I warned him
+about it so often.  The police won't listen to it but I am
+absolutely certain that he was robbed.  I noticed when he paid
+the bill that he had a great wad of bank-notes which were never
+discovered afterwards."
+
+Francis rose to his feet.
+
+"What are you doing to-night?" he enquired.
+
+"Nothing," she acknowledged eagerly.
+
+"Then let's dine somewhere and see the show at the Frivolity," he
+suggested.
+
+"You dear man!" she assented with enthusiasm.  "The one thing I
+wanted to do, and the one person I wanted to do it with."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+It was after leaving Miss Daisy Hyslop's flat that the event to
+which Francis Ledsam had been looking forward more than anything
+else in the world, happened.  It came about entirely by chance.
+There were no taxis in the Strand.  Francis himself had finished
+work for the day, and feeling disinclined for his usual rubber of
+bridge, he strolled homewards along the Mall.  At the corner of
+Green Park, he came face to face with the woman who for the last
+few months had scarcely been out of his thoughts.  Even in that
+first moment he realised to his pain that she would have avoided
+him if she could.  They met, however, where the path narrowed,
+and he left her no chance to avoid him.  That curious impulse of
+conventionality which opens a conversation always with cut and
+dried banalities, saved them perhaps from a certain amount of
+embarrassment.  Without any conscious suggestion, they found
+themselves walking side by side.
+
+"I have been wanting to see you very much indeed," he said.  "I
+even went so far as to wonder whether I dared call."
+
+"Why should you?" she asked.  "Our acquaintance began and ended
+in tragedy.  There is scarcely any purpose in carrying it
+further."
+
+He looked at her for a moment before replying.  She was wearing
+black, but scarcely the black of a woman who sorrows.  She was
+still frigidly beautiful, redolent, in all the details of her
+toilette, of that almost negative perfection which he had learnt
+to expect from her.  She suggested to him still that same sense
+of aloofness from the actualities of life.
+
+"I prefer not to believe that it is ended," he protested.  "Have
+you so many friends that you have no room for one who has never
+consciously done you any harm?"
+
+She looked at him with some faint curiosity in her immobile
+features.
+
+"Harm?  No!  On the contrary, I suppose I ought to thank you for
+your evidence at the inquest."
+
+"Some part of it was the truth," he replied.
+
+"I suppose so," she admitted drily.  "You told it very cleverly."
+
+He looked her in the eyes.
+
+"My profession helped me to be a good witness," he said.  "As for
+the gist of my evidence, that was between my conscience and
+myself."
+
+"Your conscience?" she repeated.  "Are there really men who
+possess such things?"
+
+"I hope you will discover that for yourself some day," he
+answered.  "Tell me your plans?  Where are you living?"
+
+"For the present with my father in Curzon Street."
+
+"With Sir Timothy Brast?"
+
+She assented.
+
+"You know him?" she asked indifferently.
+
+"Very slightly," Francis replied.  "We talked together, some
+nights ago, at Soto's Restaurant.  I am afraid that I did not
+make a very favourable impression upon him.  I gathered, too,
+that he has somewhat eccentric tastes."
+
+"I do not see a great deal of my father," she said.  "We met, a
+few months ago, for the first time since my marriage, and things
+have been a little difficult between us--just at first.  He
+really scarcely ever puts in an appearance at Curzon Street.  I
+dare say you have heard that he makes a hobby of an amazing
+country house which he has down the river."
+
+"The Walled House?" he ventured.
+
+She nodded.
+
+"I see you have heard of it.  All London, they tell me, gossips
+about the entertainments there."
+
+"Are they really so wonderful?" he asked.
+
+"I have never been to one," she replied.  "As a matter of fact, I
+have spent scarcely any time in England since my marriage.  My
+husband, as I remember he told you, was fond of travelling."
+
+Notwithstanding the warm spring air he was conscious of a certain
+chilliness.  Her level, indifferent tone seemed to him almost
+abnormally callous.  A horrible realisation flashed for a moment
+in his brain.  She was speaking of the man whom she had killed!
+
+"Your father overheard a remark of mine," Francis told her.  "I
+was at Soto's with a friend--Andrew Wilmore, the novelist--and
+to tell you the truth we were speaking of the shock I experienced
+when I realised that I had been devoting every effort of which I
+was capable, to saving the life of--shall we say a criminal?
+Your father heard me say, in rather a flamboyant manner, perhaps,
+that in future I declared war against all crime and all
+criminals."
+
+She smiled very faintly, a smile which had in it no single
+element of joy or humour.
+
+"I can quite understand my father intervening," she said.  "He
+poses as being rather a patron of artistically-perpetrated crime.
+Sue is his favourite author, and I believe that he has exceedingly
+grim ideas as to duelling and fighting generally.  He was in prison
+once for six months at New Orleans for killing a man who insulted
+my mother.  Nothing in the world would ever have convinced him that
+he had not done a perfectly legitimate thing."
+
+"I am expecting to find him quite an interesting study, when I
+know him better," Francis pronounced.  "My only fear is that he
+will count me an unfriendly person and refuse to have anything to
+do with me."
+
+"I am not at all sure," she said indifferently, "that it would
+not be very much better for you if he did."
+
+"I cannot admit that," he answered, smiling.  "I think that our
+paths in life are too far apart for either of us to influence the
+other.  You don't share his tastes, do you?"
+
+"Which ones?" she asked, after a moment's silence.
+
+"Well, boxing for one," he replied.  "They tell me that he is the
+greatest living patron of the ring, both here and in America."
+
+"I have never been to a fight in my life," she confessed.  "I
+hope that I never may."
+
+"I can't go so far as that," he declared, "but boxing isn't
+altogether one of my hobbies.  Can't we leave your father and
+his tastes alone for the present?  I would rather talk about
+--ourselves.  Tell me what you care about most in life?"
+
+"Nothing," she answered listlessly.
+
+"But that is only a phase," he persisted.  "You have had terrible
+trials, I know, and they must have affected your outlook on life,
+but you are still young, and while one is young life is always
+worth having."
+
+"I thought so once," she assented.  "I don't now."
+
+"But there must be--there will be compensations," he assured her.
+"I know that just now you are suffering from the reaction--after
+all you have gone through.  The memory of that will pass."
+
+"The memory of what I have gone through will never pass," she
+answered.
+
+There was a moment's intense silence, a silence pregnant with
+reminiscent drama.  The little room rose up before his memory
+--the woman's hopeless, hating eyes, the quivering thread of steel,
+the dead man's mocking words.  He seemed at that moment to see
+into the recesses of her mind.  Was it remorse that troubled
+her, he wondered?  Did she lack strength to realise that in that
+half-hour at the inquest he had placed on record for ever his
+judgment of her deed?  Even to think of it now was morbid.
+Although he would never have confessed it even to himself, there
+was growing daily in his mind some idea of reward.  She had never
+thanked him--he hoped that she never would--but he had surely a
+right to claim some measure of her thoughts, some light place in
+her life.
+
+"Please look at me," he begged, a little abruptly.
+
+She turned her head in some surprise.  Francis was almost
+handsome in the clear Spring sunlight, his face alight with
+animation, his deep-set grey eyes full of amused yet anxious
+solicitude.  Even as she appreciated these things and became
+dimly conscious of his eager interest, her perturbation seemed to
+grow.
+
+"Well?" she ventured.
+
+"Do I look like a person who knew what he was talking about?" he
+asked.
+
+"On the whole, I should say that you did," she admitted.
+
+"Very well, then," he went on cheerfully, "believe me when I say
+that the shadow which depresses you all the time now will pass.
+I say this confidently," he added, his voice softening, "because
+I hope to be allowed to help.  Haven't you guessed that I am very
+glad indeed to see you again?"
+
+She came to a sudden standstill.  They had just passed through
+Lansdowne Passage and were in the quiet end of Curzon Street.
+
+"But you must not talk to me like that!" she expostulated.
+
+"Why not?" he demanded.  "We have met under strange and untoward
+circumstances, but are you so very different from other women?"
+
+For a single moment she seemed infinitely more human, startled, a
+little nervous, exquisitely sympathetic to an amazing and
+unexpected impression.  She seemed to look with glad but
+terrified eyes towards the vision of possible things--and then to
+realise that it was but a trick of the fancy and to come
+shivering back to the world of actualities.
+
+"I am very different," she said quietly.  "I have lived my life.
+What I lack in years has been made up to me in horror.  I have no
+desire now but to get rid of this aftermath of years as smoothly
+and quickly as possible.  I do not wish any man, Mr. Ledsam, to
+talk to me as you are doing."
+
+"You will not accept my friendship?"
+
+"It is impossible," she replied.
+
+"May I be allowed to call upon you?" he went on, doggedly.
+
+"I do not receive visitors," she answered.
+
+They were walking slowly up Curzon Street now.  She had given him
+every opportunity to leave her, opportunities to which he was
+persistently blind.  Her obstinacy had been a shock to him.
+
+"I am sorry," he said, "but I cannot accept my dismissal like
+this.  I shall appeal to your father.  However much he may
+dislike me, he has at least common-sense."
+
+She looked at him with a touch of the old horror in her
+coldly-questioning eyes.
+
+"In your way you have been kind to me," she admitted.  "Let me in
+return give you a word of advice.  Let me beg you to have nothing
+whatever to do with my father, in friendship or in enmity.
+Either might be equally disastrous.  Either, in the long run, is
+likely to cost you dear."
+
+"If that is your opinion of your father, why do you live with
+him?" he asked.
+
+She had become entirely callous again.  Her smile, with its
+mocking quality, reminded him for a moment of the man whom they
+were discussing.
+
+"Because I am a luxury and comfort-loving parasite," she answered
+deliberately, "because my father gladly pays my accounts at
+Lucille and Worth and Reville, because I have never learnt to do
+without things.  And please remember this.  My father, so far as
+I am concerned, has no faults.  He is a generous and courteous
+companion.  Nevertheless, number 70 b, Curzon Street is no place
+for people who desire to lead normal lives."
+
+And with that she was gone.  Her gesture of dismissal was so
+complete and final that he had no courage for further argument.
+He had lost her almost as soon as he had found her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Four men were discussing the verdict at the adjourned inquest
+upon Victor Bidlake, at Soto's American Bar about a fortnight
+later.  They were Robert Fairfax, a young actor in musical
+comedy, Peter Jacks, a cinema producer, Gerald Morse, a dress
+designer, and Sidney Voss, a musical composer and librettist, all
+habitues of the place and members of the little circle towards
+which the dead man had seemed, during the last few weeks of his
+life, to have become attracted.  At a table a short distance
+away, Francis Ledsam was seated with a cocktail and a dish of
+almonds before him.  He seemed to be studying an evening paper
+and to be taking but the scantiest notice of the conversation at
+the bar.
+
+"It just shows," Peter Jacks declared, "that crime is the easiest
+game in the world.  Given a reasonable amount of intelligence,
+and a murderer's business is about as simple as a sandwich-man's."
+
+"The police," Gerald Morse, a pale-faced, anaemic-looking youth,
+declared, "rely upon two things, circumstantial evidence and
+motive.  In the present case there is no circumstantial evidence,
+and as to motive, poor old Victor was too big a fool to have an
+enemy in the world."
+
+Sidney Voss, who was up for the Sheridan Club and had once been
+there, glanced respectfully across at Francis.
+
+"You ought to know something about crime and criminals, Mr.
+Ledsam," he said.  "Have you any theory about the affair?"
+
+Francis set down the glass from which he had been drinking, and,
+folding up the evening paper, laid it by the side of him.
+
+"As a matter of fact," he answered calmly, "I have."
+
+The few words, simply spoken, yet in their way charged with
+menace, thrilled through the little room.  Fairfax swung round
+upon his stool, a tall, aggressive-looking youth whose good-looks
+were half eaten up with dissipation.  His eyes were unnaturally
+bright, the cloudy remains in his glass indicated absinthe.
+
+"Listen, you fellows!" he exclaimed.  "Mr. Francis Ledsam, the
+great criminal barrister, is going to solve the mystery of poor
+old Victor's death for us!"
+
+The three other young men all turned around from the bar.  Their
+eyes and whole attention seemed rivetted upon Francis.  No one
+seemed to notice the newcomer who passed quietly to a chair in
+the background, although he was a person of some note and
+interest to all of them.  Imperturbable and immaculate as ever,
+Sir Timothy Brast smiled amiably upon the little gathering,
+summoned a waiter and ordered a Dry Martini.
+
+"I can scarcely promise to do that," Francis said slowly, his
+eyes resting for a second or two upon each of the four faces.
+"Exact solutions are a little out of my line.  I think I can
+promise to give you a shock, though, if you're strong enough to
+stand it."
+
+There was another of those curiously charged silences.  The
+bartender paused with the cocktail shaker still in his hand.
+Voss began to beat nervously upon the counter with his knuckles.
+
+"We can stand anything but suspense," he declared.  "Get on with
+your shock-giving."
+
+"I believe that the person responsible for the death of Victor
+Bidlake is in this room at the present moment," Francis declared.
+
+Again the silence, curious, tense and dramatic.  Little Jimmy,
+the bartender, who had leaned forward to listen, stood with his
+mouth slightly open and the cocktail-shaker which was in his hand
+leaked drops upon the counter.  The first conscious impulse of
+everybody seemed to be to glance suspiciously around the room.
+The four young men at the bar, Jimmy and one waiter, Francis and
+Sir Timothy Brast, were its only occupants.
+
+"I say, you know, that's a bit thick, isn't it?" Sidney Voss
+stammered at last.  "I wasn't in the place at all, I was in
+Manchester, but it's a bit rough on these other chaps, Victor's
+pals."
+
+"I was dining at the Cafe Royal," Jacks declared, loudly.
+
+Morse drew a little breath.
+
+"Every one knows that I was at Brighton," he muttered.
+
+"I went home directly the bar here closed," Jimmy said, in a
+still dazed tone.  "I heard nothing about it till the next
+morning."
+
+"Alibis by the bushel," Fairfax laughed harshly.  "As for me, I
+was doing my show--every one knows that.  I was never in the
+place at all."
+
+"The murder was not committed in the place," Francis commented
+calmly.
+
+Fairfax slid off his stool.  A spot of colour blazed in his pale
+cheeks, the glass which he was holding snapped in his fingers.
+He seemed suddenly possessed.
+
+"I say, what the hell are you getting at?" he cried.  "Are you
+accusing me--or any of us Victor's pals?"
+
+"I accuse no one," Francis replied, unperturbed.  "You invited a
+statement from me and I made it."
+
+Sir Timothy Brast rose from his place and made his way to the end
+of the counter, next to Fairfax and nearest Francis.  He
+addressed the former.  There was an inscrutable smile upon his
+lips, his manner was reassuring.
+
+"Young gentleman," he begged, "pray do not disturb yourself.  I
+will answer for it that neither you nor any of your friends are
+the objects of Mr. Leadsam's suspicion.  Without a doubt, it is I
+to whom his somewhat bold statement refers."
+
+They all stared at him, immersed in another crisis, bereft of
+speech.  He tapped a cigarette upon the counter and lit it.
+Fairfax, whose glass had just been refilled by the bartender, was
+still ghastly pale, shaking with nervousness and breathing
+hoarsely.  Francis, tense and alert in his chair, watched the
+speaker but said nothing.
+
+"You see," Sir Timothy continued, addressing himself to the four
+young men at the bar, "I happen to have two special aversions in
+life.  One is sweet champagne and the other amateur detectives
+--their stories, their methods and everything about them.  I
+chanced to sit upstairs in the restaurant, within hearing of Mr.
+Ledsam and his friend Mr. Wilmore, the novelist, the other night,
+and I heard Mr. Ledsam, very much to my chagrin, announce his
+intention of abandoning a career in which he has, if he will
+allow me to say so,"--with a courteous bow to Francis--"attained
+considerable distinction, to indulge in the moth-eaten,
+flamboyant and melodramatic antics of the lesser Sherlock Holmes.
+I fear that I could not resist the opportunity of--I think you
+young men call it--pulling his leg."
+
+Every one was listening intently, including Shopland, who had
+just drifted into the room and subsided into a chair near
+Francis.
+
+"I moved my place, therefore," Sir Timothy continued, "and I
+whispered in Mr. Ledsam's ear some rodomontade to the effect that
+if he were planning to be the giant crime-detector of the world,
+I was by ambition the arch-criminal--or words to that effect.  And
+to give emphasis to my words, I wound up by prophesying a crime
+in the immediate vicinity of the place within a few hours."
+
+"A somewhat significant prophecy, under the circumstances,"
+Francis remarked, reaching out for a dish of salted almonds and
+drawing them towards him.
+
+Sir Timothy shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly.
+
+"I will confess," he admitted, "that I had not in my mind an
+affair of such dimensions.  My harmless remark, however, has
+produced cataclysmic effects.  The conversation to which I refer
+took place on the night of young Bidlake's murder, and Mr.
+Ledsam, with my somewhat, I confess, bombastic words in his
+memory, has pitched upon me as the bloodthirsty murderer."
+
+"Hold on for a moment, sir," Peter Jacks begged, wiping the
+perspiration from his forehead.  "We've got to have another drink
+quick.  Poor old Bobby here looks knocked all of a heap, and I'm
+kind of jumpy myself.  You'll join us, sir?"
+
+"I thank you," was the courteous reply.  "I do not as a rule
+indulge to the extent of more than one cocktail, but I will
+recognise the present as an exceptional occasion.  To continue,
+then," he went on, after the glasses had been filled, "I have
+during the last few weeks experienced the ceaseless and lynx-eyed
+watch of Mr. Ledsam and presumably his myrmidons.  I do not know
+whether you are all acquainted with my name, but in case you are
+not, let me introduce myself.  I am Sir Timothy Brast, Chairman,
+as I dare say you know, of the United Transvaal Gold Mines,
+Chairman, also, of two of the principal hospitals in London, Vice
+President of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
+Animals, a patron of sport in many forms, a traveller in many
+countries, and a recipient of the honour of knighthood from His
+Majesty, in recognition of my services for various philanthropic
+works.  These facts, however, have availed me nothing now that
+the bungling amateur investigator into crime has pointed the
+finger of suspicion towards me.  My servants and neighbours have
+alike been plagued to death with cunning questions as to my life
+and habits.  I have been watched in the streets and watched in my
+harmless amusements.  My simple life has been peered into from
+every perspective and direction.  In short, I am suspect.  Mr.
+Ledsam's terrifying statement a few minutes ago was directed
+towards me and me only."
+
+There were murmurs of sympathy from the four young men, who each
+in his own fashion appeared to derive consolation from Sir
+Timothy's frank and somewhat caustic statement.  Francis, who had
+listened unmoved to this flow of words, glanced towards the door
+behind which dark figures seemed to be looming.
+
+"That is all you have to say, Sir Timothy?" he asked politely.
+
+"For the present, yes," was the guarded reply.  "I trust that I
+have succeeded in setting these young gentlemen's minds at ease."
+
+"There is one of them," Francis said gravely, "whose mind not
+even your soothing words could lighten."
+
+Shopland had risen unobtrusively to his feet.  He laid his hand
+suddenly on Fairfax's shoulder and whispered in his ear.
+Fairfax, after his first start, seemed cool enough.  He stretched
+out his hand towards the glass which as yet he had not touched;
+covered it with his fingers for a moment and drained its
+contents.  The gently sarcastic smile left Sir Timothy's lips.
+His eyebrows met in a quick frown, his eyes glittered.
+
+"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded sharply.
+
+A policeman in plain clothes had advanced from the door.  The
+manager hovered in the background.  Shopland saw that all was
+well.
+
+"It means," he announced, "that I have just arrested Mr. Robert
+Fairfax here on a charge of wilful murder.  There is a way out
+through the kitchens, I believe.  Take his other arm, Holmes.
+Now, gentlemen, if you please."
+
+There were a few bewildered exclamations--then a dramatic hush.
+Fairfax had fallen forward on his stool.  He seemed to have
+relapsed into a comatose state.  Every scrap of colour was
+drained from his sallow cheeks, his eyes were covered with a film
+and he was breathing heavily.  The detective snatched up the
+glass from which the young man had been drinking, and smelt it.
+
+"I saw him drop a tablet in just now," Jimmy faltered.  "I
+thought it was one of the digestion pills he uses sometimes."
+
+Shopland and the policeman placed their hands underneath the
+armpits of the unconscious man.
+
+"He's done, sir," the former whispered to Francis.  "We'll try
+and get him to the station if we can."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+The greatest tragedies in the world, provided they happen to
+other people, have singularly little effect upon the externals of
+our own lives.  There was certainly not a soul in Soto's that
+night who did not know that Bobby Fairfax had been arrested in
+the bar below for the murder of Victor Bidlake, had taken poison
+and died on the way to the police station.  Yet the same number
+of dinners were ordered and eaten, the same quantity of wine
+drunk.  The management considered that they had shown marvellous
+delicacy of feeling by restraining the orchestra from their usual
+musical gymnastics until after the service of dinner.
+Conversation, in consequence, buzzed louder than ever.  One
+speculation in particular absorbed the attention of every single
+person in the room--why had Bobby Fairfax, at the zenith of a
+very successful career, risked the gallows and actually accepted
+death for the sake of killing Victor Bidlake, a young man with
+whom, so far as anybody knew, he had no cause of quarrel
+whatever?  There were many theories, many people who knew the
+real facts and whispered them into a neighbour's ear, only to
+have them contradicted a few moments later.  Yet, curiously
+enough, the two men who knew most about it were the two most
+silent men in the room, for each was dining alone.  Francis, who
+had remained only in the hope that something of the sort might
+happen, was conscious of a queer sense of excitement when, with
+the service of coffee, Sir Timothy, glass in hand, moved up from
+a table lower down and with a word of apology took the vacant
+place by his side.  It was what he had desired, and yet he felt a
+thrill almost of fear at Sir Timothy's murmured words.  He felt
+that he was in the company of one who, if not an enemy, at any
+rate had no friendly feeling towards him.
+
+"My congratulations, Mr. Ledsam," Sir Timothy said quietly.  "You
+appear to have started your career with a success."
+
+"Only a partial one," Francis acknowledged, "and as a matter of
+fact I deny that I have started in any new career.  It was easy
+enough to make use of a fluke and direct the intelligence of
+others towards the right person, but when the real significance
+of the thing still eludes you, one can scarcely claim a triumph."
+
+Sir Timothy gently knocked the ash from the very fine cigar which
+he was smoking.
+
+"Still, your groundwork was good," he observed.
+
+Francis shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"That," he admitted, "was due to chance."
+
+"Shall we exchange notes?" Sir Timothy suggested gently.  "It
+might be interesting."
+
+"As you will," Francis assented.  "There is no particular secret
+in the way I stumbled upon the truth.  I was dining here that
+night, as you know, with Andrew Wilmore, and while he was
+ordering the dinner and talking to some friends, I went down to
+the American Bar to have a cocktail.  Miss Daisy Hyslop and
+Fairfax were seated there alone and talking confidentially.
+Fairfax was insisting that Miss Hyslop should do something which
+puzzled her.  She consented reluctantly, and Fairfax then hurried
+off to the theatre.  Later on, Miss Hyslop and the unfortunate
+young man occupied a table close to ours, and I happened to
+notice that she made a point of leaving the restaurant at a
+particular time.  While they were waiting in the vestibule she
+grew very impatient.  I was standing behind them and I saw her
+glance at the clock just before she insisted upon her companion's
+going out himself to look for a taxicab.  Ergo, one enquires at
+Fairfax's theatre.  For that exact three-quarters of an hour he
+is off the stage.  At that point my interest in the matter
+ceases.  Scotland Yard was quite capable of the rest."
+
+"Disappointing," Sir Timothy murmured.  "I thought at first that
+you were over-modest.  I find that I was mistaken.  It was chance
+alone which set you on the right track."
+
+"Well, there is my story, at any rate," Francis declared.  "With
+how much of your knowledge of the affair are you going to indulge
+me?"
+
+Sir Timothy slowly revolved his brandy glass.
+
+"Well," he said, "I will tell you this.  The two young men
+concerned, Bidlake and Fairfax, were both guests of mine recently
+at my country house.  They had discovered for one another a very
+fierce and reasonable antipathy.  With that recurrence to
+primitivism with which I have always been a hearty sympathiser,
+they agreed, instead of going round their little world making
+sneering remarks about each other, to fight it out."
+
+"At your suggestion, I presume?" Francis interposed.
+
+"Precisely," Sir Timothy assented.  "I recommended that course,
+and I offered them facilities for bringing the matter to a
+crisis.  The fight, indeed, was to have come off the day after
+the unfortunate episode which anticipated it."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that you knew--" Francis began.
+
+Sir Timothy checked him quietly but effectively.
+
+"I knew nothing," he said, "except this.  They were neither of
+them young men of much stomach, and I knew that the one who was
+the greater coward would probably try to anticipate the matter by
+attacking the other first if he could.  I knew that Fairfax was
+the greater coward--not that there was much to choose between
+them--and I also knew that he was the injured person.  That is
+really all there is about it.  My somewhat theatrical statement
+to you was based upon probability, and not upon any certain
+foreknowledge.  As you see, it came off."
+
+"And the cause of their quarrel?" Francis asked.
+
+"There might have been a hundred reasons," Sir Timothy observed.
+"As a matter of fact, it was the eternal one.  There is no need
+to mention a woman's name, so we will let it go at that."
+
+There was a moment's silence--a strange, unforgettable moment for
+Francis Ledsam, who seemed by some curious trick of the
+imagination to have been carried away into an impossible and
+grotesque world.  The hum of eager conversation, the popping of
+corks, the little trills of feminine laughter, all blended into
+one sensual and not unmusical chorus, seemed to fade from his
+ears.  He fancied himself in some subterranean place of vast
+dimensions, through the grim galleries of which men and women
+with evil faces crept like animals.  And towering above them,
+unreal in size, his scornful face an epitome of sin, the knout
+which he wielded symbolical and ghastly, driving his motley flock
+with the leer of the evil shepherd, was the man from whom he had
+already learnt to recoil with horror.  The picture came and went
+in a flash.  Francis found himself accepting a courteously
+offered cigar from his companion.
+
+"You see, the story is very much like many others," Sir Timothy
+murmured, as he lit a fresh Cigar himself and leaned back with
+the obvious enjoyment of the cultivated smoker.  "In every
+country of the world, the animal world as well as the human
+world, the male resents his female being taken from him.
+Directly he ceases to resent it, he becomes degenerate.  Surely
+you must agree with me, Mr. Leddam?"
+
+"It comes to this, then," Francis pronounced deliberately, "that
+you stage-managed the whole affair."
+
+Sir Timothy smiled.
+
+"It is my belief, Mr. Ledsam," he said, "that you grow more and
+more intelligent every hour."
+
+Sir Timothy glanced presently at his thin gold watch and put it
+back in his pocket regretfully.
+
+"Alas!" he sighed, "I fear that I must tear myself away.  I
+particularly want to hear the last act of 'Louise.'  The new
+Frenchwoman sings, and my daughter is alone.  You will excuse
+me."
+
+Francis nodded silently.  His companion's careless words had
+brought a sudden dazzling vision into his mind.  Sir Timothy
+scrawled his name at the foot of his bill.
+
+"It is one of my axioms in life, Mr. Ledsam," he continued, "that
+there is more pleasure to be derived from the society of one's
+enemies than one's friends.  If I thought you sufficiently
+educated in the outside ways of the world to appreciate this, I
+would ask if you cared to accompany me?"
+
+Francis did not hesitate for a moment.
+
+"Sir Timothy," he said, "I have the greatest detestation for you,
+and I am firmly convinced that you represent all the things in
+life abhorrent to me.  On the other hand, I should very much like
+to hear the last act of 'Louise,' and it would give me the
+greatest pleasure to meet your daughter.  So long as there is no
+misunderstanding."
+
+Sir Timothy laughed.
+
+"Come," he said, "we will get our hats.  I am becoming more and
+more grateful to you, Mr. Ledsam.  You are supplying something in
+my life which I have lacked.  You appeal alike to my sense of
+humour and my imagination.  We will visit the opera together."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+The two men left Soto's together, very much in the fashion of two
+ordinary acquaintances sallying out to spend the evening
+together.  Sir Timothy's Rolls-Royce limousine was in attendance,
+and in a few minutes they were threading the purlieus of Covent
+Garden.  It was here that an incident occurred which afforded
+Francis considerable food for thought during the next few days.
+
+It was a Friday night, and one or two waggons laden with
+vegetable produce were already threading their way through the
+difficult thoroughfares.  Suddenly Sir Timothy, who was looking
+out of the window, pressed the button of the car, which was at
+once brought to a standstill.  Before the footman could reach
+the door Sir Timothy was out in the street.  For the first
+time Francis saw him angry.  His eyes were blazing.  His voice
+--Francis had followed him at once into the street--shook with
+passion.  His hand had fallen heavily upon the shoulder of a huge
+carter, who, with whip in hand, was belabouring a thin scarecrow
+of a horse.
+
+"What the devil are you doing?" Sir Timothy demanded.
+
+The man stared at his questioner, and the instinctive antagonism
+of race vibrated in his truculent reply.  The carter was a
+beery-faced, untidy-looking brute, but powerfully built and with
+huge shoulders.  Sir Timothy, straight as a dart, without overcoat
+or any covering to his thin evening clothes, looked like a stripling
+in front of him.
+
+"I'm whippin' 'er, if yer want to know," was the carter's reply.
+"I've got to get up the 'ill, 'aven't I?  Garn and mind yer own
+business!"
+
+"This is my business," Sir Timothy declared, laying his hand upon
+the neck of the horse.  "I am an official of the Society for the
+Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.  You are laying yourself open
+to a fine for your treatment of this poor brute."
+
+"I'll lay myself open for a fine for the treatment of something
+else, if you don't quid 'old of my 'oss," the carter retorted,
+throwing his whip back into the waggon and coming a step nearer.
+"D'yer 'ear?  I don't want any swells interferin' with my
+business.  You 'op it.  Is that strite enough?  'Op it, quick!"
+
+Sir Timothy's anger seemed to have abated.  There was even the
+beginning of a smile upon his lips.  All the time his hand
+caressed the neck of the horse.  Francis noticed with amazement
+that the poor brute had raised his head and seemed to be making
+some faint effort at reciprocation.
+
+"My good man," Sir Timothy said, "you seem to be one of those
+brutal persons unfit to be trusted with an animal.  However--"
+
+The carter had heard quite enough.  Sir Timothy's tone seemed
+to madden him.  He clenched his fist and rushed in.
+
+"You take that for interferin', you big toff!" he shouted.
+
+The result of the man's effort at pugilism was almost ridiculous.
+His arms appeared to go round like windmills beating the air.  It
+really seemed as though he had rushed upon the point of Sir
+Timothy's knuckles, which had suddenly shot out like the piston
+of an engine.  The carter lay on his back for a moment.  Then he
+staggered viciously to his feet.
+
+"Don't," Sir Timothy begged, as he saw signs of another attack.
+"I don't want to hurt you.  I have been amateur champion of two
+countries.  Not quite fair, is it?"
+
+"Wot d'yer want to come interferin' with a chap's business for?"
+the man growled, dabbing his cheek with a filthy handkerchief but
+keeping at a respectful distance.
+
+"It happens to be my business also," Sir Timothy replied, "to
+interfere whenever I see animals ill-treated.  Now I don't want
+to be unreasonable.  That animal has done all the work it ought
+to do in this world.  How much is she worth to you?"
+
+Through the man's beer-clogged brain a gleam of cunning began to
+find its way.  He looked at the Rolls-Royce, with the two
+motionless servants on the box, at Francis standing by, at Sir
+Timothy, even to his thick understanding the very prototype of a
+"toff."
+
+"That 'oss," he said, "ain't what she was, it's true, but there's
+a lot of work in 'er yet.  She may not be much to look at but
+she's worth forty quid to me--ay, and one to spit on!"
+
+Sir Timothy counted out some notes from the pocketbook which he
+had produced, and handed them to the man.
+
+"Here are fifty pounds," he said.  "The mare is mine.  Johnson!"
+
+The second man sprang from his seat and came round.
+
+"Unharness that mare," his master ordered, "help the man push his
+trolley back out of the way, then lead the animal to the mews in
+Curzon Street.  See that she is well bedded down and has a good
+feed of corn.  To-morrow I shall send her down to the country,
+but I will come and have a look at her first."
+
+The man touched his hat and hastened to commence his task.  The
+carter, who had been busy counting the notes, thrust them into
+his pocket with a grin.
+
+"Good luck to yer, guvnor!" he shouted out, in valedictory
+fashion.  "'Ope I meets yer again when I've an old crock on the
+go."
+
+Sir Timothy turned his head.
+
+"If ever I happen to meet you, my good man," he threatened,
+"using your whip upon a poor beast who's doing his best, I
+promise you you won't get up in two minutes, or twenty ....   We
+might walk the last few yards, Mr. Ledsam."
+
+The latter acquiesced at once, and in a moment or two they were
+underneath the portico of the Opera House.  Sir Timothy had begun
+to talk about the opera but Francis was a little distrait.  His
+companion glanced at him curiously.
+
+"You are puzzled, Mr. Ledsam?" he remarked.
+
+"Very," was the prompt response.
+
+Sir Timothy smiled.
+
+"You are one of these primitive Anglo-Saxons," he said, "who can
+see the simple things with big eyes, but who are terribly worried
+at an unfamiliar constituent.  You have summed me up in your mind
+as a hardened brute, a criminal by predilection, a patron of
+murderers.  Ergo, you ask yourself why should I trouble to save a
+poor beast of a horse from being chastised, and go out of my way
+to provide her with a safe asylum for the rest of her life?
+Shall I help you, Mr. Ledsam?"
+
+"I wish you would," Francis confessed.
+
+They had passed now through the entrance to the Opera House and
+were in the corridor leading to the grand tier boxes.  On every
+side Sir Timothy had been received with marks of deep respect.
+Two bowing attendants were preceding them.  Sir Timothy leaned
+towards his companion.
+
+"Because," he whispered, "I like animals better than human
+beings."
+
+Margaret Hilditch, her chair pushed back into the recesses of the
+box, scarcely turned her head at her father's entrance.
+
+"I have brought an acquaintance of yours, Margaret," the latter
+announced, as he hung up his hat.  "You remember Mr. Ledsam?"
+
+Francis drew a little breath of relief as he bowed over her hand.
+For the second time her inordinate composure had been assailed.
+She was her usual calm and indifferent self almost immediately,
+but the gleam of surprise, and he fancied not unpleasant
+surprise, had been unmistakable.
+
+"Are you a devotee, Mr. Ledsam?" she asked.
+
+"I am fond of music," Francis answered, "especially this opera."
+
+She motioned to the chair in the front of the box, facing the
+stage.
+
+"You must sit there," she insisted.  "I prefer always to remain
+here, and my father always likes to face the audience.  I really
+believe," she went on, "that he likes to catch the eye of the
+journalist who writes little gossipy items, and to see his name
+in print."
+
+"But you yourself?" Francis ventured.
+
+"I fancy that my reasons for preferring seclusion should be
+obvious enough," she replied, a little bitterly.
+
+"My daughter is inclined, I fear, to be a little morbid," Sir
+Timothy said, settling down in his place.
+
+Francis made no reply.  A triangular conversation of this sort
+was almost impossible.  The members of the orchestra were already
+climbing up to their places, in preparation for the overture to
+the last act.  Sir Timothy rose to his feet.
+
+"You will excuse me for a moment," he begged.  "I see a lady to
+whom I must pay my respects."
+
+Francis drew a sigh of relief at his departure.  He turned at
+once to his companion.
+
+"Did you mind my coming?" he asked.
+
+"Mind it?" she repeated, with almost insolent nonchalance.  "Why
+should it affect me in any way?  My father's friends come and go.
+I have no interest in any of them."
+
+"But," he protested, "I want you to be interested in me."
+
+She moved a little uneasily in her place.  Her tone,
+nevertheless, remained icy.
+
+"Could you possibly manage to avoid personalities in your
+conversation, Mr. Ledsam?" she begged.
+
+"I have tried already to tell you how I feel about such things."
+
+She was certainly difficult.  Francis realised that with a little
+sigh.
+
+"Were you surprised to see me with your father?" he asked, a
+little inanely.
+
+"I cannot conceive what you two have found in common," she
+admitted.
+
+"Perhaps our interest in you," he replied.  "By-the-bye, I have
+just seen him perform a quixotic but a very fine action," Francis
+said.  "He stopped a carter from thrashing his horse; knocked him
+down, bought the horse from him and sent it home."
+
+She was mildly interested.
+
+"An amiable side of my father's character which no one would
+suspect," she remarked.  "The entire park of his country house at
+Hatch End is given over to broken-down animals."
+
+"I am one of those," he confessed, "who find this trait amazing."
+
+"And I am another," she remarked coolly.  "If any one settled
+down seriously to try and understand my father, he would need the
+spectacles of a De Quincey, the outlook of a Voltaire, and the
+callousness of a Borgia.  You see, he doesn't lend himself to any
+of the recognised standards."
+
+"Neither do you," he said boldly.
+
+She looked away from him across the House, to where Sir Timothy
+was talking to a man and woman in one of the ground-floor boxes.
+Francis recognised them with some surprise--an agricultural Duke
+and his daughter, Lady Cynthia Milton, one of the most, beautiful
+and famous young women in London.
+
+"Your father goes far afield for his friends," Francis remarked.
+
+"My father has no friends," she replied.  "He has many
+acquaintances.  I doubt whether he has a single confidant.  I
+expect Cynthia is trying to persuade him to invite her to his
+next party at The Walled House."
+
+"I should think she would fail, won't she?" he asked.
+
+"Why should you think that?"
+
+Francis shrugged his shoulders slightly.
+
+"Your father's entertainments have the reputation of being
+somewhat unique," he remarked.  "You do not, by-the-bye, attend
+them yourself."
+
+"You must remember that I have had very few opportunities so
+far," she observed.  "Besides, Cynthia has tastes which I do not
+share."
+
+"As, for instance?"
+
+"She goes to the National Sporting Club.  She once travelled, I
+know, over a hundred miles to go to a bull fight."
+
+"On the whole," Francis said, "I am glad that you do not share
+her tastes."
+
+"You know her?" Margaret enquired.
+
+"Indifferently well," Francis replied.  "I knew her when she was
+a child, and we seem to come together every now and then at long
+intervals.  As a debutante she was charming.  Lately it seems to
+me that she has got into the wrong set."
+
+"What do you call the wrong set?"
+
+He hesitated for a moment.
+
+"Please don't think that I am laying down the law," he said.  "I
+have been out so little, the last few years, that I ought not,
+perhaps, to criticise.  Lady Cynthia, however, seems to me to
+belong to the extreme section of the younger generation, the
+section who have a sort of craze for the unusual, whose taste in
+art and living is distorted and bizarre.  You know what I mean,
+don't you--black drawing-rooms, futurist wall-papers, opium dens
+and a cocaine box!  It's to some extent affectation, of course,
+but it's a folly that claims its victims."
+
+She studied him for a moment attentively.  His leanness was the
+leanness of muscular strength and condition, his face was full of
+vigour and determination.
+
+"You at least have escaped the abnormal," she remarked.  "I am
+not quite sure how the entertainments at The Walled House would
+appeal to you, but if my father should invite you there, I should
+advise you not to go."
+
+"Why not?" he asked.
+
+She hesitated for a moment.
+
+"I really don't know why I should trouble to give you advice,"
+she said.  "As a matter of fact, I don't care whether you go or
+not.  In any case, you are scarcely likely to be asked."
+
+"I am not sure that I agree with you," he protested.  "Your
+father seems to have taken quite a fancy to me."
+
+"And you?" she murmured.
+
+"Well, I like the way he bought that horse," Francis admitted.
+"And I am beginning to realise that there may be something in the
+theory which he advanced when he invited me to accompany him here
+this evening--that there is a certain piquancy in one's
+intercourse with an enemy, which friendship lacks.  There may be
+complexities in his character which as yet I have not
+appreciated."
+
+The curtain had gone up and the last act of the opera had
+commenced.  She leaned back in her chair.  Without a word or even
+a gesture, he understood that a curtain had been let down between
+them.  He obeyed her unspoken wish and relapsed into silence.
+Her very absorption, after all, was a hopeful sign.  She would
+have him believe that she felt nothing, that she was living
+outside all the passion and sentiment of life.  Yet she was
+absorbed in the music ....  Sir Timothy came back and seated
+himself silently.  It was not until the tumult of applause which
+broke out after the great song of the French ouvrier, that a word
+passed between them.
+
+"Cavalisti is better," Sir Timothy commented.  "This man has not
+the breadth of passion.  At times he is merely peevish."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Cavalisti would be too egotistical for the part," she said
+quietly.  "It is difficult."
+
+Not another word was spoken until the curtain fell.  Francis
+lingered for a moment over the arrangement of her cloak.  Sir
+Timothy was already outside, talking to some acquaintances.
+
+"It has been a great pleasure to see you like this unexpectedly,"
+he said, a little wistfully.
+
+"I cannot imagine why," she answered, with an undernote of
+trouble in her tone.  "Remember the advice I gave you before.  No
+good can come of any friendship between my father and you."
+
+"There is this much of good in it, at any rate," he answered, as
+he held open the door for her.  "It might give me the chance of
+seeing you sometimes."
+
+"That is not a matter worth considering," she replied.
+
+"I find it very much worth considering," he whispered, losing his
+head for a moment as they stood close together in the dim light
+of the box, and a sudden sense of the sweetness of her thrilled
+his pulses.  "There isn't anything in the world I want so much as
+to see you oftener--to have my chance."
+
+There was a momentary glow in her eyes.  Her lips quivered.  The
+few words which he saw framed there--he fancied of reproof
+--remained unspoken.  Sir Timothy was waiting for them at the
+entrance.
+
+"I have been asking Mrs. Hilditch's permission to call in Curzon
+Street," Francis said boldly.
+
+"I am sure my daughter will be delighted," was the cold but
+courteous reply.
+
+Margaret herself made no comment.  The car drew up and she
+stepped into it--a tall, slim figure, wonderfully graceful in her
+unrelieved black, her hair gleaming as though with some sort of
+burnish, as she passed underneath the electric light.  She looked
+back at him with a smile of farewell as he stood bareheaded upon
+the steps, a smile which reminded him somehow of her father, a
+little sardonic, a little tender, having in it some faintly
+challenging quality.  The car rolled away.  People around were
+gossiping--rather freely.
+
+"The wife of that man Oliver Hilditch," he heard a woman say,
+"the man who was tried for murder, and committed suicide the
+night after his acquittal.  Why, that can't be much more than
+three months ago."
+
+"If you are the daughter of a millionaire," her escort observed,
+"you can defy convention."
+
+"Yes, that was Sir Timothy Brast," another man was saying.  "He's
+supposed to be worth a cool five millions."
+
+"If the truth about him were known," his companion confided,
+dropping his voice, "it would cost him all that to keep out of
+the Old Bailey.  They say that his orgies at Hatch End-- Our
+taxi.  Come on, Sharpe."
+
+Francis strolled thoughtfully homewards.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+Francis Ledsam was himself again, the lightest-hearted and most
+popular member of his club, still a brilliant figure in the
+courts, although his appearances there were less frequent, still
+devoting the greater portion of his time, to his profession,
+although his work in connection with it had become less
+spectacular.  One morning, at the corner of Clarges Street and
+Curzon Street, about three weeks after his visit to the Opera, he
+came face to face with Sir Timothy Brast.
+
+"Well, my altruistic peerer into other people's affairs, how goes
+it?" the latter enquired pleasantly.
+
+"How does it seem, my arch-criminal, to be still breathing God's
+fresh air?" Francis retorted in the same vein.  "Make the most of
+it.  It may not last for ever."
+
+Sir Timothy smiled.  He was looking exceedingly well that
+morning, the very prototype of a man contented with life and his
+part in it.  He was wearing a morning coat and silk hat, his
+patent boots were faultlessly polished, his trousers pressed to
+perfection, his grey silk tie neat and fashionable.
+Notwithstanding his waxenlike pallor, his slim figure and lithe,
+athletic walk seemed to speak of good health.
+
+"You may catch the minnow," he murmured.  "The big fish swim on.
+By-the-bye," he added, "I do not notice that your sledge-hammer
+blows at crime are having much effect.  Two undetected murders
+last week, and one the week before.  What are you about, my
+astute friend?"
+
+"Those are matters for Scotland Yard," Francis replied, with an
+indifferent little wave of the hand which held his cigarette.
+"Details are for the professional.  I seek that corner in Hell
+where the thunders are welded and the poison gases mixed.  In
+other words, I seek for the brains of crime."
+
+"Believe me, we do not see enough of one another, my young
+friend," Sir Timothy said earnestly.  "You interest me more and
+more every time we meet.  I like your allegories, I like your
+confidence, which in any one except a genius would seem blatant.
+When can we dine together and talk about crime?"
+
+"The sooner the better," Francis replied promptly.  "Invite me,
+and I will cancel any other engagement I might happen to have."
+
+Sir Timothy considered for a moment.  The June sunshine was
+streaming down upon them and the atmosphere was a little
+oppressive.
+
+"Will you dine with me at Hatch End to-night?" he asked.  "My
+daughter and I will be alone."
+
+"I should be delighted," Francis replied promptly.  "I ought to
+tell you, perhaps, that I have called three times upon your
+daughter but have not been fortunate enough to find her at home."
+
+Sir Timothy was politely apologetic.
+
+"I fear that my daughter is a little inclined to be morbid," he
+confessed.  "Society is good for her.  I will undertake that you
+are a welcome guest."
+
+"At what time do I come and how shall I find your house?" Francis
+enquired.
+
+"You motor down, I suppose?" Sir Timothy observed.  "Good!  In
+Hatch End any one will direct you.  We dine at eight.  You had
+better come down as soon as you have finished your day's work.
+Bring a suitcase and spend the night."
+
+"I shall be delighted," Francis replied.
+
+"Do not," Sir Timothy continued, "court disappointment by
+over-anticipation.  You have without doubt heard of my little
+gatherings at Hatch End.  They are viewed, I am told, with grave
+suspicion, alike by the moralists of the City and, I fear, the
+police.  I am not inviting you to one of those gatherings.  They
+are for people with other tastes.  My daughter and I have been
+spending a few days alone in the little bungalow by the side of
+my larger house.  That is where you will find us--The Sanctuary,
+we call it."
+
+"Some day," Francis ventured, "I shall hope to be asked to one of
+your more notorious gatherings.  For the present occasion I much
+prefer the entertainment you offer."
+
+"Then we are both content," Sir Timothy said, smiling.  "Au
+revoir!"
+
+
+Francis walked across Green Park, along the Mall, down Horse
+Guards Parade, along the Embankment to his rooms on the fringe of
+the Temple.  Here he found his clerk awaiting his arrival in some
+disturbance of spirit.
+
+"There is a young gentleman here to see you, sir," he announced.
+"Mr. Reginald Wilmore his name is, I think."
+
+"Wilmore?" Francis repeated.  "What have you done with him?"
+
+"He is in your room, sir.  He seems very impatient.  He has been
+out two or three times to know how long I thought you would be."
+
+Francis passed down the stone passage and entered his room, a
+large, shady apartment at the back of the building.  To his
+surprise it was empty.  He was on the point of calling to his
+clerk when he saw that the writing-paper on his desk had been
+disturbed.  He went over and read a few lines written in a boy's
+hasty writing:
+
+DEAR Mr. LEDSAM:
+
+I am in a very strange predicament and I have come to ask your
+advice.  You know my brother Andrew well, and you may remember
+playing tennis with me last year.  I am compelled--
+
+At that point the letter terminated abruptly.  There was a blot
+and a smudge.  The pen lay where it seemed to have rolled -on the
+floor.  The ink was not yet dry.  Francis called to his clerk.
+
+"Angrave," he said, "Mr. Wilmore is not here."
+
+The clerk looked around in obvious surprise.
+
+"It isn't five minutes since he came out to my office, sir!" he
+exclaimed.  "I heard him go back again afterwards."
+
+Francis shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Perhaps he decided not to wait and you didn't hear him go by."
+
+Angrave shook his head.
+
+"I do not see how he could have left the place without my hearing
+him, sir," he declared.  "The door of my office has been open all
+the time, and I sit opposite to it.  Besides, on these stone
+floors one can hear any one so distinctly."
+
+"Then what," Francis asked, "has become of him?"
+
+The clerk shook his head.
+
+"I haven't any idea, sir," he confessed.
+
+Francis plunged into his work and forgot all about the matter.
+He was reminded of it, however, at luncheon-time, when, on
+entering the dining-room of the club, he saw Andrew Wilmore
+seated alone at one of the small tables near the wall.  He went
+over to him at once.
+
+"Hullo, Andrew," he greeted him, "what are you doing here by
+yourself?"
+
+"Bit hipped, old fellow," was the depressed reply.  "Sit down,
+will you?"
+
+Francis sat down and ordered his lunch.
+
+"By-the-bye," he said, "I had rather a mysterious visit this
+morning from your brother Reggie."
+
+Wilmore stared at him for a moment, half in relief, half in
+amazement.
+
+"Good God, Francis, you don't say so!" he exclaimed.  "How was
+he?  What did he want?  Tell me about it at once?  We've been
+worried to death about the boy."
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact, I didn't see him," Francis explained.
+"He arrived before I reached my rooms--as you know, I don't live
+there--waited some time, began to write me this note,"--drawing
+the sheet of paper from his pocket--"and when I got there had
+disappeared without leaving a message or anything."
+
+Wilmore adjusted his pince nez with trembling fingers.  Then he
+read the few lines through.
+
+"Francis," he said, when he had finished them, "do you know that
+this is the first word we've heard of him for three days?"
+
+"Great heavens!" Francis exclaimed.  "He was living with his
+mother, wasn't he?"
+
+"Down at Kensington, but he hasn't been there since Monday,"
+Andrew replied.  "His mother is in a terrible state.  And now
+this, I don't understand it at all."
+
+"Was the boy hard up?"
+
+"Not more than most young fellows are," was the puzzled reply.
+"His allowance was due in a few days, too.  He had money in the
+bank, I feel sure.  He was saving up for a motorcar."
+
+"Haven't I seen him once or twice at restaurants lately?" Francis
+enquired.  "Soto's, for instance?"
+
+"Very likely," his brother assented.  "Why not?  He's fond of
+dancing, and we none of us ever encouraged him to be a
+stay-at-home."
+
+"Any particular girl was he interested in?"
+
+"Not that we know of.  Like most young fellows of his age, he was
+rather keen on young women with some connection with the stage,
+but I don't believe there was any one in particular.  Reggie was
+too fond of games to waste much time that way.  He's at the
+gymnasium three evenings a week."
+
+"I wish I'd been at the office a few minutes earlier this
+morning," Francis observed.  "I tell you what, Andrew.  I have
+some pals down at Scotland Yard, and I'll go down and see them
+this afternoon.  They'll want a photograph, and to ask a few
+questions, I dare say, but I shouldn't talk about the matter too
+much."
+
+"You're very kind, Francis," his friend replied, "but it isn't so
+easy to sit tight.  I was going to the police myself this
+afternoon."
+
+"Take my advice and leave it to me," Francis begged.  "I have a
+particular pal down at Scotland Yard who I know will be
+interested, and I want him to take up the case."
+
+"You haven't any theory, I suppose?" Wilmore asked, a little
+wistfully.
+
+Francis shook his head.
+
+"Not the ghost of one," he admitted.  "The reason I am advising
+you to keep as quiet as possible, though, is just this.  If you
+create a lot of interest in a disappearance, you have to satisfy
+the public curiosity when the mystery is solved."
+
+"I see," Wilmore murmured.  "All the same, I can't imagine Reggie
+getting mixed up in anything discreditable."
+
+"Neither can I, from what I remember of the boy," Francis agreed.
+"Let me see, what was he doing in the City?"
+
+"He was with Jameson & Scott, the stockbrokers," Wilmore replied.
+"He was only learning the business and he had no
+responsibilities.  Curiously enough, though, when I went to see
+Mr. Jameson he pointed out one or two little matters that Reggie
+had attended to, which looked as though he were clearing up,
+somehow or other."
+
+"He left no message there, I suppose?"
+
+"Not a line or a word.  He gave the porter five shillings,
+though, on the afternoon before he disappeared--a man who has
+done some odd jobs for him."
+
+"Well, a voluntary disappearance is better than an involuntary
+one," Francis remarked.  "What was his usual programme when he
+left the office?"
+
+"He either went to Queen's and played racquets, or he went
+straight to his gymnasium in the Holborn.  I telephoned to
+Queen's.  He didn't call there on the Wednesday night, anyhow."
+
+"Where's the gymnasium?"
+
+"At 147 a Holborn.  A lot of city young men go there late in the
+evening, but Reggie got off earlier than most of them and used to
+have the place pretty well to himself.  I think that's why he
+stuck to it."
+
+Francis made a note of the address.
+
+"I'll get Shopland to step down there some time," he said.  "Or
+better still, finish your lunch and we'll take a taxi there
+ourselves.  I'm going to the country later on, but I've
+half-an-hour to spare.  We can go without our coffee and be
+there in ten minutes."
+
+"A great idea," Wilmore acquiesced.  "It's probably the last
+place Reggie visited, anyway."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+The gymnasium itself was a source of immense surprise to both
+Francis and Wilmore.  It stretched along the entire top storey of
+a long block of buildings, and was elaborately fitted with
+bathrooms, a restaurant and a reading-room.  The trapezes, bars,
+and all the usual appointments were of the best possible quality.
+The manager, a powerful-looking man dressed with the precision of
+the prosperous city magnate, came out of his office to greet
+them.
+
+"What can I do for you, gentlemen?" he enquired.
+
+"First of all," Francis replied, "accept our heartiest
+congratulations upon your wonderful gymnasium."
+
+The man bowed.
+
+"It is the best appointed in the country, sir," he said proudly.
+"Absolutely no expense has been spared in fitting it up.  Every
+one of our appliances is of the latest possible description, and
+our bathrooms are an exact copy of those in a famous Philadelphia
+club."
+
+"What is the subscription?" Wilmore asked.
+
+"Five shillings a year."
+
+"And how many members?"
+
+"Two thousand."
+
+The manager smiled as he saw his two visitors exchange puzzled
+glances.
+
+"Needless to say, sir," he added, "we are not self-supporting.
+We have very generous patrons."
+
+"I lave heard my brother speak of this place as being quite
+wonderful," Wilmore remarked, "but I had no idea that it was upon
+this scale."
+
+"Is your brother a member?" the man asked.
+
+"He is.  To tell you the truth, we came here to ask you a
+question about him."
+
+"What is his name?"
+
+"Reginald Wilmore.  He was here, I think, last Wednesday night."
+
+While Wilmore talked, Francis watched.  He was conscious of a
+curious change in the man's deportment at the mention of Reginald
+Wilmore's name.  From being full of bumptious, almost
+condescending good-nature, his expression had changed into one of
+stony incivility.  There was something almost sinister in the
+tightly-closed lips and the suspicious gleam in his eyes.
+
+"What questions did you wish to ask?" he demanded.
+
+"Mr. Reginald Wilmore has disappeared," Francis explained simply.
+"He came here on leaving the office last Monday.  He has not been
+seen or heard of since."
+
+"Well?" the manager asked.
+
+"We came to ask whether you happen to remember his being here on
+that evening, and whether he gave any one here any indication of
+his future movements.  We thought, perhaps, that the instructor
+who was with him might have some information."
+
+"Not a chance," was the uncompromising reply.  "I remember Mr.
+Wilmore being here perfectly.  He was doing double turns on the
+high bar.  I saw more of him myself than any one.  I was with him
+when he went down to have his swim."
+
+"Did he seem in his usual spirits?" Wilmore ventured.
+
+"I don't notice what spirits my pupils are in," the man answered,
+a little insolently.  "There was nothing the matter with him so
+far as I know."
+
+"He didn't say anything about going away?"
+
+"Not a word.  You'll excuse me, gentlemen--"
+
+"One moment," Francis interrupted.  "We came here ourselves
+sooner than send a detective.  Enquiries are bound to be made as
+to the young man's disappearance, and we have reason to know that
+this is the last place at which he was heard of.  It is not
+unreasonable, therefore, is it, that we should come to you for
+information?"
+
+"Reasonable or unreasonable, I haven't got any," the man declared
+gruffly.  "If Mr. Wilmore's cleared out, he's cleared out for
+some reason of his own.  It's not my business and I don't know
+anything about it."
+
+"You understand," Francis persisted, "that our interest in young
+Mr. Wilmore is entirely a friendly one?"
+
+"I don't care whether it's friendly or unfriendly.  I tell you I
+don't know anything about him.  And," he added, pressing his
+thumb upon the button for the lift, "I'll wish you two gentlemen
+good afternoon.  I've business to attend to."
+
+Francis looked at him curiously.
+
+"Haven't I seen you somewhere before?" he asked, a little
+abruptly.
+
+"I can't say.  My name is John Maclane."
+
+"Heavy-weight champion about seven years ago?"
+
+"I was," the man acknowledged.  "You may have seen me in the
+ring.  Now, gentlemen, if you please."
+
+The lift had stopped opposite to them.  The manager's gesture of
+dismissal was final.
+
+"I am sorry, Mr. Maclane, if we have annoyed you with our
+questions," Francis said.  "I wish you could remember a little
+more of Mr. Wilmore's last visit."
+
+"Well, I can't, and that's all there is to it," was the blunt
+reply.  "As to being annoyed, I am only annoyed when my time's
+wasted.  Take these gents down, Jim.  Good afternoon!"
+
+The door was slammed to and they shot downwards.  Francis turned
+to the lift man.
+
+"Do you know a Mr. Wilmore who comes here sometimes?" he asked.
+
+"Not likely!" the man scoffed.  "They're comin' and goin' all the
+time from four o'clock in the afternoon till eleven at night.  If
+I heard a name I shouldn't remember it.  This way out,
+gentlemen."
+
+Wilmore's hand was in his pocket but the man turned deliberately
+away.  They walked out into the street.
+
+"For downright incivility," the former observed, "commend me to
+the attendants of a young men's gymnasium!"
+
+Francis smiled.
+
+"All the same, old fellow," he said, "if you worry for another
+five minutes about Reggie, you're an ass."
+
+At six o'clock that evening Francis turned his two-seater into a
+winding drive bordered with rhododendrons, and pulled up before
+the porch of a charming two-storied bungalow, covered with
+creepers, and with French-windows opening from every room onto
+the lawns.  A man-servant who had heard the approach of the car
+was already standing in the porch.  Sir Timothy, in white
+flannels and a panama hat, strolled across the lawn to greet his
+approaching guest.
+
+"Excellently timed, my young friend," he said.  "You will have
+time for your first cocktail before you change.  My daughter you
+know, of course.  Lady Cynthia Milton I think you also know."
+
+Francis shook hands with the two girls who were lying under the
+cedar tree.  Margaret Hilditch seemed to him more wonderful than
+ever in her white serge boating clothes.  Lady Cynthia, who had
+apparently just arrived from some function in town, was still
+wearing muslin and a large hat.
+
+"I am always afraid that Mr. Ledsam will have forgotten me," she
+observed, as she gave him her hand.  "The last time I met you was
+at the Old Bailey, when you had been cheating the gallows of a
+very respectable wife murderer.  Poynings, I think his name was."
+
+"I remember it perfectly," Francis assented.  "We danced together
+that night, I remember, at your aunt's, Mrs. Malcolm's, and you
+were intensely curious to know how Poynings had spent his
+evening."
+
+"Lady Cynthia's reminder is perhaps a little unfortunate," Sir
+Timothy observed.  "Mr. Ledsam is no longer the last hope of the
+enterprising criminal.  He has turned over a new leaf.  To secure
+the services of his silver tongue, you have to lay at his feet no
+longer the bags of gold from your ill-gotten gains but the white
+flower of the blameless life."
+
+"This is all in the worst possible taste," Margaret Hilditch
+declared, in her cold, expressionless tone.  "You might consider
+my feelings."
+
+Lady Cynthia only laughed.
+
+"My dear Margaret," she said, "if I thought that you had any, I
+should never believe that you were your father's daughter.
+Here's to them, anyway," she added, accepting the cocktail from
+the tray which the butler had just brought out.  "Mr. Ledsam, are
+you going to attach yourself to me, or has Margaret annexed you?"
+
+"I have offered myself to Mrs. Hilditch," Francis rejoined
+promptly, "but so far I have made no impression."
+
+"Try her with a punt and a concertina after dinner," Lady Cynthia
+suggested.  "After all, I came down here to better my
+acquaintance with my host.  You flirted with me disgracefully
+when I was a debutante, and have never taken any notice of me
+since.  I hate infidelity in a man.  Sir Timothy, I shall devote
+myself to you.  Can you play a concertina?"
+
+"Where the higher forms of music are concerned," he replied, "I
+have no technical ability.  I should prefer to sit at your feet."
+
+"While I punt, I suppose?"
+
+"There are backwaters," he suggested.
+
+Lady Cynthia sipped her cocktail appreciatively.
+
+"I wonder how it is," she observed, "that in these days, although
+we have become callous to everything else in life, cocktails and
+flirtations still attract us.  You shall take me to a backwater
+after dinner, Sir Timothy.  I shall wear my silver-grey and take
+an armful of those black cushions from the drawing-room.  In that
+half light, there is no telling what success I may not achieve."
+
+Sir Timothy sighed.
+
+"Alas!" he said, "before dinner is over you will probably have
+changed your mind."
+
+"Perhaps so," she admitted, "but you must remember that Mr.
+Ledsam is my only alternative, and I am not at all sure that he
+likes me.  I am not sufficiently Victorian for his taste."
+
+The dressing-bell rang.  Sir Timothy passed his arm through
+Francis'.
+
+"The sentimental side of my domain;" he said, "the others may
+show you.  My rose garden across the stream has been very much
+admired.  I am now going to give you a glimpse of The Walled
+House, an edifice the possession of which has made me more or
+less famous."
+
+He led the way through a little shrubbery, across a further strip
+of garden and through a door in a high wall, which he opened with
+a key attached to his watch-chain.  They were in an open park
+now, studded with magnificent trees, in the further corner of
+which stood an imposing mansion, with a great domed roof in the
+centre, and broad stone terraces, one of which led down to the
+river.  The house itself was an amazingly blended mixture of old
+and new, with great wings supported by pillars thrown out on
+either side.  It seemed to have been built without regard to any
+definite period of architecture, and yet to have attained a
+certain coherency--a far-reaching structure, with long lines of
+outbuildings.  In the park itself were a score or more of horses,
+and in the distance beyond a long line of loose boxes with open
+doors.  Even as they stood there, a grey sorrel mare had trotted
+up to their side and laid her head against Sir Timothy's
+shoulder.  He caressed her surreptitiously, affecting not to
+notice the approach of other animals from all quarters.
+
+"Let me introduce you to The Walled House," its owner observed,
+"so called, I imagine, because this wall, which is a great deal
+older than you or I, completely encloses the estate.  Of course,
+you remember the old house, The Walled Palace, they called it?
+It belonged for many years to the Lynton family, and afterwards
+to the Crown."
+
+"I remember reading of your purchase," Francis said, "and of
+course I remember the old mansion.  You seem to have wiped it out
+pretty effectually."
+
+"I was obliged to play the vandal," his host confessed.  "In its
+previous state, the house was picturesque but uninhabitable.  As
+you see it now, it is an exact reproduction of the country home
+of one of the lesser known of the Borgias--Sodina, I believe the
+lady's name was.  You will find inside some beautiful arches, and
+a sense of space which all modern houses lack.  It cost me a
+great deal of money, and it is inhabited, when I am in Europe,
+about once a fortnight.  You know the river name for it?
+'Timothy's Folly!"'
+
+"But what on earth made you build it, so long as you don't care
+to live there?" Francis enquired.
+
+Sir Timothy smiled reflectively.
+
+"Well," he explained, "I like sometimes to entertain, and I like
+to entertain, when I do, on a grand scale.  In London, if I give
+a party, the invitations are almost automatic.  I become there a
+very insignificant link in the chain of what is known as Society,
+and Society practically helps itself to my entertainment, and
+sees that everything is done according to rule.  Down here things
+are entirely different.  An invitation to The Walled House is a
+personal matter.  Society has nothing whatever to do with my
+functions here.  The reception-rooms, too, are arranged according
+to my own ideas.  I have, as you may have heard, the finest
+private gymnasium in England.  The ballroom and music-room and
+private theatre, too, are famous."
+
+"And do you mean to say that you keep that huge place empty?"
+Francis asked curiously.
+
+"I have a suite of rooms there which I occasionally occupy," Sir
+Timothy replied, "and there are always thirty or forty servants
+and attendants of different sorts who have their quarters there.
+I suppose that my daughter and I would be there at the present
+moment but for the fact that we own this cottage.  Both she and
+I, for residential purposes, prefer the atmosphere there."
+
+"I scarcely wonder at it," Francis agreed.
+
+They were surrounded now by various quadrupeds.  As well as the
+horses, half-a-dozen of which were standing patiently by Sir
+Timothy's side, several dogs had made their appearance and after
+a little preliminary enthusiasm had settled down at his feet.
+He leaned over and whispered something in the ear of the mare who
+had come first.  She trotted off, and the others followed suit in
+a curious little procession.  Sir Timothy watched them, keeping
+his head turned away from Francis.
+
+"You recognise the mare the third from the end?" he pointed out.
+"That is the animal I bought in Covent Garden.  You see how she
+has filled out?"
+
+"I should never have recognised her," the other confessed.
+
+"Even Nero had his weaknesses," Sir Timothy remarked, waving the
+dogs away.  "My animals' quarters are well worth a visit, if you
+have time.  There is a small hospital, too, which is quite up to
+date."
+
+"Do any of the horses work at all?" Francis asked.
+
+Sir Timothy smiled.
+
+"I will tell you a very human thing about my favourites," he
+said.  "In the gardens on the other side of the house we have
+very extensive lawns, and my head groom thought he would make use
+of one of a my horses who had recovered from a serious accident
+and was really quite a strong beast, for one of the machines.  He
+found the idea quite a success, and now he no sooner appears in
+the park with a halter than, instead of stampeding, practically
+every one of those horses comes cantering up with the true
+volunteering spirit.  The one which he selects, arches his neck
+and goes off to work with a whole string of the others following.
+Dodsley--that is my groom's name--tells me that he does a great
+deal more mowing now than he need, simply because they worry him
+for the work.  Gratitude, you see, Mr. Ledsam, sheer gratitude.
+If you were to provide a dozen alms-houses for your poor
+dependants, I wonder how many of them would be anxious to mow
+your lawn....  Come, let me show you your room now."
+
+They passed back through the postern-gate into the gardens of The
+Sanctuary.  Sir Timothy led the way towards the house.
+
+"I am glad that you decided to spend the night, Mr. Ledsam," he
+said.  "The river sounds a terribly hackneyed place to the
+Londoner, but it has beauties which only those who live with it
+can discover.  Mind your head.  My ceilings are low."
+
+Francis followed his host along many passages, up and down
+stairs, until he reached a little suite of rooms at the extreme
+end of the building.  The man-servant who had unpacked his bag
+stood waiting.  Sir Timothy glanced around critically.
+
+"Small but compact," he remarked.  "There is a little sitting-room
+down that stair, and a bathroom beyond.  If the flowers annoy you,
+throw them out of the window.  And if you prefer to bathe in the
+river to-morrow morning, Brooks here will show you the diving pool.
+I am wearing a short coat myself to-night, but do as you please.
+We dine at half-past eight."
+
+Sir Timothy disappeared with a courteous little inclination of the
+head.  Francis dismissed the manservant at once as being out of
+keeping with his quaint and fascinating surroundings.  The tiny
+room with its flowers, its perfume of lavender, its old-fashioned
+chintzes, and its fragrant linen, might still have been a room in
+a cottage.  The sitting-room, with its veranda looking down upon
+the river, was provided with cigars, whisky and soda and
+cigarettes; a bookcase, with a rare copy of Rabelais, an original
+Surtees, a large paper Decameron, and a few other classics.  Down
+another couple of steps was a perfectly white bathroom, with shower
+and plunge.  Francis wandered from room to room, and finally threw
+himself into a chair on the veranda to smoke a cigarette.  From
+the river below him came now and then the sound of voices.  Through
+the trees on his right he could catch a glimpse, here and there, of
+the strange pillars and green domed roof of the Borghese villa.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+It was one of those faultless June evenings when the only mission
+of the faintly stirring breeze seems to be to carry perfumes from
+garden to garden and to make the lightest of music amongst the
+rustling leaves.  The dinner-table had been set out of doors,
+underneath the odorous cedar-tree.  Above, the sky was an arc of
+the deepest blue through which the web of stars had scarcely yet
+found its way.  Every now and then came the sound of the splash
+of oars from the river; more rarely still, the murmur of light
+voices as a punt passed up the stream.  The little party at The
+Sanctuary sat over their coffee and liqueurs long after the fall
+of the first twilight, till the points of their cigarettes glowed
+like little specks of fire through the enveloping darkness.
+Conversation had been from the first curiously desultory, edited,
+in a way, Francis felt, for his benefit.  There was an atmosphere
+about his host and Lady Cynthia, shared in a negative way by
+Margaret Hilditch, which baffled Francis.  It seemed to establish
+more than a lack of sympathy--to suggest, even, a life lived upon
+a different plane.  Yet every now and then their references to
+everyday happenings were trite enough.  Sir Timothy had assailed
+the recent craze for drugs, a diatribe to which Lady Cynthia had
+listened in silence for reasons which Francis could surmise.
+
+"If one must soothe the senses," Sir Timothy declared, "for the
+purpose of forgetting a distasteful or painful present, I cannot
+see why the average mind does not turn to the contemplation of
+beauty in some shape or other.  A night like to-night is surely
+sedative enough.  Watch these lights, drink in these perfumes,
+listen to the fall and flow of the water long enough, and you
+would arrive at precisely the same mental inertia as though you
+had taken a dose of cocaine, with far less harmful an aftermath."
+
+Lady Cynthia shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Cocaine is in one's dressing-room," she objected, "and beauty is
+hard to seek in Grosvenor Square."
+
+"The common mistake of all men," Sir Timothy continued, "and
+women, too, for the matter of that, is that we will persist in
+formulating doctrines for other people.  Every man or woman is an
+entity of humanity, with a separate heaven and a separate hell.
+No two people can breathe the same air in the same way, or see
+the same picture with the same eyes."
+
+Lady Cynthia rose to her feet and shook out the folds of her
+diaphanous gown, daring alike in its shapelessness and
+scantiness.  She lit a cigarette and laid her hand upon Sir
+Timothy's arm.
+
+"Come," she said, "must I remind you of your promise?  You are to
+show me the stables at The Walled House before it is dark."
+
+"You would see them better in the morning," he reminded her,
+rising with some reluctance to his feet.
+
+"Perhaps," she answered, "but I have a fancy to see them now."
+
+Sir Timothy looked back at the table.
+
+"Margaret," he said, "will you look after Mr. Ledsam for a little
+time?  You will excuse us, Ledsam?  We shall not be gone long."
+
+They moved away together towards the shrubbery and the door in
+the wall behind.  Francis resumed his seat.
+
+"Are you not also curious to penetrate the mysteries behind the
+wall, Mr. Ledsam?" Margaret asked.
+
+"Not so curious but that I would much prefer to remain here," he
+answered.
+
+"With me?"
+
+"With you."
+
+She knocked the ash from her cigarette.  She was looking directly
+at him, and he fancied that there was a gleam of curiosity in her
+beautiful eyes.  There was certainly a little more abandon about
+her attitude.  She was leaning back in a corner of her high-backed
+chair, and her gown, although it lacked the daring of Lady Cynthia's,
+seemed to rest about her like a cloud of blue-grey smoke.
+
+"What a curious meal!" she murmured.  "Can you solve a puzzle for
+me, Mr. Ledsam?"
+
+"I would do anything for you that I could," he answered.
+
+"Tell me, then, why my father asked you here to-night?  I can
+understand his bringing you to the opera, that was just a whim of
+the moment, but an invitation down here savours of deliberation.
+Studiously polite though you are to one another, one is conscious
+all the time of the hostility beneath the surface."
+
+"I think that so far as your father is concerned, it is part of
+his peculiar disposition," Francis replied.  "You remember he
+once said that he was tired of entertaining his friends--that
+there was more pleasure in having an enemy at the board."
+
+"Are you an enemy, Mr. Ledsam?" she asked curiously.
+
+He rose a little abruptly to his feet, ignoring her question.
+There were servants hovering in the background.
+
+"Will you walk with me in the gardens?" he begged.  "Or may I
+take you upon the river?"
+
+She rose to her feet.  For a moment she seemed to hesitate.
+
+"The river, I think," she decided.  "Will you wait for three
+minutes while I get a wrap.  You will find some punts moored to
+the landing-stage there in the stream.  I like the very largest
+and most comfortable."
+
+Francis strolled to the edge of the stream, and made his choice
+of punts.  Soon a servant appeared with his arms full of
+cushions, and a moment or two later, Margaret herself, wrapped in
+an ermine cloak.  She smiled a little deprecatingly as she picked
+her way across the lawn.
+
+"Don't laugh at me for being such a chilly mortal, please," she
+enjoined.  "And don't be afraid that I am going to propose a long
+expedition.  I want to go to a little backwater in the next
+stream."
+
+She settled herself in the stern and they glided down the narrow
+thoroughfare.  The rose bushes from the garden almost lapped the
+water as they passed.  Behind, the long low cottage, the deserted
+dinner-table, the smooth lawn with its beds of scarlet geraniums
+and drooping lilac shrubs in the background, seemed like a scene
+from fairyland, to attain a perfection of detail unreal, almost
+theatrical.
+
+"To the right when you reach the river, please," she directed.
+"You will find there is scarcely any current.  We turn up the
+next stream."
+
+There was something almost mysterious, a little impressive, about
+the broad expanse of river into which they presently turned.
+Opposite were woods and then a sloping lawn.  From a house hidden
+in the distance they heard the sound of a woman singing.  They
+even caught the murmurs of applause as she concluded.  Then there
+was silence, only the soft gurgling of the water cloven by the
+punt pole.  They glided past the front of the great unlit house,
+past another strip of woodland, and then up a narrow stream.
+
+"To the left here," she directed, "and then stop."
+
+They bumped against the bank.  The little backwater into which
+they had turned seemed to terminate in a bed of lilies whose
+faint fragrance almost enveloped them.  The trees on either side
+made a little arch of darkness.
+
+"Please ship your pole and listen," Margaret said dreamily.
+"Make yourself as comfortable as you can.  There are plenty of
+cushions behind you.  This is where I come for silence."
+
+Francis obeyed her orders without remark.  For a few moments,
+speech seemed impossible.  The darkness was so intense that
+although he was acutely conscious of her presence there, only a
+few feet away, nothing but the barest outline of her form was
+visible.  The silence which she had brought him to seek was all
+around them.  There was just the faintest splash of water from
+the spot where the stream and the river met, the distant barking
+of a dog, the occasional croaking of a frog from somewhere in the
+midst of the bed of lilies.  Otherwise the silence and the
+darkness were like a shroud.  Francis leaned forward in his
+place.  His hands, which gripped the sides of the punt, were hot.
+The serenity of the night mocked him.
+
+"So this is your paradise," he said, a little hoarsely.
+
+She made no answer.  Her silence seemed to him more thrilling
+than words.  He leaned forward.  His hands fell upon the soft fur
+which encompassed her.  They rested there.  Still she did not
+speak.  He tightened his grasp, moved further forward, the
+passion surging through his veins, his breath almost failing him.
+He was so near now that he heard her breathing, saw her face, as
+pale as ever.  Her lips were a little parted, her eyes looked
+out, as it seemed to him, half in fear, half in hope.  He bent
+lower still.  She neither shrank away nor invited him.
+
+"Dear!" he whispered.
+
+Her arms stole from underneath the cloak, her fingers rested upon
+his shoulders.  He scarcely knew whether it was a caress or
+whether she were holding him from her.  In any case it was too
+late.  With a little sob of passion his lips were pressed to
+hers.  Even as she closed her eyes, the scent of the lilies
+seemed to intoxicate him.
+
+He was back in his place without conscious movement.  His pulses
+were quivering, the passion singing in his blood, the joy of her
+faint caress living proudly in his memory.  It had been the
+moment of his life, and yet even now he felt sick at heart with
+fears, with the torment of her passiveness.  She had lain there
+in his arms, he had felt the thrill of her body, some quaint
+inspiration had told him that she had sought for joy in that
+moment and had not wholly failed.  Yet his anxiety was
+tumultuous, overwhelming.  Then she spoke, and his heart leaped
+again.  Her voice was more natural.  It was not a voice which he
+had ever heard before.
+
+"Give me a cigarette, please--and I want to go back."
+
+He leaned over her again, struck a match with trembling fingers
+and gave her the cigarette.  She smiled at him very faintly.
+
+"Please go back now," she begged.  "Smoke yourself, take me home
+slowly and say nothing."
+
+He obeyed, but his knees were shaking when he stood up.  Slowly,
+a foot at a time, they passed from the mesh of the lilies out
+into the broad stream.  Almost as they did so, the yellow rim of
+the moon came up over the low hills.  As they turned into their
+own stream, the light was strong enough for him to see her face.
+She lay there like a ghost, her eyes half closed, the only touch
+of colour in the shining strands of her beautiful hair.  She
+roused herself a little as they swung around.  He paused, leaning
+upon the pole.
+
+"You are not angry?" he asked.
+
+"No, I am not angry," she answered.  "Why should I be?  But I
+cannot talk to you about it tonight."
+
+They glided to the edge of the landing-stage.  A servant appeared
+and secured the punt.
+
+"Is Sir Timothy back yet?" Margaret enquired.
+
+"Not yet, madam."
+
+She turned to Francis.
+
+"Please go and have a whisky and soda in the smoking-room," she
+said, pointing to the open French windows.  "I am going to my
+favourite seat.  You will find me just across the bridge there."
+
+He hesitated, filled with a passionate disinclination to leave
+her side even for a moment.  She seemed to understand but she
+pointed once more to the room.
+
+"I should like very much," she added, "to be alone for five
+minutes.  If you will come and find me then--please!"
+
+Francis stepped through the French windows into the smoking-room,
+where all the paraphernalia for satisfying thirst were set out
+upon the sideboard.  He helped himself to whisky and soda and
+drank it absently, with his eyes fixed upon the clock.  In five
+minutes he stepped once more back into the gardens, soft and
+brilliant now in the moonlight.  As he did so, he heard the click
+of the gate in the wall, and footsteps.  His host, with Lady
+Cynthia upon his arm, came into sight and crossed the lawn
+towards him.  Francis, filled though his mind was with other
+thoughts, paused for a moment and glanced towards them curiously.
+Lady Cynthia seemed for a moment to have lost all her weariness.
+Her eyes were very bright, she walked with a new spring in her
+movements.  Even her voice, as she addressed Francis, seemed
+altered.
+
+"Sir Timothy has been showing me some of the wonders of his
+villa--do you call it a villa or a palace?" she asked.
+
+"It is certainly not a palace," Sir Timothy protested, "and I
+fear that it has scarcely the atmosphere of a villa.  It is an
+attempt to combine certain ideas of my own with the requirements
+of modern entertainment.  Come and have a drink with us, Ledsam."
+
+"I have just had one," Francis replied.  "Mrs. Hilditch is in the
+rose garden and I am on my way to join her."
+
+He passed on and the two moved towards the open French windows.
+He crossed the rustic bridge that led into the flower garden,
+turned down the pergola and came to a sudden standstill before
+the seat which Margaret had indicated.  It was empty, but in the
+corner lay the long-stalked lily which she had picked in the
+backwater.  He stood there for a moment, transfixed.  There were
+other seats and chairs in the garden, but he knew before he
+started his search that it was in vain.  She had gone.  The
+flower, drooping a little now though the stalk was still wet with
+the moisture of the river, seemed to him like her farewell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+Francis was surprised, when he descended for breakfast the next
+morning, to find the table laid for one only.  The butler who was
+waiting, handed him the daily papers and wheeled the electric
+heater to his side.
+
+"Is no one else breakfasting?" Francis asked.
+
+"Sir Timothy and Mrs. Hilditch are always served in their rooms,
+sir.  Her ladyship is taking her coffee upstairs."
+
+Francis ate his breakfast, glanced through the Times, lit a
+cigarette and went round to the garage for his car.  The butler
+met him as he drove up before the porch.
+
+"Sir Timothy begs you to excuse him this morning, sir," he
+announced.  "His secretary has arrived from town with a very
+large correspondence which they are now engaged upon."
+
+"And Mrs. Hilditch?" Francis ventured.
+
+"I have not seen her maid this morning, sir," the man replied,
+"but Mrs. Hilditch never rises before midday.  Sir Timothy hopes
+that you slept well, sir, and would like you to sign the
+visitors' book."
+
+Francis signed his name mechanically, and was turning away when
+Lady Cynthia called to him from the stairs.  She was dressed for
+travelling and followed by a maid, carrying her dressing-case.
+
+"Will you take me up to town, Mr. Ledsam?" she asked.
+
+"Delighted," he answered.
+
+Their dressing-cases were strapped together behind and Lady
+Cynthia sank into the cushions by his side.  They drove away from
+the house, Francis with a backward glance of regret.  The striped
+sun-blinds had been lowered over all the windows, thrushes and
+blackbirds were twittering on the lawn, the air was sweet with
+the perfume of flowers, a boatman was busy with the boats.  Out
+beyond, through the trees, the river wound its placid way.
+
+"Quite a little paradise," Lady Cynthia murmured.
+
+"Delightful," her companion assented.  "I suppose great wealth
+has its obligations, but why any human being should rear such a
+structure as what he calls his Borghese villa, when he has a
+charming place like that to live in, I can't imagine."
+
+Her silence was significant, almost purposeful.  She unwound the
+veil from her motoring turban, took it off altogether and
+attached it to the cushions of the car with a hatpin.
+
+"There," she said, leaning back, "you can now gaze upon a
+horrible example to the young women of to-day.  You can see the
+ravages which late hours, innumerable cocktails, a thirst for
+excitement, a contempt of the simple pleasures of life, have
+worked upon my once comely features.  I was quite good-looking,
+you know, in the days you first knew me."
+
+"You were the most beautiful debutante of your season," he
+agreed.
+
+"What do you think of me now?" she asked.
+
+She met his gaze without flinching.  Her face was unnaturally
+thin, with disfiguring hollows underneath her cheekbones; her
+lips lacked colour; even her eyes were lustreless.  Her hair
+seemed to lack brilliancy.  Only her silken eyebrows remained
+unimpaired, and a certain charm of expression which nothing
+seemed able to destroy.
+
+"You look tired," he said.
+
+"Be honest, my dear man," she rejoined drily.  "I am a physical
+wreck, dependent upon cosmetics for the looks which I am still
+clever enough to palm off on the uninitiated."
+
+"Why don't you lead a quieter life?" he asked.  "A month or so in
+the country would put you all right."
+
+She laughed a little hardly.  Then for a moment she looked at him
+appraisingly.
+
+"I was going to speak to you of nerves," she said, "but how would
+you ever understand?  You look as though you had not a nerve in
+your body.  I can't think how you manage it, living in London.  I
+suppose you do exercises and take care of what you eat and
+drink."
+
+"I do nothing of the sort," he assured her indignantly.  "I eat
+and drink whatever I fancy.  I have always had a direct object in
+life--my work--and I believe that has kept me fit and well.
+Nerve troubles come as a rule, I think, from the under-used
+brain."
+
+"I must have been born with a butterfly disposition," she said.
+"I am quite sure that mine come because I find it so hard to be
+amused.  I am sure I am most enterprising.  I try whatever comes
+along, but nothing satisfies me."
+
+"Why not try being in love with one of these men who've been in
+love with you all their lives?"
+
+She laughed bitterly.
+
+"The men who have cared for me and have been worth caring about,"
+she said, "gave me up years ago.  I mocked at them when they were
+in earnest, scoffed at sentiment, and told them frankly that when
+I married it would only be to find a refuge for broader life.
+The right sort wouldn't have anything to say to me after that,
+and I do not blame them.  And here is the torture of it.  I can't
+stand the wrong sort near me--physically, I mean.  Mind, I
+believe I'm attracted towards people with criminal tastes and
+propensities.  I believe that is what first led me towards Sir
+Timothy.  Every taste I ever had in life seems to have become
+besmirched.  I'm all the time full of the craving to do horrible
+things, but all the same I can't bear to be touched.  That's the
+torment of it.  I wonder if you can understand?"
+
+"I think I can," he answered.  "Your trouble lies in having the
+wrong friends and in lack of self-discipline.  If you were my
+sister, I'd take you away for a fortnight and put you on the road
+to being cured."
+
+"Then I wish I were your sister," she sighed.
+
+"Don't think I'm unsympathetic," he went on, "because I'm not.
+Wait till we've got into the main road here and I'll try and
+explain."
+
+They were passing along a country lane, so narrow that twigs
+from the hedges, wreathed here and there in wild roses, brushed
+almost against their cheeks.  On their left was the sound of a
+reaping-machine and the perfume of new-mown hay.  The sun was
+growing stronger at every moment.  A transitory gleam of pleasure
+softened her face.
+
+"It is ages since I smelt honeysuckle," she confessed, "except in
+a perfumer's shop.  I was wondering what it reminded me of."
+
+"That," he said, as they turned out into the broad main road,
+with its long vista of telegraph poles, "is because you have been
+neglecting the real for the sham, flowers themselves for their
+artificially distilled perfume.  What I was going to try and put
+into words without sounding too priggish, Lady Cynthia," he went
+on, "is this.  It is just you people who are cursed with a
+restless brain who are in the most dangerous position, nowadays.
+The things which keep us healthy and normal physically--games,
+farces, dinner-parties of young people, fresh air and exercise
+--are the very things which after a time fail to satisfy the
+person with imagination.  You want more out of life, always the
+something you don't understand, the something beyond.  And so you
+keep on trying new things, and for every new thing you try, you
+drop an old one.  Isn't it something like that?"
+
+"I suppose it is," she admitted wearily.
+
+"Drugs take the place of wholesome wine," he went on, warming to
+his subject.  "The hideous fascination of flirting with the
+uncouth or the impossible some way or another, stimulates a
+passion which simple means have ceased to gratify.  You seek for
+the unusual in every way--in food, in the substitution of
+absinthe for your harmless Martini, of cocaine for your
+stimulating champagne.  There is a horrible wave of all this
+sort of thing going on to-day in many places, and I am afraid,"
+he concluded, "that a great many of our very nicest young women
+are caught up in it."
+
+"Guilty," she confessed. "Now cure me."
+
+"I could point out the promised land, but how, could I lead you
+to it?" he answered.
+
+"You don't like me well enough," she sighed.
+
+"I like you better than you believe," he assured her, slackening
+his speed a little.  "We have met, I suppose, a dozen times in
+our lives.  I have danced with you here and there, talked
+nonsense once, I remember, at a musical reception--"
+
+"I tried to flirt with you then," she interrupted.
+
+He nodded.
+
+"I was in the midst of a great case," he said, "and everything
+that happened to me outside it was swept out of my mind day by
+day.  What I was going to say is that I have always liked you,
+from the moment when your mother presented me to you at your
+first dance."
+
+"I wish you'd told me so," she murmured.
+
+"It wouldn't have made any difference," he declared.  "I wasn't
+in a position to think of a duke's daughter, in those days.  I
+don't suppose I am now."
+
+"Try," she begged hopefully.
+
+He smiled back at her.  The reawakening of her sense of humour
+was something.
+
+"Too late," he regretted.  "During the last month or so the thing
+has come to me which we all look forward to, only I don't think
+fate has treated me kindly.  I have always loved normal ways and
+normal people, and the woman I care for is different."
+
+"Tell me about her?" she insisted.
+
+"You will be very surprised when I tell you her name," he said.
+"It is Margaret Hilditch."
+
+She looked at him for a moment in blank astonishment.
+
+"Heavens!" she exclaimed.  "Oliver Hilditch's wife!"
+
+"I can't help that," he declared, a little doggedly.  "She's had
+a miserable time, I know.  She was married to a scamp.  I'm not
+quite sure that her father isn't as bad a one.  Those things
+don't make any difference."
+
+"They wouldn't with you," she said softly.  "Tell me, did you say
+anything to her last night?"
+
+"I did," he replied.  "I began when we were out alone together.
+She gave me no encouragement to speak of, but at any rate she
+knows."
+
+Lady Cynthia leaned a little forward in her place.
+
+"Do you know where she is now?"
+
+He was a little startled.
+
+"Down at the cottage, I suppose.  The butler told me that she
+never rose before midday."
+
+"Then for once the butler was mistaken," his companion told him.
+"Margaret Hilditch left at six o'clock this morning.  I saw her
+in travelling clothes get into the car and drive away."
+
+"She left the cottage this morning before us?" Francis repeated,
+amazed.
+
+"I can assure you that she did," Lady Cynthia insisted.  "I never
+sleep, amongst my other peculiarities," she went on bitterly,
+"and I was lying on a couch by the side of the open window when
+the car came for her.  She stopped it at the bend of the avenue
+--so that it shouldn't wake us up, I suppose.  I saw her get in
+and drive away."
+
+Francis was silent for several moments.  Lady Cynthia watched him
+curiously.
+
+"At any rate," she observed, "in whatever mood she went away this
+morning, you have evidently succeeded in doing what I have never
+seen any one else do--breaking through her indifference.  I
+shouldn't have thought that anything short of an earthquake would
+have stirred Margaret, these days."
+
+"These days?" he repeated quickly.  "How long have you known
+her?"
+
+"We were at school together for a short time," she told him.  "It
+was while her father was in South America.  Margaret was a very
+different person in those days."
+
+"However was she induced to marry a person like Oliver Hilditch?"
+Francis speculated.
+
+His companion shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Who knows?" she answered indifferently.  "Are you going to drop
+me?"
+
+"Wherever you like."
+
+"Take me on to Grosvenor Square, if you will, then," she begged,
+"and deposit me at the ancestral mansion.  I am really rather
+annoyed about Margaret," she went on, rearranging her veil.  "I
+had begun to have hopes that you might have revived my taste for
+normal things."
+
+"If I had had the slightest intimation--" he murmured.
+
+"It would have made no difference," she interrupted dolefully.
+"Now I come to think of it, the Margaret whom I used to know--and
+there must be plenty of her left yet--is just the right type of
+woman for you."
+
+They drew up outside the house in Grosvenor Square.  Lady Cynthia
+held out her hand.
+
+"Come and see me one afternoon, will you?" she invited.
+
+"I'd like to very much," he replied.
+
+She lingered on the steps and waved her hand to him--a graceful,
+somewhat insolent gesture.
+
+"All the same, I think I shall do my best to make you forget
+Margaret," she called out.  "Thanks for the lift up.  A bientot!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+Francis drove direct from Grosvenor Square to his chambers in the
+Temple, and found Shopland, his friend from Scotland Yard,
+awaiting his arrival.
+
+"Any news?" Francis enquired.
+
+"Nothing definite, I am sorry, to say," was the other's reluctant
+admission.
+
+Francis hung up his hat, threw himself into his easy-chair and
+lit a cigarette.
+
+"The lad's brother is one of my oldest friends, Shopland," he
+said.  "He is naturally in a state of great distress."
+
+The detective scratched his chin thoughtfully.
+
+"I said 'nothing definite' just now, sir," he observed.  "As a
+rule, I never mention suspicions, but with you it is a different
+matter.  I haven't discovered the slightest trace of Mr. Reginald
+Wilmore, or the slightest reason for his disappearance.  He seems
+to have been a well-conducted young gentleman, a little
+extravagant, perhaps, but able to pay his way and with nothing
+whatever against him.  Nothing whatever, that is to say, except
+one almost insignificant thing."
+
+"And that?"
+
+"A slight tendency towards bad company, sir.  I have heard of his
+being about with one or two whom we are keeping our eye upon."
+
+"Bobby Fairfax's lot, by any chance?"
+
+Shopland nodded.
+
+"He was with Jacks and Miss Daisy Hyslop, a night or two before
+he disappeared.  I am not sure that a young man named Morse
+wasn't of the party, too."
+
+"What do you make of that lot?" Francis asked curiously.  "Are
+they gamesters, dope fiends, or simply vicious?"
+
+The detective was silent.  He was gazing intently at his rather
+square-toed shoes.
+
+"There are rumours, sir," he said, presently, "of things going on
+in the West End which want looking into very badly--very badly
+indeed.  You will remember speaking to me of Sir Timothy Brast?"
+
+"I remember quite well," Francis acknowledged.
+
+"I've nothing to go on," the other continued.  "I am working
+almost on your own lines, Mr. Ledsam, groping in the dark to find
+a clue, as it were, but I'm beginning to have ideas about Sir
+Timothy Brast, just ideas."
+
+"As, for instance?"
+
+"Well, he stands on rather queer terms with some of his
+acquaintances, sir.  Now you saw, down at Soto's Bar, the night
+we arrested Mr. Fairfax, that not one of those young men there
+spoke to Sir Timothy as though they were acquainted, nor he to
+them.  Yet I happened to find out that every one of them,
+including Mr. Fairfax himself, was present at a party Sir Timothy
+Brast gave at his house down the river a week or two before."
+
+"I'm afraid there isn't much in that," Francis declared.  "Sir
+Timothy has the name of being an eccentric person everywhere,
+especially in this respect--he never notices acquaintances.  I
+heard, only the other day, that while he was wonderfully
+hospitable and charming to all his guests, he never remembered
+them outside his house."
+
+Shopland nodded.
+
+"A convenient eccentricity," he remarked, a little drily.  "I
+have heard the same thing myself.  You spent the night at his
+country cottage, did you not, Mr. Ledsam?  Did he offer to show
+you over The Walled House?"
+
+"How the dickens did you know I was down there?" Francis
+demanded, with some surprise.  "I was just thinking as I drove up
+that I hadn't left my address either here or at Clarges Street."
+
+"Next time you visit Sir Timothy," the detective observed, "I
+should advise you to do so.  I knew you were there, Mr. Ledsam,
+because I was in the neighbourhood myself.  I have been doing a
+little fishing, and keeping my eye on that wonderful estate of
+Sir Timothy's."
+
+Francis was interested.
+
+"Shopland," he said, "I believe that our intelligences, such as
+they are, are akin."
+
+"What do you suspect Sir Timothy of?" the detective asked
+bluntly.
+
+"I suspect him of nothing," Francis replied.  "He is simply, to
+my mind, an incomprehensible, somewhat sinister figure, who might
+be capable of anything.  He may have very excellent qualities
+which he contrives to conceal, or he may be an arch-criminal.  His
+personality absolutely puzzles me."
+
+There was a knock at the door and Angrave appeared.  Apparently
+he had forgotten Shopland's presence, for he ushered in another
+visitor.
+
+"Sir Timothy Brast to see you, sir," he announced.
+
+The moment was one of trial to every one, admirably borne.
+Shopland remained in his chair, with only a casual glance at the
+newcomer.  Francis rose to his feet with a half-stifled
+expression of anger at the clumsiness of his clerk.  Sir Timothy,
+well-shaven and groomed, attired in a perfectly-fitting suit of
+grey flannel, nodded to Francis in friendly fashion and laid his
+Homburg hat upon the table with the air of a familiar.
+
+"My dear Ledsam," he said, "I do hope that you will excuse this
+early call.  I could only have been an hour behind you on the
+road.  I dare say you can guess what I have come to see you
+about.  Can we have a word together?"
+
+"Certainly," was the ready reply.  "You remember my friend
+Shopland, Sir Timothy?  It was Mr. Shopland who arrested young
+Fairfax that night at Soto's."
+
+"I remember him perfectly," Sir Timothy declared.  "I fancied,
+directly I entered, that your face was familiar," he added,
+turning to Shopland.  "I am rather ashamed of myself about that
+night.  My little outburst must have sounded almost ridiculous to
+you two.  To tell you the truth, I quite failed at that time to
+give Mr. Ledsam credit for gifts which I have since discovered
+him to possess."
+
+"Mr. Shopland and I are now discussing another matter," Francis
+went on, pushing a box of cigarettes towards Sir Timothy, who was
+leaning against the table in an easy attitude.  "Don't go,
+Shopland, for a minute.  We were consulting together about the
+disappearance of a young man, Reggie Wilmore, the brother of a
+friend of mine--Andrew Wilmore, the novelist."
+
+"Disappearance?" Sir Timothy repeated, as he lit a cigarette.
+"That is rather a vague term."
+
+"The young man has been missing from home for over a week,"
+Francis said, "and left no trace whatever of his whereabouts.
+He was not in financial trouble, he does not seem to have been
+entangled with any young woman, he had not quarrelled with his
+people, and he seems to have been on the best of terms with the
+principal at the house of business where he was employed.  His
+disappearance, therefore, is, to say the least of it, mysterious."
+
+Sir Timothy assented gravely.
+
+"The lack of motive to which you allude," he pointed out, "makes
+the case interesting.  Still, one must remember that London is
+certainly the city of modern mysteries.  If a new 'Arabian
+Nights' were written, it might well be about London.  I dare say
+Mr. Shopland will agree with me," he continued, turning
+courteously towards the detective, "that disappearances of this
+sort are not nearly so uncommon as the uninitiated would believe.
+For one that is reported in the papers, there are half-a-dozen
+which are not.  Your late Chief Commissioner, by-the-bye," he
+added meditatively, "once a very intimate friend of mine, was my
+informant."
+
+"Where do you suppose they disappear to?" Francis enquired.
+
+"Who can tell?" was the speculative reply.  "For an adventurous
+youth there are a thousand doors which lead to romance.  Besides,
+the lives of none of us are quite so simple as they seem.  Even
+youth has its secret chapters.  This young man, for instance,
+might be on his way to Australia, happy in the knowledge that he
+has escaped from some murky chapter of life which will now never
+be known.  He may write to his friends, giving them a hint.  The
+whole thing will blow over."
+
+"There may be cases such as you suggest, Sir Timothy," the
+detective said quietly.  "Our investigations, so far as regards
+the young man in question, however, do not point that way."
+
+Sir Timothy turned over his cigarette to look at the name of the
+maker.
+
+"Excellent tobacco," he murmured.  "By-the-bye, what did you say
+the young man's name was?"
+
+"Reginald Wilmore," Francis told him.
+
+"A good name," Sir Timothy murmured.  "I am sure I wish you both
+every good fortune in your quest.  Would it be too much to ask
+you now, Mr. Ledsam, for that single minute alone?"
+
+"By no means," Francis answered.
+
+"I'll wait in the office, if I may," Shopland suggested, rising
+to his feet.  "I want to have another word with you before I go."
+
+"My business with Mr. Ledsam is of a family nature," Sir Timothy
+said apologetically, as Shopland passed out.  "I will not keep
+him for more than a moment."
+
+Shopland closed the door behind him.  Sir Timothy waited until he
+heard his departing footsteps.  Then he turned back to Francis.
+
+"Mr. Ledsam," he said, "I have come to ask you if you know
+anything of my daughter's whereabouts?"
+
+"Nothing whatever," Francis replied.  "I was on the point of
+ringing you up to ask you the same question."
+
+"Did she tell you that she was leaving The Sanctuary?"
+
+"She gave me not the slightest intimation of it," Francis assured
+his questioner, "in fact she invited me to meet her in the rose
+garden last night.  When I arrived there, she was gone.  I have
+heard nothing from her since."
+
+"You spent the evening with her?"
+
+"To my great content."
+
+"What happened between you?"
+
+"Nothing happened.  I took the opportunity, however, of letting
+your daughter understand the nature of my feelings for her."
+
+"Dear me!  May I ask what they are?"
+
+"I will translate them into facts," Francis replied.  "I wish
+your daughter to become my wife."
+
+"You amaze me!" Sir Timothy exclaimed, with the old mocking smile
+at his lips.  "How can you possibly contemplate association with
+the daughter of a man whom you suspect and distrust as you do
+me?"
+
+"If I suspect and distrust you, it is your own fault," Francis
+reminded him.  "You have declared yourself to be a criminal and a
+friend of criminals.  I am inclined to believe that you have
+spoken the truth.  I care for that fact just as little as I care
+for the fact that you are a millionaire, or that Margaret has
+been married to a murderer.  I intend her to become my wife."
+
+"Did you encourage her to leave me?"
+
+"I did not.  I had not the slightest idea that she had left The
+Sanctuary until Lady Cynthia told me, halfway to London this
+morning."
+
+Sir Timothy was silent for several moments.
+
+"Have you any idea in your own mind," he persisted, "as to where
+she has gone and for what purpose?"
+
+"Not the slightest in the world," Francis declared.  "I am just
+as anxious to hear from her; and to know where she is, as you
+seem to be."
+
+Sir Timothy sighed.
+
+"I am disappointed," he admitted.  "I had hoped to obtain some
+information from you.  I must try in another direction."
+
+"Since you are here, Sir Timothy," Francis said, as his visitor
+prepared to depart, "may I ask whether you have any objection to
+my marrying your daughter?"
+
+Sir Timothy frowned.
+
+"The question places me in a somewhat difficult position," he
+replied coldly.  "In a certain sense I have a liking for you.
+You are not quite the ingenuous nincompoop I took you for on the
+night of our first meeting.  On the other hand, you have
+prejudices against me.  My harmless confession of sympathy with
+criminals and their ways seems to have stirred up a cloud of
+suspicion in your mind.  You even employ a detective to show the
+world what a fool he can look, sitting in a punt attempting to
+fish, with one eye on the supposed abode of crime."
+
+"I have nothing whatever to do with the details of Shopland's
+investigations," Francis protested.  "He is in search of Reggie
+Wilmore."
+
+"Does he think I have secret dungeons in my new abode," Sir
+Timothy demanded, "or oubliettes in which I keep and starve
+brainless youths for some nameless purpose?  Be reasonable, Mr.
+Ledsam.  What the devil benefit could accrue to me from abducting
+or imprisoning or in any way laying my criminal hand upon this
+young man?"
+
+"None whatever that we have been able to discover as yet,"
+Francis admitted.
+
+"A leaning towards melodrama, admirable in its way, needs the
+leaven of a well-balanced discretion and a sense of humour," Sir
+Timothy observed.  "The latter quality is as a rule singularly
+absent amongst the myrmidons of Scotland Yard.  I do not think
+that Mr. Shopland will catch even fish in the neighbourhood of
+The Walled House.  As regards your matrimonial proposal, let us
+waive that until my daughter returns."
+
+"As you will," Francis agreed.  "I will be frank to this extent,
+at any rate.  If I can persuade your daughter to marry me, your
+consent will not affect the matter."
+
+"I can leave Margaret a matter of two million pounds," Sir
+Timothy said pensively.
+
+"I have enough money to support my wife myself," Francis
+observed.
+
+"Utopian but foolish," Sir Timothy declared.  "All the same, Mr.
+Ledsam, let me tell you this.  You have a curious attraction for
+me.  When I was asked why I had invited you to The Sanctuary last
+night, I frankly could not answer the question.  I didn't know.
+I don't know.  Your dislike of me doesn't seem to affect the
+question.  I was glad to have you there last night.  It pleases
+me to hear you talk, to hear your views of things.  I feel that I
+shall have to be very careful, Mr. Ledsam, or--"
+
+"Or what?" Francis demanded.
+
+"Or I shall even welcome the idea of having you for a son-in-law,"
+Sir Timothy concluded reluctantly.  "Make my excuses to Mr.
+Shopland.  Au revoir!"
+
+Shopland came in as the door closed behind the departing visitor.
+He listened to all that Francis had to say, without comment.
+
+"If The Walled House," he said at last, "is so carefully guarded
+that Sir Timothy has been informed of my watching the place and
+has been made aware of my mild questionings, it must be because
+there is something to conceal.  I may or may not be on the track
+of Mr. Reginald Wilmore, but," the detective concluded, "of one
+thing I am becoming convinced--The Walled House will pay for
+watching."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+It was a day when chance was kind to Francis.  After leaving his
+rooms at the Temple, he made a call at one of the great clubs in
+Pall Mall, to enquire as to the whereabouts of a friend.  On his
+way back towards the Sheridan, he came face to face with Margaret
+Hilditch, issuing from the doors of one of the great steamship
+companies.  For a moment he almost failed to recognise her.  She
+reminded him more of the woman of the tea-shop.  Her costume,
+neat and correct though it was, was studiously unobtrusive.  Her
+motoring veil, too, was obviously worn to assist her in escaping
+notice.
+
+She, too, came to a standstill at seeing him.  Her first
+ejaculations betrayed a surprise which bordered on consternation.
+Then Francis, with a sudden inspiration, pointed to the long
+envelope which she was carrying in her hand.
+
+"You have been to book a passage somewhere!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Well?"
+
+The monosyllable was in her usual level tone.  Nevertheless, he
+could see that she was shaken:
+
+"You were going away without seeing me again?"' he asked
+reproachfully.
+
+"Yes!" she admitted.
+
+"Why?"
+
+She looked up and down a little helplessly.
+
+"I owe you no explanation for my conduct," she said. "Please let
+me pass."
+
+"Could we talk for a few minutes, please?" he begged.  "Tell me
+where you were going?"
+
+"Oh, back to lunch, I suppose," she answered.
+
+"Your father has been up, looking for you," he told her.
+
+"I telephoned to The Sanctuary," she replied.  "He had just
+left."
+
+"I am very anxious," he continued, "not to distress you, but I
+cannot let you go away like this.  Will you come to my rooms and
+let us talk for a little time?"
+
+She made no answer.  Somehow, he realised that speech just then
+was difficult.  He called a taxi and handed her in.  They drove
+to Clarges Street in silence.  He led the way up the stairs, gave
+some quick orders to his servant whom he met coming down, ushered
+her into his sitting-room and saw her ensconced in an easy-chair.
+
+"Please take off that terrible veil," he begged.
+
+"It is pinned on to my hat," she told him.
+
+"Then off with both," he insisted.  "You can't eat luncheon like
+that.  I'm not going to try and bully you.  If you've booked your
+passage to Timbuctoo and you really want to go--why, you must.  I
+only want the chance of letting you know that I am coming after
+you."
+
+She took off her hat and veil and threw them on to the sofa,
+glancing sideways at a mirror let into the door of a cabinet.
+
+"My hair is awful," she declared:
+
+He laughed gaily, and turned around from the sideboard, where he
+was busy mixing cocktails.
+
+"Thank heavens for that touch of humanity!" he exclaimed.  "A
+woman who can bother about her hair when she takes her hat off,
+is never past praying for.  Please drink this."
+
+She obeyed.  He took the empty glass away from her.  Then he came
+over to the hearthrug by her side.
+
+"Do you know that I kissed you last night?" he reminded her.
+
+"I do," she answered.  "That is why I have just paid eighty-four
+pounds for a passage to Buenos Ayres."
+
+"I should have enjoyed the trip," he said.  "Still, I'm glad I
+haven't to go."
+
+"Do you really mean that you would have come after me?" she asked
+curiously.
+
+"Of course I should," he assured her.  "Believe me, there isn't
+such an obstinate person in the world as the man of early
+middle-age who suddenly discovers the woman he means to marry."
+
+"But you can't marry me," she protested.
+
+"Why not?" he asked.
+
+"Because I was Oliver Hilditch's wife, for one thing."
+
+"Look here," he said, "if you had been Beelzebub's wife, it
+wouldn't make the least difference to me.  You haven't given me
+much of a chance to tell you so yet, Margaret, but I love you."
+
+She sat a little forward in her chair.  Her eyes were fixed upon
+his wonderingly.
+
+"But how can you?" she exclaimed.  "You know, nothing of me except
+my associations, and they have been horrible.  What is there to
+love in me?  I am a frozen-up woman.  Everything is dead here,"
+she went on, clasping her hand to her heart.  "I have no
+sentiment, no passion, nothing but an animal desire to live my
+life luxuriously and quickly."
+
+He smiled confidently.  Then, with very little warning, he sank
+on one knee, drew her face to his, kissed her lips and then her
+eyes.
+
+"Are you so sure of all these things, Margaret?" he whispered.
+"Don't you think it is, perhaps, because there has been no one to
+care for you as I do--as I shall--to the end of my days?  The
+lily you left on your chair last night was like you--fair and
+stately and beautiful, but a little bruised.  You will come back
+as it has done, come back to the world.  My love will bring you.
+My care.  Believe it, please!"
+
+Then he saw the first signs of change in her face.  There was
+the faintest shade of almost shell-like pink underneath the
+creamy-white of her cheeks.  Her lips were trembling a little,
+her eyes were misty.  With a sudden passionate little impulse,
+her arms were around his neck, her lips sought his of their
+own accord.
+
+"Let me forget," she sobbed.  "Kiss me let me forget!"
+
+Francis' servant was both heavy-footed and discreet.  When he
+entered the room with a tray, his master was standing at the
+sideboard.
+
+"I've done the best I could, sir," he announced, a little
+apologetically.  "Shall I lay the cloth?"
+
+"Leave everything on the tray, Brooks," Francis directed.  "We
+will help ourselves.  In an hour's time bring coffee."
+
+The man glanced around the room.
+
+"There are glasses on the sideboard, sir, and the corkscrew is
+here.  I think you will have everything you want."
+
+He departed, closing the door behind him.  Francis held out his
+hands to Margaret.  She rose slowly to her feet, looked in the
+glass helplessly and then back at him.  She was very beautiful
+but a little dazed.
+
+"Are we going to have luncheon?" she asked.
+
+"Of course," he answered.  "Did you think I meant to starve you?"
+
+He picked up the long envelope which she had dropped upon the
+carpet, and threw it on to the sofa.  Then he drew up two chairs
+to the table, and opened a small bottle of champagne.
+
+"I hope you won't mind a picnic," he said.  "Really, Brooks
+hasn't done so badly--pate de foie gras, hot toast and Devonshire
+butter.  Let me spread some for you.  A cold chicken afterwards,
+and some strawberries.  Please be hungry, Margaret."
+
+She laughed at him.  It occurred to him suddenly, with a little
+pang, that he had never heard her laugh before.  It was like
+music.
+
+"I'm too happy," she murmured.
+
+"Believe me," he assured her, as he buttered a piece of toast,
+"happiness and hunger might well be twins.  They go so well
+together.  Misery can take away one's appetite.  Happiness, when
+one gets over the gulpiness of it, is the best tonic in the
+world.  And I never saw any one, dear, with whom happiness agreed
+so well," he added, pausing in his task to bend over and kiss
+her.  "Do you know you are the most beautiful thing on earth?  It
+is a lucky thing we are going to live in England, and that these
+are sober, matter-of-fact days, or I should find myself committed
+to fighting duels all the time."
+
+She had a momentary relapse.  A look of terror suddenly altered
+her face.  She caught at his wrist.
+
+"Don't!" she cried.  "Don't talk about such things!"
+
+He was a little bewildered.  The moment passed.  She laughed
+almost apologetically.
+
+"Forgive me," she begged, "but I hate the thought of fighting of
+any sort.  Some day I'll explain."
+
+"Clumsy ass I was!" he declared, completing his task and setting
+the result before her.  "Now how's that for a first course?
+Drink a little of your wine."
+
+He leaned his glass against hers.
+
+"My love," he whispered, "my love now, dear, and always, and
+you'll find it quite strong enough," he went on, "to keep you
+from all the ugly things.  And now away with sentiment.  I had a
+very excellent but solitary breakfast this morning, and it seems
+a long time ago."
+
+"It seems amazing to think that you spent last night at The
+Sanctuary," she reflected.
+
+"And that you and I were in a punt," he reminded her, "in the
+pool of darkness where the trees met, and the lilies leaned over
+to us."
+
+"And you nearly upset the punt."
+
+"Nothing of the sort!  As a matter of fact, I was very careful.
+But," he proceeded, with a sudden wave of memory, "I don't think
+my heart will ever beat normally again.  It seemed as though it
+would tear its way out of my side when I leaned towards you, and
+you knew, and you lay still."
+
+She laughed.
+
+"You surely didn't expect I was going to get up?  It was quite
+encouragement enough to remain passive.  As a matter of fact,"
+she went on, "I couldn't have moved.  I couldn't have uttered a
+sound.  I suppose I must have been like one of those poor birds
+you read about, when some devouring animal crouches for its last
+spring."
+
+"Compliments already!" he remarked.  "You won't forget that my
+name is Francis, will you?  Try and practise it while I carve the
+chicken."
+
+"You carve very badly, Francis," she told him demurely.
+
+"My dear," he said, "thank heavens we shall be able to afford a
+butler!  By-the-bye, I told your father this morning that I was
+going to marry you, and he didn't seem to think it possible
+because he had two million pounds."
+
+"Braggart!" she murmured.  "When did you see my father?"
+
+"He came to my rooms in the Temple soon after I arrived this
+morning.  He seemed to think I might know where you were.  I dare
+say he won't like me for a son-in-law," Francis continued with a
+smile.  "I can't help that.  He shouldn't have let me go out with
+you in a punt."
+
+There was a discreet knock at the door.  Brooks made his
+apologetic and somewhat troubled entrance.
+
+"Sir Timothy Brast is here to see you, sir," he announced.
+"I ventured to say that you were not at home--"
+
+"But I happened to know otherwise," a still voice remarked from
+outside.  "May I come in, Mr. Ledsam?"
+
+Sir Timothy stepped past the servant, who at a sign from Francis
+disappeared, closing the door behind him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+After his first glance at Sir Timothy, Francis' only thought was
+for Margaret.  To his intense relief, she showed no signs
+whatever of terror, or of any relapse to her former state.  She
+was entirely mistress of herself and the occasion.  Sir Timothy's
+face was cold and terrible.
+
+"I must apologise for this second intrusion, Mr. Ledsam," he said
+cuttingly.  "I think you will admit that the circumstances
+warrant it.  Am I to understand that you lied to me this
+morning?"
+
+"You are to understand nothing of the sort," Francis answered.
+"I told you everything I knew at that time of your daughter's
+movements."
+
+"Indeed!" Sir Timothy murmured.  "This little banquet, then, was
+unpremeditated?"
+
+"Entirely," Francis replied.  "Here is the exact truth, so far as
+I am concerned.  I met your daughter little more than an hour
+ago, coming out of a steamship office, where she had booked a
+passage to Buenos Ayres to get away from me.  I was fortunate
+enough to induce her to change her mind.  She has consented
+instead to remain in England as my wife.  We were, as you see,
+celebrating the occasion."
+
+Sir Timothy laid his hat upon the sideboard and slowly removed
+his gloves.
+
+"I trust," he said, "that this pint bottle does not represent
+your cellar.  I will drink a glass of wine with you, and with
+your permission make myself a pate sandwich.  I was just sitting
+down to luncheon when I received the information which brought me
+here."
+
+Francis produced another bottle of wine from the sideboard and
+filled his visitor's glass.
+
+"You will drink, I hope, to our happiness," he said.
+
+"I shall do nothing of the sort," Sir Timothy declared, helping
+himself with care to the pate.  "I have no superstitions about
+breaking bread with an enemy, or I should not have asked you to
+visit me at The Sanctuary, Mr. Ledsam.  I object to your marriage
+with my daughter, and I shall take what steps I can to prevent
+it."
+
+"Why?"
+
+Sir Timothy did not at once reply.  He seemed to be enjoying his
+sandwich; he also appreciated the flavour of his wine.
+
+"Your question," he said, "strikes me as being a little
+ingenuous.  You are at the present moment suspecting me of crimes
+beyond number.  You encourage Scotland Yard detectives to make
+asses of themselves in my stream.  Your myrmidons scramble on to
+the top of my walls and try to bribe my servants to disclose the
+mysteries of my household.  You have accepted to the fullest
+extent my volunteered statement that I am a patron of crime.  You
+are, in short--forgive me if I help myself to a little more of
+this pate--engaged in a strenuous attempt to bring me to
+justice."
+
+"None of these things affects your daughter," Francis pointed out.
+
+"Pardon me," Sir Timothy objected.  "You are a great and shining
+light of the English law.  People speak of you as a future
+Chancellor.  How can you contemplate an alliance with the widow
+of one criminal and the daughter of another?"
+
+"As to Margaret being Oliver Hilditch's widow," Francis replied,
+"you were responsible for that, and no one else.  He was your
+protege; you gave your consent to the marriage.  As to your being
+her father, that again is not Margaret's fault.  I should marry
+her if Oliver Hilditch had been three times the villain he was,
+and if you were the Devil himself."
+
+"I am getting quite to like you, Mr. Ledsam," Sir Timothy
+declared, helping himself to another piece of toast and
+commencing to butter it.  "Margaret, what have you to say about
+all this?"
+
+"I have nothing to say," she answered.  "Francis is speaking for
+me.  I never dreamed that after what I have gone through I should
+be able to care for any one again in this world.  I do care, and
+I am very happy about it.  All last night I lay awake, making up
+my mind to run away, and this morning I actually booked my
+passage to Buenos Ayres.  Then we met--just outside the steamship
+office--and I knew at once that I was making a mistake.  I shall
+marry Francis exactly when he wants me to."
+
+Sir Timothy passed his glass towards his proposed son-in-law.
+
+"Might one suggest," he began--"thank you very much.  This is of
+course very upsetting to me.  I seem to be set completely at
+defiance.  It is a very excellent wine, this, and a wonderful
+vintage."
+
+Francis bent over Margaret.
+
+"Please finish your lunch, dear," he begged.  "It is perhaps just
+as well that your father came.  We shall know exactly where we
+are."
+
+"Just so," Sir Timothy agreed.
+
+There was a queer constrained silence for several moments.  Then
+Sir Timothy leaned back in his chair and with a word of apology
+lit a cigarette.
+
+"Let us," he said, "consider the situation.  Margaret is my
+daughter.  You wish to marry her.  Margaret is of age and has
+been married before.  She is at liberty, therefore, to make her
+own choice.  You agree with me so far?"
+
+"Entirely," Francis assented.
+
+"It happens," Sir Timothy went on, "that I disapprove of her
+choice.  She desires to marry a young man who belongs to a
+profession which I detest, and whose efforts in life are directed
+towards the extermination of a class of people for whom I have
+every sympathy.  To me he represents the smug as against the
+human, the artificially moral as against the freethinker.  He is
+also my personal enemy.  I am therefore naturally desirous that
+my daughter should not marry this young man."
+
+"We will let it go at that," Francis commented, "but I should
+like to point out to you that the antagonism between us is in no
+way personal.  You have declared yourself for forces with which I
+am at enmity, like any other decent-living citizen.  Your
+declaration might at any time be amended."
+
+Sir Timothy bowed.
+
+"The situation is stated," he said.  "I will ask you this
+question as a matter of form.  Do you recognise my right to
+forbid your marriage with my daughter, Mr. Ledsam?"
+
+"I most certainly do not," was the forcible reply.
+
+"Have I any rights at all?" Sir Timothy asked.  "Margaret has
+lived under my roof whenever it has suited her to do so.  Since
+she has taken up her residence at Curzon Street, she has been her
+own mistress, her banking account has known no limit whatsoever.
+I may be a person of evil disposition, but I have shown no
+unkindness to her."
+
+"It is quite true," Margaret Admitted, turning a little pale.
+"Since I have been alone, you have been kindness itself."
+
+"Then let me repeat my question," Sir Timothy went on, "have I
+the right to any consideration at all?"
+
+"Yes," Francis replied.  "Short of keeping us apart, you have the
+ordinary rights of a parent."
+
+"Then I ask you to delay the announcement of your engagement, or
+taking any further steps concerning it, for fourteen days," Sir
+Timothy said.  "I place no restrictions on your movements during
+that time.  Such hospitality as you, Mr. Ledsam, care to accept
+at my hands, is at your disposal.  I am Bohemian enough, indeed,
+to find nothing to complain of in such little celebrations as you
+are at present indulging in--most excellent pate, that.  But I
+request that no announcement of your engagement be made, or any
+further arrangements made concerning it, for that fourteen days."
+
+"I am quite willing, father," Margaret acquiesced.
+
+"And I, sir," Francis echoed.
+
+"In which case," Sir Timothy concluded, rising to his feet,
+lighting a cigarette and taking up his hat and gloves, "I shall
+go peaceably away.  You will admit, I trust," he added, with that
+peculiar smile at the corner of his lips, "that I have not in any
+way tried to come the heavy father?  I can even command a certain
+amount of respect, Margaret, for a young man who is able to
+inaugurate his engagement by an impromptu meal of such perfection.
+I wish you both good morning.  Any invitation which Margaret
+extends, Ledsam, please consider as confirmed by me."
+
+He closed the door softly.  They heard his footsteps descending
+the stairs.  Francis leaned once more over Margaret.  She seemed
+still dazed, confused with new thoughts.  She responded, however,
+readily to his touch, yielded to his caress with an almost
+pathetic eagerness.
+
+"Francis," she murmured, as his arms closed around her, "I want
+to forget."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+There followed a brief period of time, the most wonderful of his
+life, the happiest of hers.  They took advantage of Sir Timothy's
+absolute license, and spent long days at The Sanctuary, ideal
+lovers' days, with their punt moored at night amongst the lilies,
+where her kisses seemed to come to him with an aroma and wonder
+born of the spot.  Then there came a morning when he found a
+cloud on her face.  She was looking at the great wall, and away
+at the minaret beyond.  They had heard from the butler that Sir
+Timothy had spent the night at the villa, and that preparations
+were on hand for another of his wonderful parties.  Francis, who
+was swift to read her thoughts, led her away into the rose garden
+where once she had failed him.
+
+"You have been looking over the wall, Margaret," he said
+reproachfully.
+
+She looked at him with a little twitch at the corners of her
+lips.
+
+"Francis dear," she confessed, "I am afraid you are right.  I
+cannot even look towards The Walled House without wondering why
+it was built--or catch a glimpse of that dome without stupid
+guesses as to what may go on underneath."
+
+"I think very likely," he said soothingly, "we have both
+exaggerated the seriousness of your father's hobbies.  We know
+that he has a wonderful gymnasium there, but the only definite
+rumour I have ever heard about the place is that men fight there
+who have a grudge against one another, and that they are not too
+particular about the weight of the gloves.  That doesn't appeal
+to us, you know, Margaret, but it isn't criminal."
+
+"If that were all!" she murmured.
+
+"I dare say it is," he declared.  "London, as you know, is a
+hot-bed of gossip.  Everything that goes on is ridiculously
+exaggerated, and I think that it rather appeals to your father's
+curious sense of humour to pose as the law-breaker."
+
+She pressed his arm a little.  The day was overcast, a slight
+rain was beginning to fall.
+
+"Francis," she whispered, "we had a perfect day here yesterday.
+Now the sun has gone and I am shivery."
+
+He understood in a moment.
+
+"We'll lunch at Ranelagh," he suggested.  "It is almost on the
+way up.  Then we can see what the weather is like.  If it is bad,
+we can dine in town tonight and do a theatre."
+
+"You are a dear," she told him fervently.  "I am going in to get
+ready."
+
+Francis went round to the garage for his car, and brought it to
+the front.  While he was sitting there, Sir Timothy came through
+the door in the wall.  He was smoking a cigar and he was holding
+an umbrella to protect his white flannel suit.  He was as usual
+wonderfully groomed and turned out, but he walked as though he
+were tired, and his smile, as he greeted Francis, lacked a little
+of its usual light-hearted mockery.
+
+"Are you going up to town?" he enquired.
+
+Francis pointed to the grey skies.
+
+"Just for the day," he answered.  "Lady Cynthia went by the early
+train.  We missed you last night."
+
+"I came down late," Sir Timothy explained, "and I found it more
+convenient to stay at The Walled House.  I hope you find that
+Grover looks after you while I am away?  He has carte blanche so
+far as regards my cellar."
+
+"We have been wonderfully served," Francis assured him.
+
+In the distance they could hear the sound of hammering on the
+other side of the wall.  Francis moved his head in that
+direction.
+
+"I hear that they are preparing for another of your wonderful
+entertainments over there," he remarked.
+
+"On Thursday," Sir Timothy assented.  "I shall have something to
+say to you about it later on."
+
+"Am I to take it that I am likely to receive an invitation?"
+Francis asked.
+
+"I should think it possible," was the calm reply.
+
+"What about Margaret?"
+
+"My entertainment would not appeal to her," Sir Timothy declared.
+"The women whom I have been in the habit of asking are not women
+of Margaret's type."
+
+"And Lady Cynthia?"
+
+Sir Timothy frowned slightly.
+
+"I find myself in some difficulty as regards Lady Cynthia," he
+admitted.  "I am the guardian of nobody's morals, nor am I the
+censor of their tastes, but my entertainments are for men.  The
+women whom I have hitherto asked have been women in whom I have
+taken no personal interest.  They are necessary to form a
+picturesque background for my rooms, in the same way that I look
+to the gardeners to supply the floral decorations.  Lady
+Cynthia's instincts, however, are somewhat adventurous.  She
+would scarcely be content to remain a decoration."
+
+"The issuing of your invitations," Francis remarked, "is of
+course a matter which concerns nobody else except yourself.  If
+you do decide to favour me with one, I shall be delighted to
+come, provided Margaret has no objection."
+
+"Such a reservation promises well for the future," Sir Timothy
+observed, with gentle sarcasm.  "Here comes Margaret, looking
+very well, I am glad to see."
+
+Margaret came forward to greet her father before stepping into
+the car.  They exchanged only a few sentences, but Francis, whose
+interest in their relations was almost abnormally keen, fancied
+that he could detect signs of some change in their demeanour
+towards one another.  The cold propriety of deportment which had
+characterised her former attitude towards her father, seemed to
+have given place to something more uncertain, to something less
+formal, something which left room even for a measure of
+cordiality.  She looked at him differently.  It was as though
+some evil thought which lived in her heart concerning him had
+perished.
+
+"You are busy over there, father?" she asked.
+
+"In a way," he replied.  "We are preparing for some festivities
+on Thursday."
+
+Her face fell.
+
+"Another party?"
+
+"One more," he replied.  "Perhaps the last--for the present, at
+any rate."
+
+She waited as though expecting him to explain.  He changed the
+subject, however.
+
+"I think you are wise to run up to town this morning," he said,
+glancing up at the grey skies.  "By-the-bye, if you dine at
+Curzon Street to-night, do ask Hedges to serve you some of the
+'99 Cliquot.  A marvellous wine, as you doubtless know, Ledsam,
+but it should be drunk.  Au revoir!"
+
+
+Francis, after a pleasant lunch at Ranelagh, and having arranged
+with Margaret to dine with her in Curzon Street, spent an hour or
+two that afternoon at his chambers.  As he was leaving, just
+before five, he came face to face with Shopland descending from a
+taxi.
+
+"Are you busy, Mr. Ledsam?" the latter enquired.  "Can you spare
+me half-an-hour?"
+
+"An hour, if you like," Francis assented.
+
+Shopland gave the driver an address and the two men seated
+themselves in the taxicab.
+
+"Any news?" Francis asked curiously.
+
+"Not yet," was the cautious reply.  "It will not be long,
+however."
+
+"Before you discover Reggie Wilmore?"
+
+The detective smiled in a superior way.
+
+"I am no longer particularly interested in Mr. Reginald Wilmore,"
+he declared.  "I have come to the conclusion that his disappearance
+is not a serious affair."
+
+"It's serious enough for his relatives," Francis objected.
+
+"Not if they understood the situation," the detective rejoined.
+"Assure them from me that nothing of consequence has happened to
+that young man.  I have made enquiries at the gymnasium in
+Holborn, and in other directions.  I am convinced that his
+absence from home is voluntary, and that there is no cause for
+alarm as to his welfare."
+
+"Then the sooner you make your way down to Kensington and tell
+his mother so, the better," Francis said, a little severely.
+"Don't forget that I put you on to this."
+
+"Quite right, sir," the detective acquiesced, "and I am grateful
+to you.  The fact of it is that in making my preliminary
+investigations with regard to the disappearance of Mr. Wilmore, I
+have stumbled upon a bigger thing.  Before many weeks are past, I
+hope to be able to unearth one of the greatest scandals of modern
+times."
+
+"The devil!" Francis muttered.
+
+He looked thoughtfully, almost anxiously at his companion.
+Shopland's face reflected to the full his usual confidence.
+He had the air of a man buoyant with hope and with stifled
+self-satisfaction.
+
+"I am engaged," he continued, "upon a study of the methods and
+habits of one whom I believe to be a great criminal.  I think
+that when I place my prisoner in the bar, Wainwright and these
+other great artists in crime will fade from the memory."
+
+"Is Sir Timothy Brast your man?" Francis asked quietly.
+
+His companion frowned portentously.
+
+"No names," he begged.
+
+"Considering that it was I who first put you on to him," Francis
+expostulated, "I don't think you need be so sparing of your
+confidence."
+
+"Mr. Ledsam," the detective assured him, "I shall tell you
+everything that is possible.  At the same time, I will be frank
+with you.  You are right when you say that it was you who first
+directed my attention towards Sir Timothy Brast.  Since that
+time, however, your own relations with him, to an onlooker, have
+become a little puzzling."
+
+"I see," Francis murmured.  "You've been spying on me?"
+
+Shopland shook his head in deprecating fashion.
+
+"A study of Sir Timothy during the last month," he said, "has
+brought you many a time into the focus."
+
+"Where are we going to now?" Francis asked, a little abruptly.
+
+"Just a side show, sir.  It's one of those outside things I have
+come across which give light and shade to the whole affair.  We
+get out here, if you please."
+
+The two men stepped on to the pavement.  They were in a street a
+little north of Wardour Street, where the shops for the most part
+were of a miscellaneous variety.  Exactly in front of them, the
+space behind a large plate-glass window had been transformed into
+a sort of show-place for dogs.  There were twenty or thirty of
+them there, of all breeds and varieties.
+
+"What the mischief is this?" Francis demanded.
+
+"Come in and make enquiries," Shopland replied.  "I can promise
+that you will find it interesting.  It's a sort of dog's home."
+
+Francis followed his companion into the place.  A pleasant-looking,
+middle-aged woman came forward and greeted the latter.
+
+"Do you mind telling my friend what you told me the other day?"
+he asked.
+
+"Certainly, sir," she replied.  "We collect stray animals here,
+sir," she continued, turning to Francis.  "Every one who has a
+dog or a cat he can't afford to keep, or which he wants to get
+rid of, may bring it to us.  We have agents all the time in the
+streets, and if any official of the Society for the Prevention
+of Cruelty to Animals brings us news of a dog or a cat being
+ill-treated, we either purchase it or acquire it in some way or
+other and keep it here."
+
+"But your dogs in the window," Francis observed, "all seem to be
+in wonderful condition."
+
+The woman smiled.
+
+"We have a large dog and cat hospital behind," she explained,
+"and a veterinary surgeon who is always in attendance.  The
+animals are treated there as they are brought in, and fed up if
+they are out of condition.  When they are ready to sell, we show
+them."
+
+"But is this a commercial undertaking," Francis enquired
+carefully, "or is it a branch of the S.P.C.A.?"
+
+"It's quite a private affair, sir," the woman told him.  "We
+charge only five shillings for the dogs and half-a-crown for the
+cats, but every one who has one must sign our book, promising to
+give it a good home, and has to be either known to us or to
+produce references.  We do not attempt, of course, to snake a
+profit."
+
+"Who on earth is responsible for the upkeep?"
+
+"We are not allowed to mention any names here, sir, but as a
+matter of fact I think that your friend knows.  He met the
+gentleman in here one day.  Would you care to have a look at the
+hospital, sir?"
+
+Francis spent a quarter of an hour wandering around.  When they
+left the place, Shopland turned to him with a smile.
+
+"Now, sir," he said, "shall I tell you at whose expense that
+place is run?"
+
+"I think I can guess," Francis replied.  "I should say that Sir
+Timothy Brast was responsible for it."
+
+The detective nodded.  He was a little disappointed.
+
+"You know about his collection of broken-down horses in the park
+at The Walled House, too, then, I suppose?  They come whinnying
+after him like a flock of sheep whenever he shows himself."
+
+"I know about them, too," Francis admitted.  "I was present
+once when he got out of his car, knocked a carter down who was
+ill-treating a horse, bought it on the spot and sent it home."
+
+Shopland smiled, inscrutably yet with the air of one vastly
+pleased.
+
+"These little side-shows," he said, "are what help to make this,
+which I believe will be the greatest case of my life, so
+supremely interesting.  Any one of my fraternity," he continued,
+with an air of satisfaction, "can take hold of a thread and
+follow it step by step, and wind up with the handcuffs, as I did
+myself with the young man Fairfax.  But a case like this, which
+includes a study of temperament, requires something more."
+
+They were seated once more in the taxicab, on their way westward.
+Francis for the first time was conscious of an utterly new
+sensation with regard to his companion.  He watched him through
+half-closed eyes--an insignificant-looking little man whose
+clothes, though neat, were ill-chosen, and whose tie was an
+offense.  There was nothing in the face to denote unusual
+intelligence, but the eyes were small and cunning and the mouth
+dogged.  Francis looked away out of the window.  A sudden flash
+of realisation had come to him, a wave of unreasoning but
+positive dislike.
+
+"When do you hope to bring your case to an end?" he asked.
+
+The man smiled once more, and the very smile irritated his
+companion.
+
+"Within the course of the next few days, sir," he replied.
+
+"And the charge?"
+
+The detective turned around.
+
+"Mr. Ledsam," he said, "we have been old friends, if you will
+allow me to use the word, ever since I was promoted to my present
+position in the Force.  You have trusted me with a good many
+cases, and I acknowledge myself your debtor, but in the matter of
+Sir Timothy Brast, you will forgive my saying with all respect,
+sir, that our ways seem to lie a little apart."
+
+"Will you tell me why you have arrived at that conclusion?"
+Francis asked.  "It was I who first incited you to set a watch
+upon Sir Timothy.  It was to you I first mentioned certain
+suspicions I myself had with regard to him.  I treated you with
+every confidence.  Why do you now withhold yours from me?"
+
+"It is quite true, Mr. Ledsam," Shopland admitted, "that it was
+you who first pointed out Sir Timothy as an interesting study for
+my profession, but that was a matter of months ago.  If you will
+forgive my saying so, your relations with Sir Timothy have
+altered since then.  You have been his guest at The Sanctuary,
+and there is a rumour, sir--you will pardon me if I seem to be
+taking a liberty--that you are engaged to be married to his
+daughter, Oliver Hilditch's widow."
+
+"You seem to be tolerably well informed as to my affairs,
+Shopland," Francis remarked.
+
+"Only so far as regards your associations with Sir Timothy," was
+the deprecating reply.  "If you will excuse me, sir, this is
+where I should like to descend."
+
+"You have no message for Mr. Wilmore, then?" Francis asked.
+
+"Nothing definite, sir, but you can assure him of this.  His
+brother is not likely to come to any particular harm.  I have no
+absolute information to offer, but it is my impression that Mr.
+Reginald Wilmore will be home before a week is past.  Good
+afternoon, sir."
+
+Shopland stepped out of the taxicab and, raising his hat, walked
+quickly away.  Francis directed the man to drive to Clarges
+Street.  As they drove off, he was conscious of a folded piece of
+paper in the corner where his late companion had been seated.  He
+picked it up, opened it, realised that it was a letter from a
+firm of lawyers, addressed to Shopland, and deliberately read it
+through.  It was dated from a small town not far from Hatch End:
+
+
+  DEAR SIR:
+
+  Mr. John Phillips of this firm, who is coroner for the
+district, has desired me to answer the enquiry contained    in
+your official letter of the 13th.  The number of    inquests held
+upon bodies recovered from the Thames in the    neighbourhood to
+which you allude, during the present year    has been seven.
+Four of these have been identified.     Concerning the remaining
+three nothing has ever been    heard.  Such particulars as are on
+our file will be    available to any accredited representative of
+the police    at any time.
+
+                    Faithfully yours,
+                                    PHILLIPS & SON.
+
+
+The taxicab came to a sudden stop.  Francis glanced up.  Very
+breathless, Shopland put his head in at the window.
+
+"I dropped a letter," he gasped.
+
+Francis folded it up and handed it to him.
+
+"What about these three unidentified people, Shopland?" he asked,
+looking at him intently.
+
+The man frowned angrily.  There was a note of defiance in his
+tone as he stowed the letter away in his pocketbook.
+
+"There were two men and one woman," he replied, "all three of the
+upper classes.  The bodies were recovered from Wilson's lock,
+some three hundred yards from The Walled House."
+
+"Do they form part of your case?" Francis persisted.
+
+Shopland stepped back.
+
+"Mr. Ledsam," he said, "I told you, some little time ago, that so
+far as this particular case was concerned I had no confidences to
+share with you.  I am sorry that you saw that letter.  Since you
+did, however, I hope you will not take it as a liberty from one
+in my position if I advise you most strenuously to do nothing
+which might impede the course of the law.  Good day, sir!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+Francis, in that pleasant half-hour before dinner which he spent
+in Margaret's sitting-room, told her of the dogs' home near
+Wardour Street.  She listened sympathetically to his description
+of the place.
+
+"I had never heard of it," she acknowledged, "but I am not in
+anyway surprised.  My father spends at least an hour of every
+day, when he is down at Hatch End, amongst the horses, and every
+time a fresh crock is brought down, he is as interested as though
+it were a new toy."
+
+"It is a remarkable trait in a very remarkable character,"
+Francis commented.
+
+"I could tell you many things that would surprise you," Margaret
+continued.  "One night, for instance, when we were staying at The
+Sanctuary, he and I were going out to dine with some neighbours
+and he heard a cat mewing in the hedge somewhere.  He stopped the
+car, got out himself, found that the cat had been caught in a
+trap, released it, and sent me on to the dinner alone whilst he
+took the animal back to the veterinary surgeon at The Walled
+House.  He was simply white with fury whilst he was tying up the
+poor thing's leg.  I couldn't help asking him what he would have
+done if he could have found the farmer who set the trap.  He
+looked up at me and I was almost frightened.  'I should have
+killed him,' he said,--and I believe he meant it.  And, Francis,
+the very next day we were motoring to London and saw a terrible
+accident.  A motor bicyclist came down a side road at full speed
+and ran into a motor-lorry.  My father got out of the car, helped
+them lift the body from under the wheels of the lorry, and came
+back absolutely unmoved.  'Serve the silly young fool right!' was
+his only remark.  He was so horribly callous that I could
+scarcely bear to sit by his side.  Do you understand that?"
+
+"It isn't easy," he admitted.
+
+There was a knock at the door.  Margaret glanced at the clock.
+
+"Surely dinner can't be served already!" she exclaimed.  "Come
+in."
+
+Very much to their surprise, it was Sir Timothy himself who
+entered.  He was in evening dress and wearing several orders, one
+of which Francis noted with surprise.
+
+"My apologies," he said.  "Hedges told me that there were
+cocktails here, and as I am on my way to a rather weary dinner, I
+thought I might inflict myself upon you for a moment."
+
+Margaret rose at once to her feet.
+
+"I am a shocking hostess," she declared.  "Hedges brought the
+things in twenty minutes ago."
+
+She took up the silver receptacle, shook it vigorously and filled
+three glasses.  Sir Timothy accepted his and bowed to them both.
+
+"My best wishes," he said.  "Really, when one comes to think of
+it, however much it may be against my inclinations I scarcely see
+how I shall be able to withhold my consent.  I believe that you
+both have at heart the flair for domesticity.  This little
+picture, and the thought of your tete-a-tete dinner, almost
+touches me."
+
+"Don't make fun of us, father," Margaret begged.  "Tell us where
+you are going in all that splendour?"
+
+Sir Timothy shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"A month or so ago," he explained, "I was chosen to induct a
+scion of Royalty into the understanding of fighting as it is
+indulged in at the National Sporting Club.  This, I suppose, is
+my reward--an invitation to something in the nature of a State
+dinner, which, to tell you the truth, I had forgotten until my
+secretary pointed it out to me this afternoon.  I have grave
+fears of being bored or of misbehaving myself.  I have, as Ledsam
+here knows, a distressing habit of truthfulness, especially to
+new acquaintances.  However, we must hope for the best.  By-the-bye,
+Ledsam, in case you should have forgotten, I have spoken to Hedges
+about the '99 Cliquot."
+
+"Shall we see you here later?" Margaret asked, after Francis had
+murmured his thanks.
+
+"I shall probably return direct to Hatch End," Sir Timothy
+replied.  "There are various little matters down there which are
+interesting me just now preparations for my party.  Au revoir!  A
+delicious cocktail, but I am inclined to resent the Angostura."
+
+He sauntered out, after a glance at the clock.  They heard his
+footsteps as he descended the stairs.
+
+"Tell me, what manner of a man is your father?" Francis asked
+impulsively.
+
+"I am his daughter and I do not know," Margaret answered.
+"Before he came, I was going to speak to you of a strange
+misunderstanding which has existed between us and which has just
+been removed.  Now I have a fancy to leave it until later.  You
+will not mind?"
+
+"When you choose," Francis assented.  "Nothing will make any
+difference.  We are past the days when fathers or even mothers
+count seriously in the things that exist between two people like
+you and me, who have felt life.  Whatever your father may be,
+whatever he may turn out to be, you are the woman I love--you are
+the woman who is going to be my wife."
+
+She leaned towards him for a moment.
+
+"You have an amazing gift," she whispered, "of saying just the
+thing one loves to hear in the way that convinces."
+
+Dinner was served to them in the smaller of the two dining-rooms,
+an exquisite meal, made more wonderful still by the wine, which
+Hedges himself dispensed with jealous care.  The presence of
+servants, with its restraining influence upon conversation, was
+not altogether unwelcome to Francis.  He and Margaret had had so
+little opportunity for general conversation that to discuss other
+than personal subjects in this pleasant, leisurely way had its
+charm.  They spoke of music, of which she knew far more than he;
+of foreign travel, where they met on common ground, for each had
+only the tourist's knowledge of Europe, and each was anxious for
+a more individual acquaintance with it.  She had tastes in books
+which delighted him, a knowledge of games which promised a common
+resource.  It was only whilst they were talking that he realised
+with a shock how young she was, how few the years that lay
+between her serene school-days and the tempestuous years of her
+married life.  Her school-days in Naples were most redolent of
+delightful memories.  She broke off once or twice into the
+language, and he listened with delight to her soft accent.
+Finally the time came when dessert was set upon the table.
+
+"I have ordered coffee up in the little sitting-room again," she
+said, a little shyly.  "Do you mind, or would you rather have it
+here?"
+
+"I much prefer it there," he assured her.
+
+They sat before an open window, looking out upon some elm trees
+in the boughs of which town sparrows twittered, and with a
+background of roofs and chimneys.  Margaret's coffee was
+untasted, even her cigarette lay unlit by her side.  There was a
+touch of the old horror upon her face.  The fingers which he drew
+into his were as cold as ice.
+
+"You must have wondered sometimes," she began, "why I ever
+married Oliver Hilditch."
+
+"You were very young," he reminded her, with a little shiver,
+"and very inexperienced.  I suppose he appealed to you in some
+way or another."
+
+"It wasn't that," she replied.  "He came to visit, me at
+Eastbourne, and he certainly knew all the tricks of making
+himself attractive and agreeable.  But he never won my heart--he
+never even seriously took my fancy.  I married him because I
+believed that by doing so I was obeying my father's wishes."
+
+"Where was your father at the time, then?" Francis asked.
+
+"In South America.  Oliver Hilditch was nothing more than a
+discharged employé of his, discharged for dishonesty.  He had to
+leave South America; within a week to escape prosecution, and on
+the way to Europe he concocted the plot which very nearly ruined
+my life.  He forged a letter from my father, begging me, if I
+found it in any way possible,  to listen to Oliver Hilditch's
+proposals, and hinting guardedly at a very serious financial
+crisis which it was in his power to avert.  It never occurred to
+me or to my chaperon to question his bona fides.  He had lived
+under the same roof as my father, and knew all the intimate
+details of his life.  He was very clever and I suppose I was a
+fool.  I remember thinking I was doing quite a heroic action when
+I went to the registrar with him.  What it led to you know."
+
+There was a moment's throbbing silence.  Francis, notwithstanding
+his deep pity, was conscious of an overwhelming sensation of
+relief.  She had never cared for Oliver Hilditch!  She had never
+pretended to!  He put the thought into words.
+
+"You never cared for him, then?"
+
+"I tried to," she replied simply, "but I found it impossible.
+Within a week of our marriage I hated him."
+
+Francis leaned back, his eyes half closed.  In his ears was the
+sonorous roar of Piccadilly, the hooting of motor-cars, close at
+hand the rustling of a faint wind in the elm trees.  It was a
+wonderful moment.  The nightmare with which he had grappled so
+fiercely, which he had overthrown, but whose ghost still
+sometimes walked by his side, had lost its chief and most
+poignant terror.  She had been tricked into the marriage.  She
+had never cared or pretended to care.  The primal horror of that
+tragedy which he had figured so often to himself, seemed to have
+departed with the thought.  Its shadow must always remain, but in
+time his conscience would acquiesce in the pronouncement of his
+reason.  It was the hand of justice, not any human hand, which
+had slain Oliver Hilditch.
+
+"What did your father say when he discovered the truth?" he
+asked.
+
+"He did not know it until he came to England--on the day that
+Oliver Hilditch was acquitted.  My husband always pretended that
+he had a special mail bag going out to South America, so he took
+away all the letters I wrote to my father, and he took care that
+I received none except one or two which I know now were
+forgeries.  He had friends in South America himself who helped
+him--one a typist in my father's office, of whom I discovered
+afterwards--but that really doesn't matter.  He was a wonderful
+master of deceit."
+
+Francis suddenly took her hands.  He had an overwhelming desire
+to escape from the miasma of those ugly days, with their train of
+attendant thoughts and speculations.
+
+"Let us talk about ourselves," he whispered.
+
+After that, the evening glided away incoherently, with no sustained
+conversation, but with an increasing sense of well-being, of soothed
+nerves and happiness, flaming seconds of passion, sign-posts of the
+wonderful world which lay before them.  They sat in the cool silence
+until the lights of the returning taxicabs and motor-cars became
+more frequent, until the stars crept into the sky and the yellow
+arc of the moon stole up over the tops of the houses.  Presently
+they saw Sir Timothy's Rolls-Royce glide up to the front door below
+and Sir Timothy himself enter the house, followed by another man
+whose appearance was somehow familiar.
+
+"Your father has changed his mind," Francis observed.
+
+"Perhaps he has called for something," she suggested, "or he may
+want to change his clothes before he goes down to the country."
+
+Presently, however, there was a knock at the door.  Hedges made
+his diffident appearance.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," he began, addressing Francis.  "Sir
+Timothy has been asking if you are still here.  He would be very
+glad if you could spare him a moment in the library."
+
+Francis rose at once to his feet.
+
+"I was just leaving," he said.  "I will look in at the library
+and see Sir Timothy on my way out."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+Sir Timothy was standing upon the hearthrug of the very wonderful
+apartment which he called his library.  By his side, on a black
+marble pedestal, stood a small statue by Rodin.  Behind him, lit
+by a shielded electric light, was a Vandyck, "A Portrait of a
+Gentleman Unknown," and Francis, as he hesitated for a moment
+upon the threshold, was struck by a sudden quaint likeness
+between the face of the man in the picture, with his sunken
+cheeks, his supercilious smile, his narrowed but powerful eyes,
+to the face of Sir Timothy himself.  There was something of the
+same spirit there--the lawless buccaneer, perhaps the criminal.
+
+"You asked for me, Sir Timothy," Francis said.
+
+Sir Timothy smiled.
+
+"I was fortunate to find that you had not left," he answered.  "I
+want you to be present at this forthcoming interview.  You are to
+a certain extent in the game.  I thought it might amuse you."
+
+Francis for the first time was aware that his host was not alone.
+The room, with its odd splashes of light, was full of shadows,
+and he saw now that in an easy-chair a little distance away from
+Sir Timothy, a girl was seated.  Behind her, still standing, with
+his hat in his hand, was a man.  Francis recognised them both
+with surprise.
+
+"Miss Hyslop!" he exclaimed.
+
+She nodded a little defiantly.  Sir Timothy smiled.  "Ah!" he
+said.  "You know the young lady, without a doubt.  Mr. Shopland,
+your coadjutor in various works of philanthropy, you recognise,
+of course?  I do not mind confessing to you, Ledsam, that I am
+very much afraid of Mr. Shopland.  I am not at all sure that he
+has not a warrant for my arrest in his pocket."
+
+The detective came a little further into the light.  He was
+attired in an ill-fitting dinner suit, a soft-fronted shirt of
+unpleasing design, a collar of the wrong shape, and a badly
+arranged tie.  He seemed, nevertheless, very pleased with
+himself.
+
+"I came on here, Mr. Ledsam, at Sir Timothy's desire," he said.
+"I should like you to understand," he added, with a covert glance
+of warning, "that I have been devoting every effort, during the
+last few days, to the discovery of your friend's brother, Mr.
+Reginald Wilmore."
+
+"I am very glad to hear it," Francis replied shortly.  "The boy's
+brother is one of my greatest friends."
+
+"I have come to the conclusion," the detective pronounced, "that
+the young man has been abducted, and is being detained at The
+Walled House against his will for some illegal purpose."
+
+"In other respects," Sir Timothy said, stretching out his hand
+towards a cedar-wood box of cigarettes and selecting one, "this
+man seems quite sane.  I have watched him very closely on the way
+here, but I could see no signs of mental aberration.  I do not
+think, at any rate, that he is dangerous."
+
+"Sir Timothy," Shopland explained, with some anger in his tone,
+"declines to take me seriously.  I can of course apply for a
+search warrant, as I shall do, but it occurred to me to be one of
+those cases which could be better dealt with, up to a certain
+point, without recourse to the extremities of the law."
+
+Sir Timothy, who had lit his cigarette, presented a wholly
+undisturbed front.
+
+"What I cannot quite understand," he said, "is the exact meaning
+of that word 'abduction.'  Why should I be suspected of forcibly
+removing a harmless and worthy young man from his regular
+avocation, and, as you term it, abducting him, which I presume
+means keeping him bound and gagged and imprisoned?  I do not eat
+young men.  I do not even care for the society of young men.  I
+am not naturally a gregarious person, but I think I would go so
+far," he added, with a bow towards Miss Hyslop, "as to say that I
+prefer the society of young women.  Satisfy my curiosity,
+therefore, I beg of you.  For what reason do you suppose that I
+have been concerned in the disappearance of this Mr. Reginald
+Wilmore?"
+
+Francis opened his lips, but Shopland, with a warning glance,
+intervened.
+
+"I work sometimes as a private person, sir," he said, "but it is
+not to be forgotten that I am an officer of the law.  It is not
+for us to state motives or even to afford explanations for our
+behaviour.  I have watched your house at Hatch End, Sir Timothy,
+and I have come to the conclusion that unless you are willing to
+discuss this matter with me in a different spirit, I am justified
+in asking the magistrates for a search warrant."
+
+Sir Timothy sighed.
+
+"Mr. Ledsam," he said, "I think, after all, that yours is the
+most interesting end of this espionage business.  It is you who
+search for motives, is it not, and pass them on to our more
+automatic friend, who does the rest.  May I ask, have you
+supplied the motive in the present case?"
+
+"I have failed to discover any motive at all for Reginald
+Wilmore's disappearance," Francis admitted, "nor have I at any
+time been able to connect you with it.  Mr. Shopland's efforts,
+however, although he has not seen well to take me into his entire
+confidence, have my warmest approval and sympathy.  Although I
+have accepted your very generous hospitality, Sir Timothy, I
+think there has been no misunderstanding between us on this
+matter."
+
+"Most correct," Sir Timothy murmured.  "The trouble seems to be,
+so far as I am concerned, that no one will tell me exactly of
+what I am suspected?  I am to give Mr. Shopland the run of my
+house, or he will make his appearance in the magistrate's court
+and the evening papers will have placards with marvellous
+headlines at my expense.  How will it run, Mr. Shopland--
+
+  "'MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF A YOUNG GENTLEMAN.
+    MILLIONAIRE'S HOUSE TO BE SEARCHED.'"
+
+"We do not necessarily acquaint the press with our procedure,"
+Shopland rejoined.
+
+"Nevertheless," Sir Timothy continued, "I have known awkward
+consequences arise from a search warrant too rashly applied for
+or granted.  However, we are scarcely being polite.  So far, Miss
+Hyslop has had very little to say."
+
+The young lady was not altogether at her ease.
+
+"I have had very little to say," she repeated, "because I did not
+expect an audience."
+
+Sir Timothy drew a letter from his pocket, opened it and adjusted
+his eyeglass.
+
+"Here we are," he said.  "After leaving my dinner-party tonight,
+I called at the club and found this note.  Quite an inviting
+little affair, you see young lady's writing, faint but very
+delicate perfume, excellent stationery, Milan Court--the home of
+adventures!"
+
+  "DEAR SIR TIMOTHY BRAST:
+
+  "Although I am not known to you personally, there is a
+certain matter concerning which information has come into my
+possession, which I should like to discuss with you.  Will
+you call and see me as soon as possible?"
+                              Sincerely yours,
+                                 "DAISY HYSLOP."
+
+"On receipt of this note," Sir Timothy continued, folding it up,
+"I telephoned to the young lady and as I was fortunate enough to
+find her at home I asked her to come here.  I then took the
+liberty of introducing myself to Mr. Shopland, whose interest in
+my evening has been unvarying, and whose uninvited company I have
+been compelled to bear with, and suggested that, as I was on my
+way back to Curzon Street, he had better come in and have a drink
+and tell me what it was all about.  I arranged that he should
+find Miss Hyslop here, and for a person of observation, which I
+flatter myself to be, it was easy to discover the interesting
+fact that Mr. Shopland and Miss Daisy Hyslop were not strangers.
+
+"Now tell me, young lady," Sir Timothy went on.  "You see, I have
+placed myself entirely in your hands.  Never mind the presence of
+these two gentlemen. Tell me exactly what you wanted to say to me?"
+
+"The matter is of no great importance," Miss Hyslop declared, "in
+any case I should not discuss it before these two gentlemen."
+
+"Don't go for a moment, please," Sir Timothy begged, as she
+showed signs of departure.  "Listen.  I want to make a suggestion
+to you.  There is an impression abroad that I was interested in
+the two young men, Victor Bidlake and Fairfax, and that I knew
+something of their quarrel.  You were an intimate friend of young
+Bidlake's and presumably in his confidence.  It occurs to me,
+therefore, that Mr. Shopland might very well have visited you in
+search of information, linking me up with that unfortunate
+affair.  Hence your little note to me."
+
+Miss Hyslop rose to her feet.  She had the appearance of being
+very angry indeed.
+
+"Do you mean to insinuate--" she began.
+
+"Madam, I insinuate nothing," Sir Timothy interrupted sternly.
+"I only desire to suggest this.  You are a young lady whose
+manner of living, I gather, is to a certain extent precarious.
+It must have seemed to you a likelier source of profit to
+withhold any information you might have to give at the
+solicitation of a rich man, than to give it free gratis and for
+nothing to a detective.  Now am I right?"
+
+Miss Hyslop turned towards the door.  She had the air of a person
+who had been entirely misunderstood.
+
+"I wrote you out of kindness, Sir Timothy," she said in an
+aggrieved manner.  "I shall have nothing more to say on the
+matter--to you, at any rate."
+
+Sir Timothy sighed.
+
+"You see," he said, turning to the others, "I have lost my chance
+of conciliating a witness.  My cheque-book remains locked up and
+she has gone over to your side."
+
+She turned around suddenly.
+
+"You know that you made Bobby Fairfax kill Victor!" she almost
+shouted.
+
+Sir Timothy smiled in triumph.
+
+"My dear young lady," he begged, "let us now be friends again.  I
+desired to know your trump card.  For that reason I fear that I
+have been a little brutal.  Now please don't hurry away.  You
+have shot your bolt.  Already Mr. Shopland is turning the thing
+over in his mind.  Was I lurking outside that night, Mr.
+Shopland, to guide that young man's flabby arm?  He scarcely
+seemed man enough for a murderer, did he, when he sat quaking on
+that stool in Soto's Bar while Mr. Ledsam tortured him?  I beg
+you again not to hurry, Miss Hyslop.  At any rate wait while my
+servants fetch you a taxi.  It was clouding over when I came in.
+We may even have a thunderstorm."
+
+"I want to get out of this house," Daisy Hyslop declared.
+"I think you are all horrible.  Mr. Ledsam did behave like
+a gentleman when he came to see me, and Mr. Shopland asked
+questions civilly.  But you--" she added, turning round to Sir
+Timothy.
+
+"Hush, my dear," he interrupted, holding out his hand.  "Don't
+abuse me.  I am not angry with you--not in the least--and I am
+going to prove it.  I shall oppose any search warrant which you
+might apply for, Mr. Shopland, and I think I can oppose it with
+success.  But I invite you two, Miss Hyslop and Mr. Ledsam, to my
+party on Thursday night.  Once under my roof you shall have carte
+blanche.  You can wander where you please, knock the walls for
+secret hiding-places, stamp upon the floor for oubliettes.
+Upstairs or down, the cellars and the lofts, the grounds and the
+park, the whole of my domain is for you from midnight on Thursday
+until four o'clock.  What do you say, Mr. Shopland?  Does my
+offer satisfy you?"
+
+The detective hesitated.
+
+"I should prefer an invitation for myself," he declared bluntly.
+
+Sir Timothy shook his head.
+
+"Alas, my dear Mr. Shopland," he regretted, "that is impossible!
+If I had only myself to consider I would not hesitate.
+Personally I like you.  You amuse me more than any one I have met
+for a long time.  But unfortunately I have my guests to consider!
+You must be satisfied with Mr. Ledsam's report."
+
+Shopland stroked his stubbly moustache.  It was obvious that he
+was not in the least disconcerted.
+
+"There are three days between now and then," he reflected.
+
+"During those three days, of course," Sir Timothy said drily, "I
+shall do my best to obliterate all traces of my various crimes.
+Still, you are a clever detective, and you can give Mr. Ledsam a
+few hints.  Take my advice.  You won't get that search warrant,
+and if you apply for it none of you will be at my party."
+
+"I accept," Shopland decided.
+
+Sir Timothy crossed the room, unlocked the drawer of a
+magnificent writing-table, and from a little packet drew out two
+cards of invitation.  They were of small size but thick, and the
+colour was a brilliant scarlet.  On one he wrote the name of
+Francis, the other he filled in for Miss Hyslop.
+
+"Miss Daisy Hyslop," he said, "shall we drink a glass of wine
+together on Thursday evening, and will you decide that although,
+perhaps, I am not a very satisfactory correspondent, I can at
+least be an amiable host?"
+
+The girl's eyes glistened.  She knew very well that the
+possession of that card meant that for the next few days she
+would be the envy of every one of her acquaintances.
+
+"Thank you, Sir Timothy," she replied eagerly.  "You have quite
+misunderstood me but I should like to come to your party."
+
+Sir Timothy handed over the cards.  He rang for a servant and
+bowed the others out.  Francis he detained for a moment.
+
+"Our little duel, my friend, marches," he said.  "After Thursday
+night we will speak again of this matter concerning Margaret.
+You will know then what you have to face."
+
+Margaret herself opened the door and looked in.
+
+"What have those people been doing here?" she asked.  "What is
+happening?"
+
+Her father unlocked his drawer once more and drew out another of
+the red cards.
+
+"Margaret," he said, "Ledsam here has accepted my invitation for
+Thursday night.  You have never, up till now, honoured me, nor
+have I ever asked you.  I suggest that for the first part of the
+entertainment, you give me the pleasure of your company."
+
+"For the first part?"
+
+"For the first part only," he repeated, as he wrote her name upon
+the card.
+
+"What about Francis?" she asked.  "Is he to stay all the time?"
+
+Sir Timothy smiled.  He locked up his drawer and slipped the
+key into his pocket.
+
+"Ledsam and I," he said, "have promised one another a more
+complete mutual understanding on Thursday night.  I may not be
+able to part with him quite so soon."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+Bored and listless, like a tired and drooping lily in the arms of
+her somewhat athletic partner, Lady Cynthia brought her dance to
+a somewhat abrupt conclusion.
+
+"There is some one in the lounge there to whom I wish to speak,"
+she said.  "Perhaps you won't mind if we finish later.  The floor
+seems sticky tonight, or my feet are heavy."
+
+Her partner made the best of it, as Lady Cynthia's partners,
+nowadays, generally had to.  She even dispensed with his escort,
+and walked across the lounge of Claridge's alone.  Sir Timothy
+rose to his feet.  He had been sitting in a corner, half
+sheltered by a pillar, and had fancied himself unseen.
+
+"What a relief!" she exclaimed.  "Another turn and I should have
+fainted through sheer boredom."
+
+"Yet you are quite wonderful dancing," he said.  "I have been
+watching you for some time."
+
+"It is one of my expiring efforts," she declared, sinking into
+the chair by his side.  "You know whose party it is, of course?
+Old Lady Torrington's.  Quite a boy and girl affair.  Twenty-four
+of us had dinner in the worst corner of the room.  I can hear the
+old lady ordering the dinner now.  Charles with a long menu.  She
+shakes her head and taps him on the wrist with her fan.
+'Monsieur Charles, I am a poor woman.  Give me what there is--a
+small, plain dinner--and charge me at your minimum.'  The dinner
+was very small and very plain, the champagne was horribly sweet.
+My partner talked of a new drill, his last innings for the
+Household Brigade, and a wonderful round of golf he played last
+Sunday week.  I was turned on to dance with a man who asked me to
+marry him, a year ago, and I could feel him vibrating with
+gratitude, as he looked at me, that I had refused.  I suppose I
+am very haggard."
+
+"Does that matter, nowadays?" Sir Timothy asked.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"I am afraid it does.  The bone and the hank of hair stuff is
+played out.  The dairy-maid style is coming in.  Plump little
+Fanny Torrington had a great success to-night, in one of those
+simple white dresses, you know, which look like a sack with a
+hole cut in the top.  What are you doing here by yourself?"
+
+"I have an engagement in a few minutes," he explained.  "My car
+is waiting now.  I looked in at the club to dine, found my
+favourite table taken and nearly every man I ever disliked
+sidling up to tell me that he hears I am giving a wonderful party
+on Thursday.  I decided not to dine there, after all, and Charles
+found me a corner here.  I am going in five minutes."
+
+"Where to?" she asked.  "Can't I come with you?"
+
+"I fear not," he answered.  "I am going down in the East End."
+
+"Adventuring?"
+
+"More or less," he admitted.
+
+Lady Cynthia became beautiful.  She was always beautiful when she
+was not tired.
+
+"Take me with you, please," she begged.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Not to be done!"
+
+"Don't shake your head like that," she enjoined, with a little
+grimace.  "People will think I am trying to borrow money from you
+and that you are refusing me!  Just take me with you some of the
+way.  I shall scream if I go back into that dancing-room again."
+
+Sir Timothy glanced at the clock.
+
+"If there is any amusement to you in a rather dull drive
+eastwards--"
+
+She was on her feet with the soft, graceful speed which had made
+her so much admired before her present listlessness had set in.
+
+"I'll get my cloak," she said.
+
+They drove along the Embankment, citywards.  The heat of the city
+seemed to rise from the pavements.  The wall of the Embankment
+was lined with people, leaning over to catch the languid breeze
+that crept up with the tide.  They crossed the river and threaded
+their way through a nightmare of squalid streets, where half-dressed
+men and women hung from the top windows and were even to be seen
+upon the roof, struggling for air.  The car at last pulled up at the
+corner of a long street.
+
+"I am going down here," Sir Timothy announced.  "I shall be gone
+perhaps an hour.  The neighbourhood is not a fit one for you to
+be left alone in.  I shall have time to send you home.  The car
+will be back here for me by the time I require it."
+
+"Where are you going?" she asked curiously.  "Why can't I come
+with you?"
+
+"I am going where I cannot take you," was the firm reply.  "I
+told you that before I started."
+
+"I shall sit here and wait for you," she decided.  "I rather like
+the neighbourhood.  There is a gentleman in shirt-sleeves,
+leaning over the rail of the roof there, who has his eye on me.
+I believe I shall be a success here--which is more than I can say
+of a little further westwards."
+
+Sir Timothy smiled slightly.  He had exchanged his hat for a
+tweed cap, and had put on a long dustcoat.
+
+"There is no gauge by which you may know the measure of your
+success," he said.  "If there were--"
+
+"If there were?" she asked, leaning a little forward and looking
+at him with a touch of the old brilliancy in her eyes.
+
+"If there were," he said, with a little show of mock gallantry,
+"a very jealously-guarded secret might escape me.  I think you
+will be quite all right here," he continued.  "It is an open
+thoroughfare, and I see two policemen at the corner.  Hassell, my
+chauffeur, too, is a reliable fellow.  We will be back within the
+hour."
+
+"We?" she repeated.
+
+He indicated a man who had silently made his appearance during
+the conversation and was standing waiting on the sidewalk.
+
+"Just a companion.  I do not advise you to wait.  If you insist
+--au revoir!"
+
+Lady Cynthia leaned back in a corner of the car.
+
+Through half-closed eyes she watched the two men on their way
+down the crowded thoroughfare--Sir Timothy tall, thin as a lath,
+yet with a certain elegance of bearing; the man at his side
+shorter, his hands thrust into the pockets of his coat, his
+manner one of subservience.  She wondered languidly as to their
+errand in this unsavoury neighbourhood.  Then she closed her eyes
+altogether and wondered about many things.
+
+Sir Timothy and his companion walked along the crowded, squalid
+street without speech.  Presently they turned to the right and
+stopped in front of a public-house of some pretensions.
+
+"This is the place?" Sir Timothy asked.
+
+"Yes, sir!"
+
+Both men entered.  Sir Timothy made his way to the counter, his
+companion to a table near, where he took a seat and ordered a
+drink.  Sir Timothy did the same.  He was wedged in between a
+heterogeneous crowd of shabby, depressed but apparently not
+ill-natured men and women.  A man in a flannel shirt and pair of
+shabby plaid trousers, which owed their precarious position to a
+pair of worn-out braces, turned a beery eye upon the newcomer.
+
+"I'll 'ave one with you, guvnor," he said.
+
+"You shall indeed," Sir Timothy assented.
+
+"Strike me lucky but I've touched first time!" the man exclaimed.
+"I'll 'ave a double tot of whisky," he added, addressing the
+barman.  "Will it run to it, guvnor?"
+
+"Certainly," was the cordial reply, "and the same to your
+friends, if you will answer a question."
+
+"Troop up, lads," the man shouted.  "We've a toff 'ere.  He ain't
+a 'tec--I know the cut of them.  Out with the question."
+
+"Serve every one who desires it with drinks," Sir Timothy
+directed the barman.  "My question is easily answered.  Is this
+the place which a man whom I understand they call Billy the
+Tanner frequents?"
+
+The question appeared to produce an almost uncomfortable
+sensation.  The enthusiasm for the free drinks, however, was only
+slightly damped, and a small forest of grimy hands was extended
+across the counter.
+
+"Don't you ask no questions about 'im, guvnor," Sir Timothy's
+immediate companion advised earnestly.  "He'd kill you as soon as
+look at you.  When Billy the Tanner's in a quarrelsome mood, I've
+see 'im empty this place and the whole street, quicker than if a
+mad dog was loose.  'E's a fair and 'oly terror, 'e is.  'E about
+killed 'is wife, three nights ago, but there ain't a living soul
+as 'd dare to stand in the witness-box about it."
+
+"Why don't the police take a hand in the matter if the man is
+such a nuisance?" Sir Timothy asked.
+
+His new acquaintance, gripping a thick tumbler of spirits and
+water with a hand deeply encrusted with the stains of his trade,
+scoffed.
+
+"Police!  Why, 'e'd take on any three of the police round these
+parts!" he declared.  "Police!  You tell one on 'em that Billy
+the Tanner's on the rampage, and you'll see 'em 'op it.  Cheero,
+guvnor and don't you get curious about Billy.  It ain't 'ealthy."
+
+The swing-door was suddenly opened.  A touslehaired urchin shoved
+his face in.
+
+"Billy the Tanner's coming!" he shouted.  "Cave, all!  He's been
+'avin' a rare to-do in Smith's Court."
+
+Then a curious thing happened.  The little crowd at the bar
+seemed somehow to melt away.  Half-a-dozen left precipitately by
+the door.  Half-a-dozen more slunk through an inner entrance into
+some room beyond.  Sir Timothy's neighbour set down his tumbler
+empty.  He was the last to leave.
+
+"If you're going to stop 'ere, guvnor," he begged fervently, "you
+keep a still tongue in your 'ead.  Billy ain't particular who it
+is.  'E'd kill 'is own mother, if 'e felt like it.  'E'll swing
+some day, sure as I stand 'ere, but 'e'll do a bit more mischief
+first.  'Op it with me, guvnor, or get inside there."
+
+"Jim's right," the man behind the bar agreed.  "He's a very nasty
+customer, Bill the Tanner, sir.  If he's coming down, I'd clear
+out for a moment.  You can go in the guvnor's sitting-room, if
+you like."
+
+Sir Timothy shook his head.
+
+"Billy the Tanner will not hurt me," he said.  "As a matter of
+fact, I came down to see him."
+
+His new friend hesitated no longer but made for the door through
+which most of his companions had already disappeared.  The barman
+leaned across the counter.
+
+"Guvnor," he whispered hoarsely, "I don't know what the game is,
+but I've given you the office.  Billy won't stand no truck from
+any one.  He's a holy terror."
+
+Sir Timothy nodded.
+
+"I quite understand," he said.
+
+There was a moment's ominous silence.  The barman withdrew to the
+further end of his domain and busied himself cleaning some
+glasses.  Suddenly the door was swung open.  A man entered whose
+appearance alone was calculated to inspire a certain amount of
+fear.  He was tall, but his height escaped notice by reason of
+the extraordinary breadth of his shoulders.  He had a coarse and
+vicious face, a crop of red hair, and an unshaven growth of the
+same upon his face.  He wore what appeared to be the popular
+dress in the neighbourhood--a pair of trousers suspended by a
+belt, and a dirty flannel shirt.  His hands and even his chest,
+where the shirt fell away, were discoloured by yellow stains.  He
+looked around the room at first with an air of disappointment.
+Then he caught sight of Sir Timothy standing at the counter, and
+he brightened up.
+
+"Where's all the crowd, Tom?" he asked the barman.
+
+"Scared of you, I reckon," was the brief reply.  "There was
+plenty here a few minutes ago."
+
+"Scared of me, eh?" the other repeated, staring hard at Sir
+Timothy.  "Did you 'ear that, guvnor?"
+
+"I heard it," Sir Timothy acquiesced.
+
+Billy the Tanner began to cheer up.  He walked all round this
+stranger.
+
+"A toff!  A big toff!  I'll 'ave a drink with you, guvnor," he
+declared, with a note of incipient truculence in his tone.
+
+The barman had already reached up for two glasses but Sir Timothy
+shook his head.
+
+"I think not," he said.
+
+There was a moment's silence.  The barman made despairing signs
+at Sir Timothy.  Billy the Tanner was moistening his lips with
+his tongue.
+
+"Why not?" he demanded.
+
+"Because I don't know you and I don't like you," was the bland
+reply.
+
+Billy the Tanner wasted small time upon preliminaries.  He spat
+upon his hands.
+
+"I dunno you and I don't like you," he retorted.  "D'yer know wot
+I'm going to do?"
+
+"I have no idea," Sir Timothy confessed.
+
+"I'm going to make you look so that your own mother wouldn't know
+you--then I'm going to pitch you into the street," he added, with
+an evil grin.  "That's wot we does with big toffs who come
+'anging around 'ere."
+
+"Do you?" Sir Timothy said calmly.  "Perhaps my friend may have
+something to say about that."
+
+The man of war was beginning to be worked up.
+
+"Where's your big friend?" he shouted.  "Come on!  I'll take on
+the two of you."
+
+The man who had met Sir Timothy in the street had risen to his
+feet.  He strolled up to the two.  Billy the Tanner eyed him
+hungrily.
+
+"The two of you, d'yer 'ear?" he shouted.  "And 'ere's just a
+flick for the toff to be going on with!"
+
+He delivered a sudden blow at Sir Timothy--a full, vicious,
+jabbing blow which had laid many a man of the neighbourhood in
+the gutter.  To his amazement, the chin at which he had aimed
+seemed to have mysteriously disappeared.  Sir Timothy himself was
+standing about half-a-yard further away.  Billy the Tanner was
+too used to the game to be off his balance, but he received at
+that moment the surprise of his life.  With the flat of his hand
+full open, Sir Timothy struck him across the cheek such a blow
+that it resounded through the place, a blow that brought both the
+inner doors ajar, that brought peering eyes from every direction.
+There was a moment's silence.  The man's fists were clenched now,
+there was murder in his face.  Sir Timothy stepped on one side.
+
+"I am not a fighter," he said coolly, leaning back against the
+marble table.  "My friend will deal with you."
+
+Billy the Tanner glared at the newcomer, who had glided in
+between him and Sir Timothy.
+
+"You can come and join in, too," he shouted to Sir Timothy.
+"I'll knock your big head into pulp when I've done with this
+little job!"
+
+The bully knew in precisely thirty seconds what had happened to
+him.  So did the crowds who pressed back into the place through
+the inner door. So did the barman.  So did the landlord, who had
+made a cautious appearance through a trapdoor.  Billy the Tanner,
+for the first time in his life, was fighting a better man.  For
+two years he had been the terror of the neighbourhood, and he
+showed now that at least he had courage.  His smattering of
+science, however, appeared only ridiculous.  Once, through sheer
+strength and blundering force, he broke down his opponent's guard
+and struck him in the place that had dispatched many a man
+before--just over the heart.  His present opponent scarcely
+winced, and Billy the Tanner paid the penalty then for his years
+of bullying.  His antagonist paused for a single second, as though
+unnerved by the blow.  Red fire seemed to stream from his eyes.
+Then it was all over.  With a sickening crash, Billy the Tanner
+went down upon the sanded floor.  It was no matter of a count for
+him.  He lay there like a dead man, and from the two doors the
+hidden spectators streamed into the room.  Sir Timothy laid some
+money upon the table.
+
+"This fellow insulted me and my friend," he said.  "You see, he
+has paid the penalty.  If he misbehaves again, the same thing
+will happen to him.  I am leaving some money here with your
+barman.  I shall be glad for every one to drink with me.
+Presently, perhaps, you had better send for an ambulance or a
+doctor."
+
+A little storm of enthusiastic excitement, evidenced for the most
+part in expletives of a lurid note, covered the retreat of Sir
+Timothy and his companion.  Out in the street a small crowd was
+rushing towards the place.  A couple of policemen seemed to be
+trying to make up their minds whether it was a fine night.  An
+inspector hurried up to them.
+
+"What's doing in 'The Rising Sun'?" he demanded sharply.
+
+"Some one's giving Billy the Tanner a hiding," one of the
+policemen replied.
+
+"Honest?"
+
+"A fair, ripe, knock-out hiding," was the emphatic confirmation.
+"I looked in at the window."
+
+The inspector grinned.
+
+"I'm glad you had the sense not to interfere," he remarked.
+
+Sir Timothy and his companion reached the car.  The latter took a
+seat by the chauffeur.  Sir Timothy stepped in.  It struck him
+that Lady Cynthia was a little breathless.  Her eyes, too, were
+marvellously bright.  Wrapped around her knees was the
+chauffeur's coat.
+
+"Wonderful!" she declared.  "I haven't had such a wonderful five
+minutes since I can remember!  You are a dear to have brought me,
+Sir Timothy."
+
+"What do you mean?" he demanded.
+
+"Mean?" she laughed, as the car swung around and they glided
+away.  "You didn't suppose I was going to sit here and watch you
+depart upon a mysterious errand?  I borrowed your chauffeur's
+coat and his cap, and slunk down after you.  I can assure you I
+looked the most wonderful female apache you ever saw!  And I saw
+the fight.  It was better than any of the prize fights I have
+ever been to.  The real thing is better than the sham, isn't it?"
+
+Sir Timothy leaned back in his place and remained silent.  Soon
+they passed out of the land of tired people, of stalls decked out
+with unsavoury provender, of foetid smells and unwholesome-looking
+houses.  They passed through a street of silent warehouses on to
+the Embankment.  A stronger breeze came down between the curving
+arc of lights.
+
+"You are not sorry that you brought me?" Lady Cynthia asked,
+suddenly holding out her hand.
+
+Sir Timothy took it in his.  For some reason or other, he made no
+answer at all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+The car stopped in front of the great house in Grosvenor Square.
+Lady Cynthia turned to her companion.
+
+"You must come in, please," she said.  "I insist, if it is only
+for five minutes."
+
+Sir Timothy followed her across the hall to a curved recess,
+where the footman who had admitted them touched a bell, and a
+small automatic lift came down.
+
+"I am taking you to my own quarters," she explained.  "They are
+rather cut off but I like them--especially on hot nights."
+
+They glided up to the extreme top of the house.  She opened the
+gates and led the way into what was practically an attic
+sitting-room, decorated in black and white.  Wide-flung doors
+opened onto the leads, where comfortable chairs, a small table and
+an electric standard were arranged.  They were far above the tops
+of the other houses, and looked into the green of the Park.
+
+"This is where I bring very few people," she said.  "This is
+where, even after my twenty-eight years of fraudulent life, I am
+sometimes myself.  Wait."
+
+There were feminine drinks and sandwiches arranged on the table.
+She opened the cupboard of a small sideboard just inside the
+sitting-room, however, and produced whisky and a syphon of soda.
+There was a pail of ice in a cool corner.  From somewhere in the
+distance came the music of violins floating through the window of
+a house where a dance was in progress.  They could catch a
+glimpse of the striped awning and the long line of waiting
+vehicles with their twin eyes of fire.  She curled herself up on
+a settee, flung a cushion at Sir Timothy, who was already
+ensconced in a luxurious easy-chair, and with a tumbler of iced
+sherbet in one hand, and a cigarette in the other, looked across
+at him.
+
+"I am not sure," she said, "that you have not to-night dispelled
+an illusion."
+
+"What manner of one?" he asked.
+
+"Above all things," she went on, "I have always looked upon you
+as wicked.  Most people do.  I think that is one reason why so
+many of the women find you attractive.  I suppose it is why I
+have found you attractive."
+
+The smile was back upon his lips.  He bowed a little, and,
+leaning forward, dropped a chunk of ice into his whisky and soda.
+
+"Dear Lady Cynthia," he murmured, "don't tell me that I am going
+to slip back in your estimation into some normal place."
+
+"I am not quite sure," she said deliberately.  "I have always
+looked upon you as a kind of amateur criminal, a man who loved
+black things and dark ways.  You know how weary one gets of the
+ordinary code of morals in these days.  You were such a
+delightful antidote.  And now, I am not sure that you have not
+shaken my faith in you."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"You really seem to have been engaged to-night in a very sporting
+and philanthropic enterprise.  I imagined you visiting some den
+of vice and mixing as an equal with these terrible people who
+never seem to cross the bridges.  I was perfectly thrilled when I
+put on your chauffeur's coat and hat and followed you."
+
+"The story of my little adventure is a simple one," Sir Timothy
+said.  "I do not think it greatly affects my character.  I
+believe, as a matter of fact, that I am just as wicked as you
+would have me be, but I have friends in every walk of life, and,
+as you know, I like to peer into the unexpected places.  I had
+heard of this man Billy the Tanner.  He beats women, and has
+established a perfect reign of terror in the court and
+neighbourhood where he lives.  I fear I must agree with you that
+there were some elements of morality--of conforming, at any rate,
+to the recognised standards of justice--in what I did.  You know,
+of course, that I am a great patron of every form of boxing,
+fencing, and the various arts of self-defence and attack.  I just
+took along one of the men from my gymnasium who I knew was equal
+to the job, to give this fellow a lesson."
+
+"He did it all right," Lady Cynthia murmured.
+
+"But this is where I think I re-establish myself," Sir Timothy
+continued, the peculiar nature of his smile reasserting itself.
+"I did not do this for the sake of the neighbourhood.  I did not
+do it from any sense of justice at all.  I did it to provide for
+myself an enjoyable and delectable spectacle."
+
+She smiled lazily.
+
+"That does rather let you out," she admitted.  "However, on the
+whole I am disappointed.  I am afraid that you are not so bad as
+people think."
+
+"People?" he repeated.  "Francis Ledsam, for instance--my son-in-law
+in posse?"
+
+"Francis Ledsam is one of those few rather brilliant persons who
+have contrived to keep sane without becoming a prig," she
+remarked.
+
+"You know why?" he reminded her.  "Francis Ledsam has been a
+tremendous worker.  It is work which keeps a man sane.
+Brilliancy without the capacity for work drives people to the
+madhouse."
+
+"Where we are all going, I suppose," she sighed.
+
+"Not you," he answered.  "You have just enough--I don't know what
+we moderns call it--soul, shall I say?--to keep you from the
+muddy ways."
+
+She rose to her feet and leaned over the rails.  Sir Timothy
+watched her thoughtfully.  Her figure, notwithstanding its
+suggestions of delicate maturity, was still as slim as a young
+girl's.  She was looking across the tree-tops towards an angry
+bank of clouds--long, pencil-like streaks of black on a purple
+background.  Below, in the street, a taxi passed with grinding of
+brakes and noisy horn.  The rail against which she leaned looked
+very flimsy.  Sir Timothy stretched out his hand and held her
+arm.
+
+"My nerves are going with my old age," he apologised.  "That
+support seems too fragile."
+
+She did not move.  The touch of his fingers grew firmer.
+
+"We have entered upon an allegory," she murmured.  "You are
+preserving me from the depths."
+
+He laughed harshly.
+
+"I!" he exclaimed, with a sudden touch of real and fierce
+bitterness which brought the light dancing into her eyes and a
+spot of colour to her cheeks.  "I preserve you!  Why, you can
+never hear my name without thinking of sin, of crime of some
+sort!  Do you seriously expect me to ever preserve any one from
+anything?"
+
+"You haven't made any very violent attempts to corrupt me," she
+reminded him.
+
+"Women don't enter much into my scheme of life," he declared.
+"They played a great part once.  It was a woman, I think, who
+first headed me off from the pastures of virtue."
+
+"I know," she said softly.  "It was Margaret's mother."
+
+His voice rang out like a pistol-shot.
+
+"How did you know that?"
+
+She turned away from the rail and threw herself back in her
+chair.  His hand, however, she still kept in hers.
+
+"Uncle Joe was Minister at Rio, you know, the year it all
+happened," she explained.  "He told us the story years ago--how
+you came back from Europe and found things were not just as they
+should be between Margaret's mother and your partner, and how you
+killed your partner."
+
+His nostrils quivered a little.  One felt that the fire of
+suffering had touched him again for a moment.
+
+"Yes, I killed him," he admitted.  "That is part of my creed.
+The men who defend their honour in the Law Courts are men I know
+nothing of.  This man would have wronged me and robbed me of my
+honour.  I bade him defend himself in any way he thought well.
+It was his life or mine.  He was a poor fighter and I killed
+him."
+
+"And Margaret's mother died from the shock."
+
+"She died soon afterwards."
+
+The stars grew paler.  The passing vehicles, with their brilliant
+lights, grew fewer and fewer.  The breeze which had been so
+welcome at first, turned into a cold night wind.  She led the way
+back into the room.
+
+"I must go," he announced.
+
+"You must go," she echoed, looking up at him.  "Good-bye!"
+
+She was so close to him that his embrace, sudden and passionate
+though it was, came about almost naturally.  She lay in his arms
+with perfect content and raised her lips to his.
+
+He broke away.  He was himself again, self-furious.
+
+"Lady Cynthia," he said, "I owe you my most humble apologies.
+The evil that is in me does not as a rule break out in this
+direction."
+
+"You dear, foolish person," she laughed, "that was good, not
+evil.  You like me, don't you?  But I know you do.  There is one
+crime you have always forgotten to develop--you haven't the
+simplest idea in the world how to lie."
+
+"Yes, I like you," he admitted.  "I have the most absurd feeling
+for you that any man ever found it impossible to put into words.
+We have indeed strayed outside the world of natural things," he
+added.
+
+"Why?" she murmured.  "I never felt more natural or normal in my
+life.  I can assure you that I am loving it.  I feel like muslin
+gowns and primroses and the scent of those first March violets
+underneath a warm hedge where the sun comes sometimes.  I feel
+very natural indeed, Sir Timothy."
+
+"What about me?" he asked harshly.  "In three weeks' time I shall
+be fifty years old."
+
+She laughed softly.
+
+"And in no time at all I shall be thirty--and entering upon a
+terrible period of spinsterhood!"
+
+"Spinsterhood!" he scoffed.  "Why, whenever the Society papers
+are at a loss for a paragraph, they report a few more offers of
+marriage to the ever-beautiful Lady Cynthia."
+
+"Don't be sarcastic," she begged.  "I haven't yet had the offer
+of marriage I want, anyhow."
+
+"You'll get one you don't want in a moment," he warned her.
+
+She made a little grimace.
+
+"Don't!" she laughed nervously.  "How am I to preserve my
+romantic notions of you as the emperor of the criminal world, if
+you kiss me as you did just now--you kissed me rather well--and
+then ask me to marry you?  It isn't your role.  You must light a
+cigarette now, pat the back of my hand, and swagger off to
+another of your haunts of vice."
+
+"In other words, I am not to propose?" Sir Timothy said slowly.
+
+"You see how decadent I am," she sighed.  "I want to toy with my
+pleasures.  Besides, there's that scamp of a brother of mine
+coming up to have a drink--I saw him get out of a taxi--and you
+couldn't get it through in time, not with dignity."
+
+The rattle of the lift as it stopped was plainly audible.  He
+stooped and kissed her fingers.
+
+"I fear some day," he murmured, "I shall be a great
+disappointment to you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+There was a great deal of discussion, the following morning at
+the Sheridan Club, during the gossipy half-hour which preceded
+luncheon, concerning Sir Timothy Brast's forthcoming
+entertainment.  One of the men, Philip Baker, who had been for
+many years the editor of a famous sporting weekly, had a ticket
+of invitation which he displayed to an envious little crowd.
+
+"You fellows who get invitations to these parties," a famous
+actor declared, "are the most elusive chaps on earth.  Half
+London is dying to know what really goes on there, and yet, if by
+any chance one comes across a prospective or retrospective guest,
+he is as dumb about it as though it were some Masonic function.
+We've got you this time, Baler, though.  We'll put you under the
+inquisition on Friday morning."
+
+"There a won't be any need," the other replied.  "One hears a
+great deal of rot talked about these affairs, but so far as I
+know, nothing very much out of the way goes on.  There are always
+one or two pretty stiff fights in the gymnasium, and you get the
+best variety show and supper in the world."
+
+"Why is there this aroma of mystery hanging about the affair,
+then?" some one asked.
+
+"Well, for one or two reasons," Baker answered.  "One, no doubt,
+is because Sir Timothy has a great idea of arranging the fights
+himself, and the opponents actually don't know until the fight
+begins whom they are meeting, and sometimes not even then.  There
+has been some gossiping, too, about the rules, and the weight of
+the gloves, but that I know, nothing about."
+
+"And the rest of the show?" a younger member enquired.  "Is it
+simply dancing and music and that sort of thing?"
+
+"Just a variety entertainment," the proud possessor of the
+scarlet-hued ticket declared.  "Sir Timothy always has something
+up his sleeve.  Last year, for instance, he had those six African
+girls over from Paris in that queer dance which they wouldn't
+allow in London at all.  This time no one knows what is going to
+happen.  The house, as you know, is absolutely surrounded by that
+hideous stone wall, and from what I have heard, reporters who try
+to get in aren't treated too kindly.  Here's Ledsam.  Very likely
+he knows more about it."
+
+"Ledsam," some one demanded, as Francis joined the group, "are
+you going to Sir Timothy Brast's show to-morrow night?"
+
+"I hope so," Francis replied, producing his strip of pasteboard.
+
+"Ever been before?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Do you know what sort of a show it's going to be?" the actor
+enquired.
+
+"Not the slightest idea.  I don't think any one does.  That's
+rather a feature of the affair, isn't it?"
+
+"It is the envious outsider who has never received an invitation,
+like myself," some one remarked, "who probably spreads these
+rumours, for one always hears it hinted that some disgraceful and
+illegal exhibition is on tap there--a new sort of drugging party,
+or some novel form of debauchery."
+
+"I don't think," Francis said quietly, "that Sir Timothy is quite
+that sort of man."
+
+"Dash it all, what sort of man is he?" the actor demanded.  "They
+tell me that financially he is utterly unscrupulous, although he
+is rolling in money.  He has the most Mephistophelian expression
+of any man I ever met--looks as though he'd set his heel on any
+one's neck for the sport of it--and yet they say he has given at
+least fifty thousand pounds to the Society for the Prevention of
+Cruelty to Animals, and that the whole of the park round that
+estate of his down the river is full of lamed and decrepit beasts
+which he has bought himself off the streets."
+
+"The man must have an interesting personality," a novelist who
+had joined the party observed.  "Of course, you know that he was
+in prison for six months?"
+
+"What for?" some one asked.
+
+"Murder, only they brought it in manslaughter," was the terse
+reply.  "He killed his partner.  It was many years ago, and no
+one knows all the facts of the story."
+
+"I am not holding a brief for Sir Timothy," Francis remarked, as
+he sipped his cocktail.  "As a matter of fact, he and I are very
+much at cross-purposes.  But as regards that particular instance,
+I am not sure that he was very much to be blamed, any more than
+you can blame any injured person who takes the law into his own
+hands."
+
+"He isn't a man I should care to have for an enemy," Baker
+declared.
+
+"Well, we'll shake the truth out of you fellows, somehow or
+other," one of the group threatened.  "On Friday morning we are
+going to have the whole truth--none of this Masonic secrecy which
+Baker indulged in last year."
+
+The men drifted in to luncheon and Francis, leaving them, took a
+taxi on to the Ritz.  Looking about in the vestibule for
+Margaret, he came face to face with Lady Cynthia.  She was
+dressed with her usual distinction in a gown of yellow muslin and
+a beflowered hat, and was the cynosure of a good many eyes.
+
+"One would almost imagine, Lady Cynthia," he said, as they
+exchanged greetings, "that you had found that elixir we were
+talking about."
+
+"Perhaps I have," she answered, smiling.  "Are you looking for
+Margaret?  She is somewhere about.  We were just having a chat
+when I was literally carried off by that terrible Lanchester
+woman.  Let's find her."
+
+They strolled up into the lounge.  Margaret came to meet them.
+Her smile, as she gave Francis her left hand, transformed and
+softened her whole appearance.
+
+"You don't mind my having asked Cynthia to lunch with us?" she
+said.  "I really couldn't get rid of the girl.  She came in to
+see me this morning the most aggressively cheerful person I ever
+knew.  I believe that she had an adventure last night.  All that
+she will tell me is that she dined and danced at Claridge's with
+a party of the dullest people in town."
+
+A tall, familiar figure passed down the vestibule.  Lady Cynthia
+gave a little start, and Francis, who happened to be watching
+her, was amazed at her expression.
+
+"Your father, Margaret!" she pointed out.  "I wonder if he is
+lunching here."
+
+"He told me that he was lunching somewhere with a South American
+friend--one of his partners, I believe," Margaret replied.  "I
+expect he is looking for him."
+
+Sir Timothy caught sight of them, hesitated for a moment and came
+slowly in their direction.
+
+"Have you found your friend?" Margaret asked.
+
+"The poor fellow is ill in bed," her father answered.  "I was
+just regretting that I had sent the car away, or I should have
+gone back to Hatch End."
+
+"Stay and lunch with us," Lady Cynthia begged, a little
+impetuously.
+
+"I shall be very pleased if you will," Francis put in.  "I'll go
+and tell the waiter to enlarge my table."
+
+He hurried off.  On his way back, a page-boy touched him on the
+arm.
+
+"If you please, sir," he announced, "you are wanted on the
+telephone."
+
+"I?" Francis exclaimed.  "Some mistake, I should think.  Nobody
+knows that I am here."
+
+"Mr. Ledsam," the boy said.  "This way, sir."
+
+Francis walked down the vestibule to the row of telephone boxes
+at the further end.  The attendant who was standing outside,
+indicated one of them and motioned the boy to go away.  Francis
+stepped inside.  The man followed, closing the door behind him.
+
+"I am asking your pardon, sir, for taking a great liberty," he
+confessed.  "No one wants you on the telephone.  I wished to
+speak to you."
+
+Francis looked at him in surprise.  The man was evidently
+agitated.  Somehow or other, his face was vaguely familiar.
+
+"Who are you, and what do you want with me?" Francis asked.
+
+"I was butler to Mr. Hilditch, sir," the man replied.  "I waited
+upon you the night you dined there, sir--the night of Mr.
+Hilditch's death."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I have a revelation to make with regard to that night, sir," the
+man went on, "which I should like to place in your hands.  It is
+a very serious matter, and there are reasons why something must
+be done about it at once.  Can I come and see you at your rooms,
+sir?"
+
+Francis studied the man for a moment intently.  He was evidently
+agitated--evidently, too, in very bad health.  His furtive manner
+was against him.  On the other hand, that might have arisen from
+nervousness.
+
+"I shall be in at half-past three, number 13 b, Clarges Street,"
+Francis told him.
+
+"I can get off for half-an-hour then, sir," the man replied.  "I
+shall be very glad to come.  I must apologise for having troubled
+you, sir."
+
+Francis went slowly back to his trio of guests.  All the way down
+the carpeted vestibule he was haunted by the grim shadow of a
+spectral fear.  The frozen horror of that ghastly evening was
+before him like a hateful tableau.  Hilditch's mocking words rang
+in his cars: "My death is the one thing in the world which would
+make my wife happy."  The Court scene, with all its gloomy
+tragedy, rose before his eyes--only in the dock, instead of
+Hilditch, he saw another!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+There were incidents connected with that luncheon which Francis
+always remembered.  In the first place, Sir Timothy was a great
+deal more silent than usual.  A certain vein of half-cynical,
+half-amusing comment upon things and people of the moment, which
+seemed, whenever he cared to exert himself, to flow from his lips
+without effort, had deserted him.  He sat where the rather
+brilliant light from the high windows fell upon his face, and
+Francis wondered more than once whether there were not some
+change there, perhaps some prescience of trouble to come, which
+had subdued him and made him unusually thoughtful.  Another
+slighter but more amusing feature of the luncheon was the number
+of people who stopped to shake hands with Sir Timothy and made
+more or less clumsy efforts to obtain an invitation to his coming
+entertainment.  Sir Timothy's reply to these various hints was
+barely cordial.  The most he ever promised was that he would
+consult with his secretary and see if their numbers were already
+full.  Lady Cynthia, as a somewhat blatant but discomfited Peer
+of the Realm took his awkward leave of them, laughed softly.
+
+"Of course, I think they all deserve what they get," she
+declared.  "I never heard such brazen impudence in my life--from
+people who ought to know better, too."
+
+Lord Meadowson, a sporting peer, who was one of Sir Timothy's few
+intimates, came over to the table.  He paid his respects to the
+two ladies and Francis, and turned a little eagerly to Sir
+Timothy.
+
+"Well?" he asked.
+
+Sir Timothy nodded.
+
+"We shall be quite prepared for you," he said.  "Better bring
+your cheque-book."
+
+"Capital!" the other exclaimed.  "As I hadn't heard anything, I
+was beginning to wonder whether you would be ready with your end
+of the show."
+
+"There will be no hitch so far as we are concerned," Sir Timothy
+assured him.
+
+"More mysteries?" Margaret enquired, as Meadowson departed with a
+smile of satisfaction.
+
+Her father shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Scarcely that," he replied.  "It is a little wager between Lord
+Meadowson and myself which is to be settled to-morrow."
+
+Lady Torrington, a fussy little woman, her hostess of the night
+before, on her way down the room stopped and shook hands with
+Lady Cynthia.
+
+"Why, my dear," she exclaimed, "wherever did you vanish to last
+night?  Claude told us all that, in the middle of a dance with
+him, you excused yourself for a moment and he never saw you
+again.  I quite expected to read in the papers this morning that
+you had eloped."
+
+"Precisely what I did," Lady Cynthia declared.  "The only trouble
+was that my partner had had enough of me before the evening was
+over, and deposited me once more in Grosvenor Square.  It is
+really very humiliating," she went on meditatively, "how every
+one always returns me."
+
+"You talk such nonsense, Cynthia!" Lady Torrington exclaimed, a
+little pettishly.  "However, you found your way home all right?"
+
+"Quite safely, thank you.  I was going to write you a note this
+afternoon.  I went away on an impulse.  All I can say is that I
+am sorry.  Do forgive me."
+
+"Certainly!" was the somewhat chilly reply.  "Somehow or other,
+you seem to have earned the right to do exactly as you choose.
+Some of my young men whom you had promised to dance with, were
+disappointed, but after all, I suppose that doesn't matter."
+
+"Not much," Lady Cynthia assented sweetly.  "I think a few
+disappointments are good for most of the young men of to-day."
+
+"What did you do last night, Cynthia?" Margaret asked her
+presently, when Lady Torrington had passed on.
+
+"I eloped with your father," Lady Cynthia confessed, smiling
+across at Sir Timothy.  "We went for a little drive together and
+I had a most amusing time.  The only trouble was, as I have been
+complaining to that tiresome woman, he brought me home again."
+
+"But where did you go to?" Margaret persisted.
+
+"It was an errand of charity," Sir Timothy declared.
+
+"It sounds very mysterious," Francis observed.  "Is that all we
+are to be told?"
+
+"I am afraid," Sir Timothy complained, "that very few people
+sympathise with my hobbies or my prosecution of them.  That is
+why such little incidents as last night's generally remain
+undisclosed.  If you really wish to know what happened," he went
+on, after a moment's pause, "I will tell you.  As you know, I
+have a great many friends amongst the boxing fraternity, and I
+happened to hear of a man down in the East End who has made
+himself a terror to the whole community in which he lives.  I
+took Peter Fields, my gymnasium instructor, down to the East End
+last night, and Peter Fields--dealt with him."
+
+"There was a fight?" Margaret exclaimed, with a little shudder.
+
+"There was a fight," Sir Timothy repeated, "if you can call it
+such.  Fields gave him some part of the punishment he deserved."
+
+"And you were there, Cynthia?"
+
+"I left Lady Cynthia in the car," Sir Timothy explained.  "She
+most improperly bribed my chauffeur to lend her his coat and hat,
+and followed me."
+
+"You actually saw the fight, then?" Francis asked.
+
+"I did," Lady Cynthia admitted.  "I saw it from the beginning to
+the end."
+
+Margaret looked across the table curiously.  It seemed to her
+that her friend had turned a little paler.
+
+"Did you like it?" she asked simply.
+
+Lady Cynthia was silent for a moment.  She glanced at Sir
+Timothy.  He, too, was waiting for her answer with evident
+interest.
+
+"I was thrilled," she acknowledged.  "That was the pleasurable
+part of it I have been so, used to looking on at shows that bored
+me, listening to conversations that wearied me, attempting
+sensations which were repellent, that I just welcomed feeling,
+when it came--feeling of any sort.  I was excited.  I forgot
+everything else.  I was so fascinated that I could not look away.
+But if you ask me whether I liked it, and I have to answer
+truthfully, I hated it!  I felt nothing of the sort at the time,
+but when I tried to sleep I found myself shivering.  It was
+justice, I know, but it was ugly."
+
+She watched Sir Timothy, as she made her confession, a little
+wistfully.  He said nothing, but there was a very curious change
+in his expression.  He smiled at her in an altogether unfamiliar
+way.
+
+"I suppose," she said, appealing to him, "that you are very
+disappointed in me?"
+
+"On the contrary," he answered, "I am delighted."
+
+"You mean that?" she asked incredulously.
+
+"I do," he declared.  "Companionship between our sexes is very
+delightful so far as it goes, but the fundamental differences
+between a man's outlook and tastes and a woman's should never be
+bridged over.  I myself do not wish to learn to knit.  I do not
+care for the womenkind in whom I am interested to appreciate and
+understand fighting."
+
+Margaret looked across the table in amazement.
+
+"You are most surprising this morning, father," she declared.
+
+"I am perhaps misunderstood," he sighed, "perhaps have acquired a
+reputation for greater callousness than I possess.  Personally, I
+love fighting.  I was born a fighter, and I should find no
+happier way of ending my life than fighting, but, to put it
+bluntly, fighting is a man's job."
+
+"What about women going to see fights at the National Sporting
+Club?" Lady Cynthia asked curiously.
+
+"It is their own affair, but if you ask my opinion I do not
+approve of it," Sir Timothy replied.  "I am indifferent upon the
+subject, because I am indifferent upon the subject of the
+generality of your sex," he added, with a little smile, "but I
+simply hold that it is not a taste which should be developed in
+women, and if they do develop it, it is at the expense of those
+very qualities which make them most attractive."
+
+Lady Cynthia took a cigarette from her case and leaned over to
+Francis for a light.
+
+"The world is changing," she declared.  "I cannot bear many more
+shocks.  I fancied that I had written myself for ever out of Sir
+Timothy's good books because of my confession just now."
+
+He smiled across at her.  His words were words of courteous
+badinage, but Lady Cynthia was conscious of a strange little
+sense of pleasure.
+
+"On the contrary," he assured her, "you found your way just a
+little further into my heart."
+
+"It seems to me, in a general sort of way," Margaret observed,
+leaning back in her chair, "that you and my father are becoming
+extraordinarily friendly, Cynthia."
+
+"I am hopefully in love with your father," Lady Cynthia
+confessed.  "It has been coming on for a long time.  I suspected
+it the first time I ever met him.  Now I am absolutely certain."
+
+"It's quite a new idea," Margaret remarked.  "Shall we like her
+in the family, Francis?"
+
+"No airs!" Lady Cynthia warned her.  "You two are not properly
+engaged yet.  It may devolve upon me to give my consent."
+
+"In that case," Francis replied, "I hope that we may at least
+count upon your influence with Sir Timothy?"
+
+"If you'll return the compliment and urge my suit with him," Lady
+Cynthia laughed.  "I am afraid he can't quite make up his mind
+about me, and I am so nice.  I haven't flirted nearly so much as
+people think, and my instincts are really quite domestic."
+
+"My position," Sir Timothy remarked, as he made an unsuccessful
+attempt to possess himself of the bill which Francis had called
+for, "is becoming a little difficult."
+
+"Not really difficult," Lady Cynthia objected, "because the real
+decision rests in your hands."
+
+"Just listen to the woman!" Margaret exclaimed.  "Do you realise,
+father, that Cynthia is making the most brazen advances to you?
+And I was going to ask her if she'd like to come back to The
+Sanctuary with us this evening!"
+
+Lady Cynthia was suddenly eager.  Margaret glanced across at her
+father.  Sir Timothy seemed almost imperceptibly to stiffen a
+little.
+
+"Margaret has carte blanche at The Sanctuary as regards her
+visitors," he said.  "I am afraid that I shall be busy over at
+The Walled House."
+
+"But you'd come and dine with us?"
+
+Sir Timothy hesitated.  An issue which had been looming in his
+mind for many hours seemed to be suddenly joined.
+
+"Please!" Lady Cynthia begged.
+
+Sir Timothy followed the example of the others and rose to his
+feet.  He avoided Lady Cynthia's eyes.  He seemed suddenly a
+little tired.
+
+"I will come and dine," he assented quietly.  "I am afraid that I
+cannot promise more than that.  Lady Cynthia, as she knows, is
+always welcome at The Sanctuary."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+Punctual to his appointment that afternoon, the man who had
+sought an interview with Francis was shown into the latter's
+study in Clarges Street.
+
+He wore an overcoat over his livery, and directly he entered the
+room Francis was struck by his intense pallor.  He had been
+trying feverishly to assure himself that all that the man
+required was the usual sort of help, or assistance into a
+hospital.  Yet there was something furtive in his visitor's
+manner, something which suggested the bearer of a guilty secret.
+
+"Please tell me what you want as quickly as you can," Francis
+begged.  "I am due to start down into the country in a few
+minutes."
+
+"I won't keep you long, sir," the man replied.  "The matter is
+rather a serious one."
+
+"Are you ill?"
+
+"Yes, sir!"
+
+"You had better sit down."
+
+The man relapsed gratefully into a chair.
+
+"I'll leave out everything that doesn't count, sir," he said.
+"I'll be as brief as I can.  I want you to go back to the night I
+waited upon you at dinner the night Mr. Oliver Hilditch was found
+dead.  You gave evidence.  The jury brought it in 'suicide.'  It
+wasn't suicide at all, sir.  Mr. Hilditch was murdered."
+
+The sense of horror against which he had been struggling during
+the last few hours, crept once more through the whole being of
+the man who listened.  He was face to face once more with that
+terrible issue.  Had he perjured himself in vain?  Was the whole
+structure of his dreams about to collapse, to fall about his
+ears?
+
+"By whom?" he faltered.
+
+"By Sir Timothy Brast, sir."
+
+Francis, who had been standing with his hand upon the table, felt
+suddenly inclined to laugh.  Facile though his brain was, the
+change of issues was too tremendous for him to readily assimilate
+it.  He picked up a cigarette from an open box, with shaking
+fingers, lit it, and threw himself into an easy-chair.  He was
+all the time quite unconscious of what he was doing.
+
+"Sir Timothy Brast?" he repeated.
+
+"Yes, sir," the man reiterated.  "I wish to tell you the whole
+story."
+
+"I am listening," Francis assured him.
+
+"That evening before dinner, Sir Timothy Brast called to see Mr.
+Hilditch, and a very stormy interview took place.  I do not know
+the rights of that, sir.  I only know that there was a fierce
+quarrel.  Mrs. Hilditch came in and Sir Timothy left the house.
+His last words to Mr. Hilditch were, 'You will hear from me again.'
+As you know, sir--I mean as you remember, if you followed the
+evidence--all the servants slept at the back of the house.  I
+slept in the butler's room downstairs, next to the plate pantry.
+I was awake when you left, sitting in my easy-chair, reading.
+Ten minutes after you had left, there was a sound at the front
+door as though some one had knocked with their knuckles.  I got
+up, to open it but Mr. Hilditch was before me.  He admitted Sir
+Timothy.  They went back into the library together.  It struck me
+that Mr. Hilditch had had a great deal to drink, and there was a
+queer look on Sir Timothy's face that I didn't understand.  I
+stepped into the little room which communicates with the library
+by folding doors.  There was a chink already between the two.  I
+got a knife from the pantry and widened it until I could see
+through.  I heard very little of the conversation but there was
+no quarrel.  Mr. Hilditch took up the weapon which you know about,
+sat in a chair and held it to his heart.  I heard him say something
+like this.  'This ought to appeal to you, Sir Timothy.  You're a
+specialist in this sort of thing.  One little touch, and there you
+are.'  Mrs. Hilditch said something about putting it away.  My
+master turned to Sir Timothy and said something in a low tone.
+Suddenly Sir Timothy leaned over.  He caught hold of Mr. Hilditch's
+hand which held the hilt of the dagger, and and--well, he just
+drove it in, sir.  Then he stood away.  Mrs. Hilditch sprang up
+and would have screamed, but Sir Timothy placed his hand over her
+mouth.  In a moment I heard her say, 'What have you done?'  Sir
+Timothy looked at Mr. Hilditch quite calmly.  'I have ridded the
+world of a verminous creature,' he said.  My knees began to shake.
+My nerves were always bad.  I crept back into my room, took off my
+clothes and got into bed.  I had just put the light out when they
+called for me."
+
+Francis was himself again.  There was an immense relief, a joy in
+his heart.  He had never for a single moment blamed Margaret, but
+he had never for a single moment forgotten.  It was a closed
+chapter but the stain was on its pages.  It was wonderful to tear
+it out and scatter the fragments.
+
+"I remember you at the inquest," he said.  "Your name is John
+Walter."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Your evidence was very different."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You kept all this to yourself."
+
+"I did, sir.  I thought it best."
+
+"Tell me what has happened since?"
+
+The man looked down at the table.
+
+"I have always been a poor man, sir," he said.  "I have had bad
+luck whenever I've made a try to start at anything.  I thought
+there seemed a chance for me here.  I went to Sir Timothy and I
+told him everything."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Sir Timothy never turned a hair, sir.  When I had finished he
+was very short with me, almost curt.  'You have behaved like a
+man of sense, Walter,' he said.  'How much?'  I hesitated for
+some time.  Then I could see he was getting impatient.  I doubled
+what I had thought of first.  'A thousand pounds, sir,' I said.
+Sir Timothy he went to a safe in the wall and he counted out a
+thousand pounds in notes, there and then.  He brought them over
+to me.  'Walter,' he said, 'there is your thousand pounds.  For
+that sum I understand you promise to keep what you saw to
+yourself?'  'Yes, sir,' I agreed.  'Take it, then,' he said, 'but
+I want you to understand this.  There have been many attempts but
+no one yet has ever succeeded in blackmailing me.  No one ever
+will.  I give you this thousand pounds willingly.  It is what you
+have asked for.  Never let me see your face again.  If you come
+to me starving, it will be useless.  I shall not part with
+another penny.'"
+
+The man's simple way of telling his story, his speech, slow and
+uneven on account of his faltering breath, seemed all to add to
+the dramatic nature of his disclosure.  Francis found himself
+sitting like a child who listens to a fairy story.
+
+"And then?" he asked simply.
+
+"I went off with the money," Walter continued, "and I had cruel
+bad luck.  I put it into a pub.  I was robbed a little, I drank a
+little, my wife wasn't any good.  I lost it all, sir.  I found
+myself destitute.  I went back to Sir Timothy."
+
+"Well?"
+
+The man shifted his feet nervously.  He seemed to have come to
+the difficult part of his story.
+
+"Sir Timothy was as hard as nails," he said slowly.  "He saw me.
+The moment I had finished, he rang the bell.  'Hedges,' he said
+to the manservant who came in, 'this man has come here to try and
+blackmail me.  Throw him out.  If he gives any trouble, send for
+the police.  If he shows himself here again, send for the
+police."'
+
+"What happened then?"
+
+"Well, I nearly blurted out the whole story," the man confessed,
+"and then I remembered that wouldn't do me any good, so I went
+away.  I got a job at the Ritz, but I was took ill a few days
+afterwards.  I went to see a doctor.  From him I got my
+death-warrant, sir."
+
+"Is it heart?"
+
+"It's heart, sir," the man acknowledged.  "The doctor told me I
+might snuff out at any moment.  I can't live, anyway, for more
+than a year.  I've got a little girl."
+
+"Now just why have you come to see me?" Francis asked.
+
+"For just this, sir," the man replied.  "Here's my account of
+what happened," he went on, drawing some sheets of foolscap from
+his pocket.  "It's written in my own hand and there are two
+witnesses to my signature--one a clergyman, sir, and the other a
+doctor, they thinking it was a will or something.  I had it in my
+mind to send that to Scotland Yard, and then I remembered that I
+hadn't a penny to leave my little girl.  I began to wonder--think
+as meanly of me as you like, sir--how I could still make some
+money out of this.  I happened to know that you were none too
+friendly disposed towards Sir Timothy.  This confession of mine,
+if it wouldn't mean hanging, would mean imprisonment for the rest
+of his life.  You could make a better bargain with him than me,
+sir.  Do you want to hold him in your power?  If so, you can have
+this confession, all signed and everything, for two hundred
+pounds, and as I live, sir, that two hundred pounds is to pay for
+my funeral, and the balance for my little girl."
+
+Francis took the papers and glanced them through.
+
+"Supposing I buy this document from you," he said, "what is its
+actual value?  You could write out another confession, get that
+signed, and sell it to another of Sir Timothy's enemies, or you
+could still go to Scotland Yard yourself."
+
+"I shouldn't do that, sir, I assure you," the man declared
+nervously, "not on my solemn oath.  I want simply to be quit of
+the whole matter and have a little money for the child."
+
+Francis considered for a moment.
+
+"There is only one way I can see," he said, "to make this
+document worth the money to me.  If you will sign a confession
+that any statement you have made as to the death of Mr. Hilditch
+is entirely imaginary, that you did not see Sir Timothy in the
+house that night, that you went to bed at your usual time and
+slept until you were awakened, and that you only made this charge
+for the purpose of extorting money--if you will sign a confession
+to that effect and give it me with these papers, I will pay you
+the two hundred pounds and I will never use the confession unless
+you repeat the charge."
+
+"I'll do it, sir," the man assented.
+
+Francis drew up a document, which his visitor read through and
+signed.  Then he wrote out an open cheque.
+
+"My servant shall take you to the bank in a taxi," he said.
+"They would scarcely pay you this unless you were identified.  We
+understand one another?"
+
+"Perfectly, sir!"
+
+Francis rang the bell, gave his servant the necessary orders, and
+dismissed the two men.  Half-an-hour later, already changed into
+flannels, he was on his way into the country.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+Sir Timothy walked that evening amongst the shadows.  Two hours
+ago, the last of the workmen from the great furnishing and
+catering establishments who undertook the management of his
+famous entertainments, had ceased work for the day and driven off
+in the motor-brakes hired to take them to the nearest town.  The
+long, low wing whose use no one was able absolutely to divine,
+was still full of animation, but the great reception-rooms and
+stately hall were silent and empty.  In the gymnasium, an
+enormous apartment as large as an ordinary concert hall, two or
+three electricians were still at work, directed by the man who
+had accompanied Sir Timothy to the East End on the night before.
+The former crossed the room, his footsteps awaking strange
+echoes.
+
+"There will be seating for fifty, sir, and standing room for
+fifty," he announced.  "I have had the ring slightly enlarged, as
+you suggested, and the lighting is being altered so that the
+start is exactly north and south."
+
+Sir Timothy nodded thoughtfully.  The beautiful oak floor of the
+place was littered with sawdust and shavings of wood.  Several
+tiers of seats had been arranged on the space usually occupied by
+swings, punching-balls and other artifices.  On a slightly raised
+dais at the further end was an exact replica of a ring, corded
+around and with sawdust upon the floor.  Upon the walls hung a
+marvellous collection of weapons of every description, from the
+modern rifle to the curved and terrible knife used by the most
+savage of known tribes.
+
+"How are things in the quarters?" Sir Timothy asked.
+
+"Every one is well, sir.  Doctor Ballantyne arrived this
+afternoon.  His report is excellent."
+
+Sir Timothy nodded and turned away.  He looked into the great
+gallery, its waxen floors shining with polish, ready for the feet
+of the dancers on the morrow; looked into a beautiful concert-room,
+with an organ that reached to the roof; glanced into the banquetting
+hall, which extended far into the winter-garden; made his way up
+the broad stairs, turned down a little corridor, unlocked a door and
+passed into his own suite.  There was a small dining-room, a library,
+a bedroom, and a bathroom fitted with every sort of device.  A
+man-servant who had heard him enter, hurried from his own apartment
+across the way.
+
+"You are not dining here, sir? "he enquired.
+
+Sir Timothy shook his head.
+
+"No, I am dining late at The Sanctuary," he replied.  "I just
+strolled over to see how the preparations were going on.  I shall
+be sleeping over there, too.  Any prowlers?"
+
+"Photographer brought some steps and photographed the horses in
+the park from the top of the wall this afternoon, sir," the man
+announced.  "Jenkins let him go.  Two or three pressmen sent in
+their cards to you, but they were not allowed to pass the lodge."
+
+Sir Timothy nodded.  Soon he left the house and crossed the park
+towards The Sanctuary.  He was followed all the way by horses, of
+which there were more than thirty in the great enclosure.  One
+mare greeted him with a neigh of welcome and plodded slowly after
+him.  Another pressed her nose against his shoulder and walked by
+his side, with his hand upon her neck.  Sir Timothy looked a
+little nervously around, but the park itself lay almost like a
+deep green pool, unobserved, and invisible from anywhere except
+the house itself.  He spoke a few words to each of the horses,
+and, producing his key, passed through the door in the wall into
+The Sanctuary garden, closing it quickly as he recognised Francis
+standing under the cedar-tree.
+
+"Has Lady Cynthia arrived yet?" he enquired.
+
+"Not yet," Francis replied.  "Margaret will be here in a minute.
+She told me to say that cocktails are here and that she has
+ordered dinner served on the terrace."
+
+"Excellent!" Sir Timothy murmured.  "Let me try one of your
+cigarettes."
+
+"Everything ready for the great show to-morrow night?" Francis
+asked, as he served the cocktails.
+
+"Everything is in order.  I wonder, really," Sir Timothy went on,
+looking at Francis curiously, "what you expect to see?"
+
+"I don't think we any of us have any definite idea," Francis
+replied.  "We have all, of course, made our guesses."
+
+"You will probably be disappointed," Sir Timothy warned him.
+"For some reason or other--perhaps I have encouraged the idea
+--people look upon my parties as mysterious orgies where things
+take place which may not be spoken of.  They are right to some
+extent.  I break the law, without a doubt, but I break it, I am
+afraid, in rather a disappointing fashion."
+
+A limousine covered in dust raced in at the open gates and came
+to a standstill with a grinding of brakes.  Lady Cynthia stepped
+lightly out and came across the lawn to them.
+
+"I am hot and dusty and I was disagreeable," she confided, "but
+the peace of this wonderful place, and the sight of that
+beautiful silver thing have cheered me.  May I have a cocktail
+before I go up to change?  I am a little late, I know," she went.
+on, "but that wretched garden-party!  I thought my turn would
+never come to receive my few words.  Mother would have been
+broken-hearted if I had left without them.  What slaves we are to
+royalty!  Now shall I hurry and change?  You men have the air of
+wanting your dinner, and I am rather that way myself.  You look
+tired, dear host," she added, a little hesitatingly.
+
+"The heat," he answered.
+
+"Why you ever leave this spot I can't imagine," she declared, as
+she turned away, with a lingering glance around.  "It seems like
+Paradise to come here and breathe this air.  London is like a
+furnace."
+
+The two men were alone again.  In Francis' pocket were the two
+documents, which he had not yet made up his mind how to use.
+Margaret came out to them presently, and he strolled away with
+her towards the rose garden.
+
+"Margaret," he said, "is it my fancy or has there been a change
+in your father during the last few days?"
+
+"There is a change of some sort," she admitted.  "I cannot
+describe it.  I only know it is there.  He seems much more
+thoughtful and less hard.  The change would be an improvement,"
+she went on, "except that somehow or other it makes me feel
+uneasy.  It is as though he were grappling with some crisis."
+
+They came to a standstill at the end of the pergola, where the
+masses of drooping roses made the air almost faint with their
+perfume.  Margaret stretched out her hand, plucked a handful of
+the creamy petals and held them against her cheek.  A thrush was
+singing noisily.  A few yards away they heard the soft swish of
+the river.
+
+"Tell me," she asked curiously, "my father still speaks of you as
+being in some respects an enemy.  What does he mean?"
+
+"I will tell you exactly," he answered.  "The first time I ever
+spoke to your father I was dining at Soto's.  I was talking to
+Andrew Wilmore.  It was only a short time after you had told me
+the story of Oliver Hilditch, a story which made me realise the
+horror of spending one's life keeping men like that out of the
+clutch of the law."
+
+"Go on, please," she begged.
+
+"Well, I was talking to Andrew.  I told him that in future I
+should accept no case unless I not only believed in but was
+convinced of the innocence of my client.  I added that I was at
+war with crime.  I think, perhaps, I was so deeply in earnest
+that I may have sounded a little flamboyant.  At any rate, your
+father, who had overheard me, moved up to our table.  I think he
+deduced from what I was saying that I was going to turn into a
+sort of amateur crime-investigator, a person who I gathered later
+was particularly obnoxious to him.  At any rate, he held out a
+challenge.  'If you are a man who hates crime,' he said, or
+something like it, 'I am one who loves it.'  He then went on to
+prophesy that a crime would be committed close to where we were,
+within an hour or so, and he challenged me to discover the
+assassin.  That night Victor Bidlake was murdered just outside
+Soto's."
+
+"I remember!  Do you mean to tell me, then," Margaret went on,
+with a little shiver, "that father told you this was going to
+happen?"
+
+"He certainly did," Francis replied.  "How his knowledge came I
+am not sure--yet.  But he certainly knew."
+
+"Have you anything else against him?" she asked.
+
+"There was the disappearance of Andrew Wilmore's younger brother,
+Reginald Wilmore.  I have no right to connect your father with
+that, but Shopland, the Scotland Yard detective, who has charge
+of the case, seems to believe that the young man was brought into
+this neighbourhood, and some other indirect evidence which came
+into my hands does seem to point towards your father being
+concerned in the matter.  I appealed to him at once but he only
+laughed at me.  That matter, too, remains a mystery."
+
+Margaret was thoughtful for a moment.  Then she turned towards
+the house.  They heard the soft ringing of the gong.
+
+"Will you believe me when I tell you this?" she begged, as they
+passed arm in arm down the pergola.  "I am terrified of my
+father, though in many ways he is almost princely in his
+generosity and in the broad view he takes of things.  Then his
+kindness to all dumb animals, and the way they love him, is the
+most amazing thing I ever knew.  If we were alone here to-night,
+every animal in the house would be around his chair.  He has even
+the cats locked up if we have visitors, so that no one shall see
+it.  But I am quite honest when I tell you this--I do not believe
+that my father has the ordinary outlook upon crime.  I believe
+that there is a good deal more of the Old Testament about him
+than the New."
+
+"And this change which we were speaking about?" he asked,
+lowering his voice as they reached the lawn.
+
+"I believe that somehow or other the end is coming," she said.
+"Francis, forgive me if I tell you this--or rather let me be
+forgiven--but I know of one crime my father has committed, and it
+makes me fear that there may be others.  And I have the feeling,
+somehow, that the end is close at hand and that he feels it, just
+as we might feel a thunder-storm in the air."
+
+"I am going to prove the immemorial selfishness of my sex," he
+whispered, as they drew near the little table.  "Promise me one
+thing and I don't care if your father is Beelzebub himself.
+Promise me that, whatever happens, it shall not make any
+difference to us?"
+
+She smiled at him very wonderfully, a smile which had to take the
+place of words, for there were servants now within hearing, and
+Sir Timothy himself was standing in the doorway.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+
+Lady Cynthia and Sir Timothy strolled after dinner to the bottom
+of the lawn and watched the punt which Francis was propelling
+turn from the stream into the river.
+
+"Perfectly idyllic," Lady Cynthia sighed.
+
+"We have another punt," her companion suggested.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I am one of those unselfish people," she declared, "whose idea
+of repose is not only to rest oneself but to see others rest.  I
+think these two chairs, plenty of cigarettes, and you in your
+most gracious and discoursive mood, will fill my soul with
+content."
+
+"Your decision relieves my mind," her companion declared, as he
+arranged the cushions behind her back.  "I rather fancy myself
+with a pair of sculls, but a punt-pole never appealed to me.  We
+will sit here and enjoy the peace.  To-morrow night you will find
+it all disturbed--music and raucous voices and the stampede of my
+poor, frightened horses in the park.  This is really a very
+gracious silence."
+
+"Are those two really going to marry?" Lady Cynthia asked, moving
+her head lazily in the direction of the disappearing punt.
+
+"I imagine so."
+
+"And you?  What are you going to do then?"
+
+"I am planning a long cruise.  I telegraphed to Southampton to-day.
+I am having my yacht provisioned and prepared.  I think I shall go
+over to South America."
+
+She was silent for a moment.
+
+"Alone?" she asked presently.
+
+"I am always alone," he answered.
+
+"That is rather a matter of your own choice, is it not?"
+
+"Perhaps so.  I have always found it hard to make friends.
+Enemies seem to be more in my line."
+
+"I have not found it difficult to become your friend," she
+reminded him.
+
+"You are one of my few successes," he replied.
+
+She leaned back with half-closed eyes.  There was nothing new
+about their environment--the clusters of roses, the perfume of
+the lilies in the rock garden, the even sweeter fragrance of the
+trim border of mignonette.  Away in the distance, the night was
+made momentarily ugly by the sound of a gramophone on a passing
+launch, yet this discordant note seemed only to bring the perfection
+of present things closer.  Back across the velvety lawn, through the
+feathery strips of foliage, the lights of The Sanctuary, shaded and
+subdued, were dimly visible.  The dining-table under the cedar-tree
+had already been cleared.  Hedges, newly arrived from town to play
+the major domo, was putting the finishing touches to a little array
+of cool drinks.  And beyond, dimly seen but always there, the wall.
+She turned to him suddenly.
+
+"You build a wall around your life," she said, "like the wall
+which encircles your mystery house.  Last night I thought that I
+could see a little way over the top.  To-night you are different."
+
+"If I am different," he answered quietly, "it is because, for the
+first time for many years, I have found myself wondering whether
+the life I had planned for myself, the things which I had planned
+should make life for me, are the best.  I have had doubts--perhaps
+I might say regrets."
+
+"I should like to go to South America," Lady Cynthia declared
+softly.
+
+He finished the cigarette which he was smoking and deliberately
+threw away the stump.  Then he turned and looked at her.  His
+face seemed harder than ever, clean-cut, the face of a man able
+to defy Fate, but she saw something in his eyes which she had
+never seen before.
+
+"Dear child," he said, "if I could roll back the years, if from
+all my deeds of sin, as the world knows sin, I could cancel one,
+there is nothing in the world would make me happier than to ask
+you to come with me as my cherished companion to just whatever
+part of the world you cared for.  But I have been playing pitch
+and toss with fortune all my life, since the great trouble came
+which changed me so much.  Even at this moment, the coin is in
+the air which may decide my fate."
+
+"You mean?" she ventured.
+
+"I mean," he continued, "that after the event of which we spoke
+last night, nothing in life has been more than an incident, and I
+have striven to find distraction by means which none of you--not
+even you, Lady Cynthia, with all your breadth of outlook and all
+your craving after new things--would justify."
+
+"Nothing that you may have done troubles me in the least," she
+assured him.  "I do wish that you could put it all out of your
+mind and let me help you to make a fresh start."
+
+"I may put the thing itself out of my mind," he answered sadly,
+"but the consequences remain."
+
+"There is a consequence which threatens?" she asked.
+
+He was silent for a moment.  When he spoke again, he had
+recovered all his courage.
+
+"There is the coin in the air of which I spoke," he replied.
+"Let us forget it for a moment.  Of the minor things I will
+make you my judge.  Ledsam and Margaret are coming to my party
+to-morrow night.  You, too, shall be my guest.  Such secrets as
+lie on the other side of that wall shall be yours.  After that,
+if I survive your judgment of them, and if the coin which I have
+thrown into the air comes, down to the tune I call--after that--I
+will remind you of something which happened last night--of
+something which, if I live for many years, I shall never forget."
+
+She leaned towards him.  Her eyes were heavy with longing.  Her
+arms, sweet and white in the dusky twilight, stole hesitatingly
+out.
+
+"Last night was so long ago.  Won't you take a later memory?"
+
+Once again she lay in his arms, still and content.
+
+As they crossed the lawn, an hour or so later, they were
+confronted by Hedges--who hastened, in fact, to meet them.
+
+"You are being asked for on the telephone, sir," he announced.
+"It is a trunk call.  I have switched it through to the study."
+
+"Any name?" Sir Timothy asked indifferently.
+
+The man hesitated.  His eyes sought his master's respectfully but
+charged with meaning.
+
+"The person refuses to give his name, sir, but I fancied that I
+recognised his voice.  I think it would be as well for you to
+speak, sir."
+
+Lady Cynthia sank into a chair.
+
+"You shall go and answer your telephone call," she said, "and
+leave Hedges to serve me with one of these strange drinks.  I
+believe I see some of my favourite orangeade."
+
+Sir Timothy made his way into the house and into the low,
+oak-beamed study with its dark furniture and latticed windows.
+The telephone bell began to ring again as he entered.  He took
+up the receiver.
+
+"Sir Timothy?" a rather hoarse, strained voice asked.
+
+"I am speaking," Sir Timothy replied.  "Who is it?"
+
+The man at the other end spoke as though he were out of breath.
+Nevertheless, what he said was distinct enough.
+
+"I am John Walter."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I am just ringing you up," the voice went on, "to give you
+what's called a sporting chance.  There's a boat from Southampton
+midday tomorrow.  If you're wise, you'll catch it.  Or better
+still, get off on your own yacht.  They carry a wireless now,
+these big steamers.  Don't give a criminal much of a chance, does
+it?"
+
+"I am to understand, then," Sir Timothy said calmly, "that you
+have laid your information?"
+
+"I've parted with it and serve you right," was the bitter reply.
+"I'm not saying that you're not a brave man, Sir Timothy, but
+there's such a thing as being foolhardy, and that's what you are.
+I wasn't asking you for half your fortune, nor even a dab of it,
+but if your life wasn't worth a few hundred pounds--you, with all
+that money--well, it wasn't worth saving.  So now you know.  I've
+spent ninepence to give you a chance to hop it, because I met a
+gent who has been good to me.  I've had a good dinner and I feel
+merciful.  So there you are."
+
+"Do I gather," Sir Timothy asked, in a perfectly level tone,
+"that the deed is already done?"
+
+"It's already done and done thoroughly," was the uncompromising
+answer.  "I'm not ringing up to ask you to change your mind.  If
+you were to offer me five thousand now, or ten, I couldn't stop
+the bally thing.  You've a sporting chance of getting away if you
+start at once.  That's all there is to it."
+
+"You have nothing more to say?"
+
+"Nothing!  Only I wish to God I'd never stepped into that Mayfair
+agency.  I wish I'd never gone to Mrs. Hilditch's as a temporary
+butler.  I wish I'd never seen any one of you!  That's all.  You
+can go to Hell which way you like, only, if you take my advice,
+you'll go by the way of South America.  The scaffold isn't every
+man's fancy."
+
+There was a burr of the instrument and then silence.  Sir Timothy
+carefully replaced the receiver, paused on his way out of the
+room to smell a great bowl of lavender, and passed back into the
+garden.
+
+"More applicants for invitations?" Lady Cynthia enquired lazily.
+
+Her host smiled.
+
+"Not exactly!  Although," he added, "as a matter of fact my party
+would have been perhaps a little more complete with the presence
+of the person to whom I have been speaking."
+
+Lady Cynthia pointed to the stream, down which the punt was
+slowly drifting.  The moon had gone behind a cloud, and Francis'
+figure, as he stood there, was undefined and ghostly.  A thought
+seemed to flash into her mind.  She leaned forward.
+
+"Once," she said, "he told me that he was your enemy."
+
+"The term is a little melodramatic," Sir Timothy protested.  "We
+look at certain things from opposite points of view.  You see, my
+prospective son-in-law, if ever he becomes that, represents the
+law--the Law with a capital 'L'--which recognises no human errors
+or weaknesses, and judges crime out of the musty books of the
+law-givers of old.  He makes of the law a mechanical thing which
+can neither bend nor give, and he judges humanity from the same
+standpoint.  Yet at heart he is a good fellow and I like him."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"My weakness lies the other way," he confessed, "and my sympathy
+is with those who do not fear to make their own laws."
+
+She held out her hand, white and spectral in the momentary gloom.
+At the other end of the lawn, Francis and Margaret were
+disembarking from the punt.
+
+"Does it sound too shockingly obvious," she murmured, "if I say
+that I want to make you my law?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+It would have puzzled anybody, except, perhaps, Lady Cynthia
+herself, to have detected the slightest alteration in Sir
+Timothy's demeanour during the following day, when he made fitful
+appearances at The Sanctuary, or at the dinner which was served a
+little earlier than usual, before his final departure for the
+scene of the festivities.  Once he paused in the act of helping
+himself to some dish and listened for a moment to the sound of
+voices in the hall, and when a taxicab drove up he set down his
+glass and again betrayed some interest.
+
+"The maid with my frock, thank heavens!" Lady Cynthia announced,
+glancing out of the window.  "My last anxiety is removed.  I am
+looking forward now to a wonderful night."
+
+"You may very easily be disappointed," her host warned her.  "My
+entertainments appeal more, as a rule, to men."
+
+"Why don't you be thoroughly original and issue no invitations to
+women at all?" Margaret enquired.
+
+"For the same reason that you adorn your rooms and the dinner-table
+with flowers," he answered.  "One needs them--as a relief.  Apart
+from that, I am really proud of my dancing-room, and there again,
+you see, your sex is necessary."
+
+"We are flattered," Margaret declared, with a little bow.  "It
+does seem queer to think that you should own what Cynthia's
+cousin, Davy Hinton, once told me was the best floor in London,
+and that I have never danced on it."
+
+"Nor I," Lady Cynthia put in.  "There might have been some excuse
+for not asking you, Margaret, but why an ultra-Bohemian like
+myself has had to beg and plead for an invitation, I really
+cannot imagine."
+
+"You might find," Sir Timothy said, "you may even now--that some
+of my men guests are not altogether to your liking."
+
+"Quite content to take my risk," Lady Cynthia declared
+cheerfully.  "The man with the best manners I ever met--it was at
+one of Maggie's studio dances, too--was a bookmaker.  And a
+retired prize-fighter brought me home once from an Albert Hall
+dance."
+
+"How did he behave?" Francis asked.
+
+"He was wistful but restrained," Lady Cynthia replied, "quite the
+gentleman, in fact."
+
+"You encourage me to hope for the best," Sir Timothy said, rising
+to his feet.  "You will excuse me now?  I have a few final
+preparations to make."
+
+"Are we to be allowed," Margaret enquired, "to come across the
+park?"
+
+"You would not find it convenient," her father assured her.  "You
+had better order a car, say for ten o'clock.  Don't forget to
+bring your cards of invitation, and find me immediately you
+arrive.  I wish to direct your proceedings to some extent."
+
+Lady Cynthia strolled across with him to the postern-gate and
+stood by his side after he had opened it.  Several of the
+animals, grazing in different parts of the park, pricked up their
+ears at the sound.  An old mare came hobbling towards him; a
+flea-bitten grey came trotting down the field, his head in the
+air, neighing loudly.
+
+"You waste a great deal of tenderness upon your animal friends,
+dear host," she murmured.
+
+He deliberately looked away from her.
+
+"The reciprocation, at any rate, has its disadvantages," he
+remarked, glancing a little disconsolately at the brown hairs
+upon his coat-sleeve.  "I shall have to find another coat before
+I can receive my guests--which is a further reason," he added,
+"why I must hurry."
+
+At the entrance to the great gates of The Walled House, two men
+in livery were standing.  One of them examined with care the red
+cards of invitation, and as soon as he was satisfied the gates
+were opened by some unseen agency.  The moment the car had passed
+through, they were closed again.
+
+"Father seems thoroughly mediaeval over this business," Margaret
+remarked, looking about her with interest.  "What a quaint
+courtyard, too!  It really is quite Italian."
+
+"It seems almost incredible that you have never been here!" Lady
+Cynthia exclaimed.  "Curiosity would have brought me if I had had
+to climb over the wall!"
+
+"It does seem absurd in one way," Margaret agreed, "but, as a
+matter of fact, my father's attitude about the place has always
+rather set me against it.  I didn't feel that there was any
+pleasure to be gained by coming here.  I won't tell you really
+what I did think.  We must keep to our bargain.  We are not to
+anticipate."
+
+At the front entrance, under the covered portico, the white
+tickets which they had received in exchange for their tickets of
+invitation, were carefully collected by another man, who stopped
+the car a few yards from the broad, curving steps.  After that,
+there was no more suggestion of inhospitality.  The front doors,
+which were of enormous size and height, seemed to have been
+removed, and in the great domed hall beyond Sir Timothy was
+already receiving his guests.  Being without wraps, the little
+party made an immediate entrance.  Sir Timothy, who was talking
+to one of the best-known of the foreign ambassadors, took a step
+forward to meet them.
+
+"Welcome," he said, "you, the most unique party, at least,
+amongst my guests.  Prince, may I present you to my daughter,
+Mrs. Hilditch?  Lady Cynthia Milton and Mr. Ledsam you know, I
+believe."
+
+"Your father has just been preparing me for this pleasure," the
+Prince remarked, with a smile.  "I am delighted that his views as
+regards these wonderful parties are becoming a little more--would
+it be correct to say latitudinarian?  He has certainly been very
+strict up to now."
+
+"It is the first time I have been vouchsafed an invitation,"
+Margaret confessed.
+
+"You will find much to interest you," the Prince observed.  "For
+myself, I love the sport of which your father is so noble a
+patron.  That, without doubt, though, is a side of his
+entertainment of which you will know nothing."
+
+Sir Timothy, choosing a moment's respite from the inflowing
+stream of guests, came once more across to them.
+
+"I am going to leave you, my honoured guests from The Sanctuary,"
+he said, with a faint smile, "to yourselves for a short time.  In
+the room to your left, supper is being served.  In front is the
+dancing-gallery.  To the right, as you see, is the lounge leading
+into the winter-garden.  The gymnasium is closed until midnight.
+Any other part of the place please explore at your leisure, but I
+am going to ask you one thing.  I want you to meet me in a room
+which I will show you, at a quarter to twelve."
+
+He led them down one of the corridors which opened from the hall.
+Before the first door on the right a man-servant was standing as
+though on sentry duty.  Sir Timothy tapped the panel of the door
+with his forefinger.
+
+"This is my sanctum," he announced.  "I allow no one in here
+without special permission.  I find it useful to have a place to
+which one can come and rest quite quietly sometimes.  Williams
+here has no other duty except to guard the entrance.  Williams,
+you will allow this gentleman and these two ladies to pass in at
+a quarter to twelve."
+
+The man looked at them searchingly.
+
+"Certainly, sir," he said.  "No one else?"
+
+"No one, under any pretext."
+
+Sir Timothy hurried back to the hall, and the others followed him
+in more leisurely fashion.  They were all three full of
+curiosity.
+
+"I never dreamed," Margaret declared, as she looked around her,
+"that I should ever find myself inside this house.  It has always
+seemed to me like one great bluebeard's chamber.  If ever my
+father spoke of it at all, it was as of a place which he intended
+to convert into a sort of miniature Hell."
+
+Sir Timothy leaned back to speak to them as they passed.
+
+"You will find a friend over there, Ledsam," he said.
+
+Wilmore turned around and faced them.  The two men exchanged
+somewhat surprised greetings.
+
+"No idea that I was coming until this afternoon," Wilmore
+explained.  "I got my card at five o'clock, with a note from Sir
+Timothy's secretary.  I am racking my brains to imagine what it
+can mean."
+
+"We're all a little addled," Francis confessed.  "Come and join
+our tour of exploration.  You know Lady Cynthia.  Let me present
+you to Mrs. Hilditch."
+
+The introduction was effected and they all, strolled on together.
+Margaret and Lady Cynthia led the way into the winter-garden, a
+palace of glass, tall palms, banks of exotics, flowering shrubs
+of every description, and a fountain, with wonderfully carved
+water nymphs, brought with its basin from Italy.  Hidden in the
+foliage, a small orchestra was playing very softly.  The
+atmosphere of the place was languorous and delicious.
+
+"Leave us here," Margaret insisted, with a little exclamation of
+content.  "Neither Cynthia nor I want to go any further.  Come
+back and fetch us in time for our appointment."
+
+The two men wandered off.  The place was indeed a marvel of
+architecture, a country house, of which only the shell remained,
+modernised and made wonderful by the genius of a great architect.
+The first room which they entered when they left the winter-garden,
+was as large as a small restaurant, panelled in cream colour, with
+a marvellous ceiling.  There were tables of various sizes laid for
+supper, rows of champagne bottles in ice buckets, and servants
+eagerly waiting for orders.  Already a sprinkling of the guests
+had found their way here.  The two men crossed the floor to the
+cocktail bar in the far corner, behind which a familiar face
+grinned at them.  It was Jimmy, the bartender from Soto's, who
+stood there with a wonderful array of bottles on a walnut table.
+
+"If it were not a perfectly fatuous question, I should ask what
+you were doing here, Jimmy?" Francis remarked.
+
+"I always come for Sir Timothy's big parties, sir," Jimmy
+explained.  "Your first visit, isn't it, sir?"
+
+"My first," Francis assented.
+
+"And mine," his companion echoed.
+
+"What can I have the pleasure of making for you, sir?" the man
+enquired.
+
+"A difficult question," Francis admitted.  "It is barely an hour
+and a half since we finished diner.  On the other hand, we are
+certainly going to have some supper some time or other."
+
+Jimmy nodded understandingly.
+
+"Leave it to me, sir," he begged.
+
+He served them with a foaming white concoction in tall glasses.
+A genuine lime bobbed up and down in the liquid.
+
+"Sir Timothy has the limes sent over from his own estate in South
+America," Jimmy announced.  "You will find some things in that
+drink you don't often taste."
+
+The two men sipped their beverage and pronounced it delightful.
+Jimmy leaned a little across the table.
+
+"A big thing on to-night, isn't there, sir?" he asked cautiously.
+
+"Is there?" Francis replied.  "You mean--?"
+
+Jimmy motioned towards the open window, close to which the river
+was flowing by.
+
+"You going down, sir?"
+
+Francis shook his head dubiously.
+
+"Where to?"
+
+The bartender looked with narrowed eyes from one to the other of
+the two men.  Then he suddenly froze up.  Wilmore leaned a little
+further over the impromptu counter.
+
+"Jimmy," he asked, "what goes on here besides dancing and boxing
+and gambling?"
+
+"I never heard of any gambling," Jimmy answered, shaking his
+head.  "Sir Timothy doesn't care about cards being played here at
+all."
+
+"What is the principal entertainment, then?" Francis demanded.
+"The boxing?"
+
+The bartender shook his head.
+
+"No one understands very much about this house, sir," he said,
+"except that it offers the most wonderful entertainment in
+Europe.  That is for the guests to find out, though.  We servants
+have to attend to our duties.  Will you let me mix you another
+drink, sir?"
+
+"No, thanks," Francis answered.  "The last was too good to spoil.
+But you haven't answered my question, Jimmy.  What did you mean
+when you asked if we were going down?"
+
+Jimmy's face had become wooden.
+
+"I meant nothing, sir," he said.  "Sorry I spoke."
+
+The two men turned away.  They recognised many acquaintances in
+the supper-room, and in the long gallery beyond, where many
+couples were dancing now to the music of a wonderful orchestra.
+By slow stages they made their way back to the winter-garden,
+where Lady Cynthia and Margaret were still lost in admiration
+of their surroundings.  They all walked the whole length of
+the place.  Beyond, down a flight of stone steps, was a short,
+paved way to the river.  A large electric launch was moored at
+the quay.  The grounds outside were dimly illuminated with
+cunningly-hidden electric lights shining through purple-coloured
+globes into the cloudy darkness.  In the background, enveloping
+the whole of the house and reaching to the river on either side,
+the great wall loomed up, unlit, menacing almost in its suggestions.
+A couple of loiterers stood within a few yards of them, looking
+at the launch.
+
+"There she is, ready for her errand, whatever it may be," one
+said to the other curiously.  "We couldn't play the stowaway, I
+suppose, could we?"
+
+"Dicky Bell did that once," the other answered.  "Sir Timothy has
+only one way with intruders.  He was thrown into the river and
+jolly nearly drowned."
+
+The two men passed out of hearing.
+
+"I wonder what part the launch plays in the night's
+entertainment," Wilmore observed.
+
+Francis shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I have given up wondering," he said.  "Margaret, do you hear
+that music?"
+
+She laughed.
+
+"Are we really to dance?" she murmured.  "Do you want to make a
+girl of me again?"
+
+"Well, I shouldn't be a magician, should I?" he answered.
+
+They passed into the ballroom and danced for some time.  The
+music was seductive and perfect, without any of the blatant notes
+of too many of the popular orchestras.  The floor seemed to sway
+under their feet.
+
+"This is a new joy come back into life!" Margaret exclaimed, as
+they rested for a moment.
+
+"The first of many," he assured her.
+
+They stood in the archway between the winter-garden and the
+dancing-gallery, from which they could command a view of the
+passing crowds.  Francis scanned the faces of the men and women
+with intense interest.  Many of them were known to him by sight,
+others were strangers.  There was a judge, a Cabinet Minister,
+various members of the aristocracy, a sprinkling from the foreign
+legations, and although the stage was not largely represented,
+there were one or two well-known actors.  The guests seemed to
+belong to no universal social order, but to Francis, watching
+them almost eagerly, they all seemed to have something of the
+same expression, the same slight air of weariness, of restless
+and unsatisfied desires.
+
+"I can't believe that the place is real, or that these people we
+see are not supers," Margaret whispered.
+
+"I feel every moment that a clock will strike and that it will
+all fade away."
+
+"I'm afraid I'm too material for such imaginings," Francis
+replied, "but there is a quaintly artificial air about it all.
+We must go and look for Wilmore and Lady Cynthia."
+
+They turned back into the enervating atmosphere of the winter-garden,
+and came suddenly face to face with Sir Timothy, who had escorted a
+little party of his guests to see the fountain, and was now
+returning alone.
+
+"You have been dancing, I am glad to see," the latter observed.
+"I trust that you are amusing yourselves?"
+
+"Excellently, thank you," Francis replied.
+
+"And so far," Sir Timothy went on, with a faint smile, "you find
+my entertainment normal?  You have no question yet which you
+would like to ask?"
+
+"Only one--what do you do with your launch up the river on
+moonless nights, Sir Timothy?"
+
+Sir Timothy's momentary silence was full of ominous significance.
+
+"Mr. Ledsam," he said, after a brief pause, "I have given you
+almost carte blanche to explore my domains here.  Concerning the
+launch, however, I think that you had better ask no questions at
+present."
+
+"You are using it to-night?" Francis persisted.
+
+"Will you come and see, my venturesome guest?"
+
+"With great pleasure," was the prompt reply.
+
+Sir Timothy glanced at his watch.
+
+"That," he said, "is one of the matters of which we will speak at
+a quarter to twelve.  Meanwhile, let me show you something.  It
+may amuse you as it has done me."
+
+The three moved back towards one of the arched openings which led
+into the ballroom.
+
+"Observe, if you please," their host continued, "the third couple
+who pass us.  The girl is wearing green--the very little that she
+does wear.  Watch the man, and see if he reminds you of any one."
+
+Francis did as he was bidden.  The girl was a well-known member
+of the chorus of one of the principal musical comedies, and she
+seemed to be thoroughly enjoying both the dance and her partner.
+The latter appeared to be of a somewhat ordinary type, sallow,
+with rather puffy cheeks, and eyes almost unnaturally dark.  He
+danced vigorously and he talked all the time.  Something about
+him was vaguely familiar to Francis, but he failed to place him.
+
+"Notwithstanding all my precautions," Sir Timothy continued,
+"there, fondly believing himself to be unnoticed, is an emissary
+of Scotland Yard.  Really, of all the obvious, the dry-as-dust,
+hunt-your-criminal-by-rule-of-three kind of people I ever met,
+the class of detective to which this man belongs can produce the
+most blatant examples."
+
+"What are you going to do about him?" Francis asked.
+
+Sir Timothy shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I have not yet made up my mind," he said.  "I happen to know
+that he has been laying his plans for weeks to get here,
+frequenting Soto's and other restaurants, and scraping
+acquaintances with some of my friends.  The Duke of Tadchester
+brought him--won a few hundreds from him at baccarat, I suppose.
+His grace will never again find these doors open to him."
+
+Francis' attention had wandered.  He was gazing fixedly at the
+man whom Sir Timothy had pointed out.
+
+"You still do not fully recognise our friend," the latter
+observed carelessly.  "He calls himself Manuel Loito, and he
+professes to be a Cuban.  His real name I understood, when you
+introduced us, to be Shopland."
+
+"Great heavens, so it is!" Francis exclaimed.
+
+"Let us leave him to his precarious pleasures," Sir Timothy
+suggested.  "I am free for a few moments.  We will wander round
+together."
+
+They found Lady Cynthia and Wilmore, and looked in at the
+supper-room, where people were waiting now for tables, a babel of
+sound and gaiety.  The grounds and winter-gardens were crowded.
+Their guide led the way to a large apartment on the other side of
+the hall, from which the sound of music was proceeding.
+
+"My theatre," he said.  "I wonder what is going on."
+
+They passed inside.  There was a small stage with steps leading
+down to the floor, easy-chairs and round tables everywhere, and
+waiters serving refreshments.  A girl was dancing.  Sir Timothy
+watched her approvingly.
+
+"Nadia Ellistoff," he told them.  "She was in the last Russian
+ballet, and she is waiting now for the rest of the company to
+start again at Covent Garden.  You see, it is Metzger who plays
+there.  They improvise.  Rather a wonderful performance, I
+think."
+
+They watched her breathlessly, a spirit in grey tulle, with great
+black eyes now and then half closed.
+
+"It is 'Wind before Dawn,'" Lady Cynthia whispered.  "I heard him
+play it two days after he composed it, only there are variations
+now.  She is the soul of the south wind."
+
+The curtain went down amidst rapturous applause.  The dancer
+had left the stage, floating away into some sort of
+wonderfully-contrived nebulous background.  Within a few moments,
+the principal comedian of the day was telling stories.  Sir Timothy
+led them away.
+
+"But how on earth do you get all these people?" Lady Cynthia
+asked.
+
+"It is arranged for me," Sir Timothy replied.  "I have an agent
+who sees to it all.  Every man or woman who is asked to perform,
+has a credit at Cartier's for a hundred guineas.  I pay no fees.
+They select some little keepsake."
+
+Margaret laughed softly.
+
+"No wonder they call this place a sort of Arabian Nights!" she
+declared.
+
+"Well, there isn't much else for you to see," Sir Timothy said
+thoughtfully.  "My gymnasium, which is one of the principal
+features here, is closed just now for a special performance, of
+which I will speak in a moment.  The concert hall I see they are
+using for an overflow dance-room.  What you have seen, with the
+grounds and the winter-garden, comprises almost everything."
+
+They moved back through the hall with difficulty.  People were
+now crowding in.  Lady Cynthia laughed softly.
+
+"Why, it is like a gala night at the Opera, Sir Timothy!" she
+exclaimed.  "How dare you pretend that this is Bohemia!"
+
+"It has never been I who have described my entertainments," he
+reminded her.  "They have been called everything--orgies,
+debauches--everything you can think of.  I have never ventured
+myself to describe them."
+
+Their passage was difficult.  Every now and then Sir Timothy was
+compelled to shake hands with some of his newly-arriving guests.
+At last, however, they reached the little sitting-room.  Sir
+Timothy turned back to Wilmore, who hesitated.
+
+"You had better come in, too, Mr. Wilmore, if you will," he
+invited.  "You were with Ledsam, the first day we met, and
+something which I have to say now may interest you."
+
+"If I am not intruding," Wilmore murmured.
+
+They entered the room, still jealously guarded.  Sir Timothy
+closed the door behind them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+
+The apartment was one belonging to the older portion of the
+house, and had been, in fact, an annex to the great library.  The
+walls were oak-panelled, and hung with a collection of old
+prints.  There were some easy-chairs, a writing-table, and some
+well-laden bookcases.  There were one or two bronze statues of
+gladiators, a wonderful study of two wrestlers, no minor
+ornaments.  Sir Timothy plunged at once into what he had to say.
+
+"I promised you, Lady Cynthia, and you, Ledsam," he said, "to
+divulge exactly the truth as regards these much-talked-of
+entertainments here.  You, Margaret, under present circumstances,
+are equally interested.  You, Wilmore, are Ledsam's friend, and
+you happen to have an interest in this particular party.
+Therefore, I am glad to have you all here together.  The
+superficial part of my entertainment you have seen.  The part
+which renders it necessary for me to keep closed doors, I shall
+now explain.  I give prizes here of considerable value for boxing
+contests which are conducted under rules of our own.  One is due
+to take place in a very few minutes.  The contests vary in
+character, but I may say that the chief officials of the National
+Sporting Club are usually to be found here, only, of course, in
+an unofficial capacity.  The difference between the contests
+arranged by me, and others, is that my men are here to fight.
+They use sometimes an illegal weight of glove and they sometimes
+hurt one another.  If any two of the boxing fraternity have a
+grudge against one another, and that often happens, they are
+permitted here to fight it out, under the strictest control as
+regards fairness, but practically without gloves at all.  You
+heard of the accident, for instance, to Norris?  That happened in
+my gymnasium.  He was knocked out by Burgin.  It was a wonderful
+fight.
+
+"However, I pass on.  There is another class of contest which
+frequently takes place here.  Two boxers place themselves
+unreservedly in my hands.  The details of the match are arranged
+without their knowledge.  They come into the ring without knowing
+whom they are going to fight.  Sometimes they never know, for my
+men wear masks.  Then we have private matches.  There is one
+to-night.  Lord Meadowson and I have a wager of a thousand
+guineas.  He has brought to-night from the East End a boxer who,
+according to the terms of our bet, has never before engaged in a
+professional contest.  I have brought an amateur under the same
+conditions.  The weight is within a few pounds the same, neither
+has ever seen the other, only in this case the fight is with
+regulation gloves and under Queensberry rules."
+
+"Who is your amateur, Sir Timothy?" Wilmore asked harshly.
+
+"Your brother, Mr. Wilmore," was the prompt reply.  "You shall
+see the fight if I have your promise not to attempt in any way to
+interfere."
+
+Wilmore rose to his feet.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me," he demanded, "that my brother has been
+decoyed here, kept here against his will, to provide amusement
+for your guests?"
+
+"Mr. Wilmore, I beg that you will be reasonable," Sir Timothy
+expostulated.  "I saw your brother box at his gymnasium in
+Holborn.  My agent made him the offer of this fight.  One of my
+conditions had to be that he came here to train and that whilst
+he was here he held no communication whatever with the outside
+world.  My trainer has ideas of his own and this he insists upon.
+Your brother in the end acquiesced.  He was at first difficult to
+deal with as regards this condition, and he did, in fact, I
+believe, Mr. Ledsam, pay a visit to your office, with the object
+of asking you to become an intermediary between him and his
+relatives."
+
+"He began a letter to me," Francis interposed, "and then
+mysteriously disappeared."
+
+"The mystery is easily explained," Sir Timothy continued.  "My
+trainer, Roger Hagon, a Varsity blue, and the best heavyweight of
+his year, occupies the chambers above yours.  He saw from the
+window the arrival of Reginald Wilmore--which was according to
+instructions, as they were to come down to Hatch End together
+--went down the stairs to meet him, and, to cut a long story short,
+fetched him out of your office, Ledsam, without allowing him to
+finish his letter.  This absolute isolation seems a curious
+condition, perhaps, but Hagon insists upon it, and I can assure
+you that he knows his business.  The mystery, as you have termed
+it, of his disappearance that morning, is that he went upstairs
+with Hagon for several hours to undergo a medical examination,
+instead of leaving the building forthwith."
+
+"Queer thing I never thought of Hagon," Francis remarked.  "As a
+matter of fact, I never see him in the Temple, and I thought that
+he had left."
+
+"May I ask," Wilmore intervened, "when my brother will be free to
+return to his home?"
+
+"To-night, directly the fight is over," Sir Timothy replied.
+"Should he be successful, he will take with him a sum of money
+sufficient to start him in any business he chooses to enter."
+
+Wilmore frowned slightly.
+
+"But surely," he protested, "that would make him a professional
+pugilist?"
+
+"Not at all," Sir Timothy replied.  "For one thing, the match is
+a private one in a private house, and for another the money is a
+gift.  There is no purse.  If your brother loses, he gets
+nothing.  Will you see the fight, Mr. Wilmore?"
+
+"Yes, I will see it," was the somewhat reluctant assent.
+
+"You will give me your word not to interfere in any way?"
+
+"I shall not interfere," Wilmore promised.  "If they are wearing
+regulation gloves, and the weights are about equal, and the
+conditions are what you say, it is the last thing I should wish
+to do."
+
+"Capital!" Sir Timothy exclaimed.  "Now to pass on.  There is one
+other feature of my entertainments concerning which I have
+something to say--a series of performances which takes place on
+my launch at odd times.  There is one fixed for tonight.  I can
+say little about it except that it is unusual.  I am going to ask
+you, Lady Cynthia, and you, Ledsam, to witness it.  When you have
+seen that, you know everything.  Then you and I, Ledsam, can call
+one another's hands.  I shall have something else to say to you,
+but that is outside the doings here."
+
+"Are we to see the fight in the gymnasium?" Lady Cynthia
+enquired.
+
+Sir Timothy shook his head.
+
+"I do not allow women there under any conditions," he said.  "You
+and Margaret had better stay here whilst that takes place.  It
+will probably be over in twenty minutes.  It will be time then
+for us to find our way to the launch.  After that, if you have
+any appetite, supper.  I will order some caviare sandwiches for
+you," Sir Timothy went on, ringing the bell, "and some wine."
+
+Lady Cynthia smiled.
+
+"It is really a very wonderful party," she murmured.
+
+Their host ushered the two men across the hall, now comparatively
+deserted, for every one had settled down to his or her chosen
+amusement--down a long passage, through a private door which he
+unlocked with a Yale key, and into the gymnasium.  There were
+less than fifty spectators seated around the ring, and Francis,
+glancing at them hastily, fancied that he recognised nearly every
+one of them.  There was Baker, a judge, a couple of actors, Lord
+Meadowson, the most renowned of sporting peers, and a dozen who
+followed in his footsteps; a little man who had once been amateur
+champion in the bantam class, and who was now considered the
+finest judge of boxing in the world; a theatrical manager, the
+present amateur boxing champion, and a sprinkling of others.  Sir
+Timothy and his companions took their chairs amidst a buzz of
+welcome.  Almost immediately, the man who was in charge of the
+proceedings, and whose name was Harrison, rose from his place.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, "this is a sporting contest, but one under
+usual rules and usual conditions.  An amateur, who tips the
+scales at twelve stone seven, who has never engaged in a boxing
+contest in his life, is matched against a young man from a
+different sphere of life, who intends to adopt the ring as his
+profession, but who has never as yet fought in public.  Names,
+gentlemen, as you know, are seldom mentioned here.  I will only
+say that the first in the ring is the nominee of our friend and
+host, Sir Timothy Brast; second comes the nominee of Lord
+Meadowson."
+
+Wilmore, notwithstanding his pre-knowledge, gave a little gasp.
+The young man who stood now within a few yards of him, carelessly
+swinging his gloves in his hand, was without a doubt his missing
+brother.  He looked well and in the pink of condition; not only
+well but entirely confident and at his ease.  His opponent, on
+the other hand, a sturdier man, a few inches shorter, was nervous
+and awkward, though none the less determined-looking.  Sir
+Timothy rose and whispered in Harrison's ear.  The latter nodded.
+In a very few moments the preliminaries were concluded, the fight
+begun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+
+Francis, glad of a moment or two's solitude in which to rearrange
+his somewhat distorted sensations, found an empty space in the
+stern of the launch and stood leaning over the rail.  His pulses
+were still tingling with the indubitable excitement of the last
+half-hour.  It was all there, even now, before his eyes like a
+cinematograph picture--the duel between those two men, a duel of
+knowledge, of strength, of science, of courage.  From beginning
+to end, there had been no moment when Francis had felt that he
+was looking on at what was in any way a degrading or immoral
+spectacle.  Each man had fought in his way to win.  Young
+Wilmore, graceful as a panther, with a keen, joyous desire of
+youth for supremacy written in his face and in the dogged lines
+of his mouth; the budding champion from the East End less
+graceful, perhaps, but with even more strength and at least as
+much determination, had certainly done his best to justify his
+selection.  There were no points to be scored.  There had been no
+undue feinting, no holding, few of the tricks of the professional
+ring.  It was a fight to a finish, or until Harrison gave the
+word.  And the better man had won.  But even that knock-out blow
+which Reggie Wilmore had delivered after a wonderful feint, had
+had little that was cruel in it.  There was something beautiful
+almost in the strength and grace with which it had been
+delivered--the breathless eagerness, the waiting, the end.
+
+Francis felt a touch upon his arm and looked around.  A tall,
+sad-faced looking woman, whom he had noticed with a vague sense
+of familiarity in the dancing-room, was standing by his side.
+
+"You have forgotten me, Mr. Ledsam," she said.
+
+"For the moment," he admitted.
+
+"I am Isabel Culbridge," she told him, watching his face.
+
+"Lady Isabel?" Francis repeated incredulously.  "But surely--"
+
+"Better not contradict me," she interrupted.  "Look again."
+
+Francis looked again.
+
+"I am very sorry," he said.  "It is some time, is it not, since
+we met?"
+
+She stood by his side, and for a few moments neither of them
+spoke.  The little orchestra in the bows had commenced to play
+softly, but there was none of the merriment amongst the handful
+of men and women generally associated with a midnight river
+picnic.  The moon was temporarily obscured, and it seemed as
+though some artist's hand had so dealt with the few electric
+lights that the men, with their pale faces and white shirt-fronts,
+and the three or four women, most of them, as it happened, wearing
+black, were like some ghostly figures in some sombre procession.
+Only the music kept up the pretence that this was in any way an
+ordinary excursion.  Amongst the human element there was an air
+of tenseness which seemed rather to increase as they passed into
+the shadowy reaches of the river.
+
+"You have been ill, I am afraid?" Francis said tentatively.
+
+"If you will," she answered, "but my illness is of the soul.  I
+have become one of a type," she went on, "of which you will find
+many examples here.  We started life thinking that it was clever
+to despise the conventional and the known and to seek always for
+the daring and the unknown.  New experiences were what we craved
+for.  I married a wonderful husband.  I broke his heart and still
+looked for new things.  I had a daughter of whom I was fond--she
+ran away with my chauffeur and left me; a son whom I adored, and
+he was killed in the war; a lover who told me that he worshipped
+me, who spent every penny I had and made me the laughing-stock of
+town.  I am still looking for new things."
+
+"Sir Timothy's parties are generally supposed to provide them,"
+Francis observed.
+
+The woman shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"So far they seem very much like anybody's else," she said.  "The
+fight might have been amusing, but no women were allowed.  The
+rest was very wonderful in its way, but that is all.  I am still
+hoping for what we are to see downstairs."
+
+They heard Sir Timothy's voice a few yards away, and turned to
+look at him.  He had just come from below, and had paused
+opposite a man who had been standing a little apart from the
+others, one of the few who was wearing an overcoat, as though he
+felt the cold.  In the background were the two servants who had
+guarded the gangway.
+
+"Mr. Manuel Loito," Sir Timothy said--"or shall I say Mr.
+Shopland?--my invited guests are welcome.  I have only one method
+of dealing with uninvited ones."
+
+The two men suddenly stepped forward.  Shopland made no protest,
+attempted no struggle.  They lifted him off his feet as though he
+were a baby, and a moment later there was a splash in the water.
+They threw a life-belt after him.
+
+"Always humane, you see," Sir Timothy remarked, as he leaned over
+the side.  "Ah!  I see that even in his overcoat our friend is
+swimmer enough to reach the bank.  You find our methods harsh,
+Ledsam?" he asked, turning a challenging gaze towards the latter.
+
+Francis, who had been watching Shopland come to the surface,
+shrugged his shoulders.  He delayed answering for a moment while
+he watched the detective, disdaining the life-belt, swim to the
+opposite shore.
+
+"I suppose that under the circumstances," Francis said, "he was
+prepared to take his risk."
+
+"You should know best about that," Sir Timothy rejoined.  "I
+wonder whether you would mind looking after Lady Cynthia?  I
+shall be busy for a few moments."
+
+Francis stepped across the deck towards where Lady Cynthia had
+been sitting by her host's side.  They had passed into the mouth
+of a tree-hung strip of the river.  The engine was suddenly shut
+off.  A gong was sounded.  There was a murmur, almost a sob of
+relief, as the little sprinkling of men and women rose hastily to
+their feet and made their way towards the companion-way.
+Downstairs, in the saloon, with its white satinwood panels and
+rows of swing chairs, heavy curtains were drawn across the
+portholes, all outside light was shut out from the place.  At the
+further end, raised slightly from the floor, was a sanded circle.
+Sir Timothy made his way to one of the pillars by its side and
+turned around to face the little company of his guests.  His
+voice, though it seemed scarcely raised above a whisper, was
+extraordinarily clear and distinct.  Even Francis, who, with Lady
+Cynthia, had found seats only just inside the door, could hear
+every word he said.
+
+"My friends," he began, "you have often before been my guests at
+such small fights as we have been able to arrange in as
+unorthodox a manner as possible between professional boxers.
+There has been some novelty about them, but on the last occasion
+I think it was generally observed that they had become a little
+too professional, a little ultra-scientific.  There was something
+which they lacked.  With that something I am hoping to provide
+you to-night.  Thank you, Sir Edgar," he murmured, leaning down
+towards his neighbour.
+
+He held his cigarette in the flame of a match which the other had
+kindled.  Francis, who was watching intently, was puzzled at the
+expression with which for a moment, as he straightened himself,
+Sir Timothy glanced down the room, seeking for Lady Cynthia's
+eyes.  In a sense it was as though he were seeking for something
+he needed--approbation, sympathy, understanding.
+
+"Our hobby, as you know, has been reality," he continued.  "That
+is what we have not always been able to achieve.  Tonight I offer
+you reality.  There are two men here, one an East End coster, the
+other an Italian until lately associated with an itinerant
+vehicle of musical production.  These two men have not outlived
+sensation as I fancy so many of us have.  They hate one another
+to the death.  I forget their surnames, but Guiseppe has stolen
+Jim's girl, is living with her at the present moment, and
+proposes to keep her.  Jim has sworn to have the lives of both of
+them.  Jim's career, in its way, is interesting to us.  He has
+spent already six years in prison for manslaughter, and a year
+for a brutal assault upon a constable.  Guiseppe was tried in his
+native country for a particularly fiendish murder, and escaped,
+owing, I believe, to some legal technicality.  That, however, has
+nothing to do with the matter.  These men have sworn to fight to
+the death, and the girl, I understand, is willing to return to
+Jim if he should be successful, or to remain with Guiseppe if he
+should show himself able to retain her.  The fight between these
+men, my friends, has been transferred from Seven Dials for your
+entertainment.  It will take place before you here and now."
+
+There was a little shiver amongst the audience.  Francis, almost
+to his horror, was unable to resist the feeling of queer
+excitement which stole through his veins.  A few yards away, Lady
+Isabel seemed to have become transformed.  She was leaning
+forward in her chair, her eyes glowing, her lips parted,
+rejuvenated, dehumanised.  Francis' immediate companion, however,
+rather surprised him.  Her eyes were fixed intently upon Sir
+Timothy's.  She seemed to have been weighing every word he had
+spoken.  There was none of that hungry pleasure in her face
+which shone from the other woman's and was reflected in the faces
+of many of the others.  She seemed to be bracing herself for a
+shock.  Sir Timothy looked over his shoulder towards the door
+which opened upon the sanded space.
+
+"You can bring your men along," he directed.
+
+One of the attendants promptly made his appearance.  He was
+holding tightly by the arm a man of apparently thirty years of
+age, shabbily dressed, barefooted, without collar or necktie,
+with a mass of black hair which looked as though it had escaped
+the care of any barber for many weeks.  His complexion was
+sallow; he had high cheekbones and a receding chin, which gave
+him rather the appearance of a fox.  He shrank a little from the
+lights as though they hurt his eyes, and all the time he looked
+furtively back to the door, through which in a moment or two his
+rival was presently escorted.  The latter was a young man of
+stockier build, ill-conditioned, and with the brutal face of the
+lowest of his class.  Two of his front teeth were missing, and
+there was a livid mark on the side of his cheek.  He looked
+neither to the right nor to the left.  His eyes were fixed upon
+the other man, and they looked death.
+
+"The gentleman who first appeared," Sir Timothy observed,
+stepping up into the sanded space but still half facing the
+audience, "is Guiseppe, the Lothario of this little act.  The
+other is Jim, the wronged husband.  You know their story.  Now,
+Jim," he added, turning towards the Englishman, "I put in your
+trousers pocket these notes, two hundred pounds, you will
+perceive.  I place in the trousers pocket of Guiseppe here notes
+to the same amount.  I understand you have a little quarrel to
+fight out.  The one who wins will naturally help himself to the
+other's money, together with that other little reward which I
+imagine was the first cause of your quarrel.  Now ... let them
+go."
+
+Sir Timothy resumed his seat and leaned back in leisurely
+fashion.  The two attendants solemnly released their captives.
+There was a moment's intense silence.  The two men seemed fencing
+for position.  There was something stealthy and horrible about
+their movements as they crept around one another.  Francis
+realised what it was almost as the little sobbing breath from
+those of the audience who still retained any emotion, showed him
+that they, too, foresaw what was going to happen.  Both men had
+drawn knives from their belts.  It was murder which had been let
+loose.
+
+Francis found himself almost immediately upon his feet.  His
+whole being seemed crying out for interference.  Lady Cynthia's
+death-white face and pleading eyes seemed like the echo of his
+own passionate aversion to what was taking place.  Then he met
+Sir Timothy's gaze across the room and he remembered his promise.
+Under no conditions was he to protest or interfere.  He set his
+teeth and resumed his seat.  The fight went on.  There were
+little sobs and tremors of excitement, strange banks of silence.
+Both men seemed out of condition.  The sound of their hoarse
+breathing was easily heard against the curtain of spellbound
+silence.  For a time their knives stabbed the empty air, but from
+the first the end seemed certain.  The Englishman attacked
+wildly.  His adversary waited his time, content with avoiding the
+murderous blows struck at him, striving all the time to steal
+underneath the other's guard.  And then, almost without warning,
+it was all over.  Jim was on his back in a crumpled heap.  There
+was a horrid stain upon his coat.  The other man was kneeling by
+his side, hate, glaring out of his eyes, guiding all the time the
+rising and falling of his knife.  There was one more shriek--then
+silence only the sound of the victor's breathing as he rose
+slowly from his ghastly task.  Sir Timothy rose to his feet and
+waved his hand.  The curtain went down.
+
+"On deck, if you please, ladies and gentlemen," he said calmly.
+
+No one stirred.  A woman began to sob.  A fat, unhealthy-looking
+man in front of Francis reeled over in a dead faint.  Two other
+of the guests near had risen from their seats and were shouting
+aimlessly like lunatics.  Even Francis was conscious of that
+temporary imprisonment of the body due to his lacerated nerves.
+Only the clinging of Lady Cynthia to his arm kept him from
+rushing from the spot.
+
+"You are faint?" he whispered hoarsely.
+
+"Upstairs--air," she faltered.
+
+They rose to their feet.  The sound of Sir Timothy's voice
+reached them as they ascended the stairs.
+
+"On deck, every one, if you please," he insisted.  "Refreshments
+are being served there.  There are inquisitive people who watch
+my launch, and it is inadvisable to remain here long."
+
+People hurried out then as though their one desire was to escape
+from the scene of the tragedy.  Lady Cynthia, still clinging to
+Francis' arm, led him to the furthermost corner of the launch.
+There were real tears in her eyes, her breath was coming in
+little sobs.
+
+"Oh, it was horrible!" she cried.  "Horrible!  Mr. Ledsam--I
+can't help it--I never want to speak to Sir Timothy again!"
+
+One final horror arrested for a moment the sound of voices.
+There was a dull splash in the river.  Something had been thrown
+overboard.  The orchestra began to play dance music.
+Conversation suddenly burst out.  Every one was hysterical.  A
+Peer of the Realm, red-eyed and shaking like an aspen leaf, was
+drinking champagne out of the bottle.  Every one seemed to be
+trying to outvie the other in loud conversation, in outrageous
+mirth.  Lady Isabel, with a glass of champagne in her hand,
+leaned back towards Francis.
+
+"Well," she asked, "how are you feeling, Mr. Ledsam?"
+
+"As though I had spent half-an-hour in Hell," he answered.
+
+She screamed with laughter.
+
+"Hear this man," she called out, "who will send any poor
+ragamuffin to the gallows if his fee is large enough!  Of
+course," she added, turning back to him, "I ought to remember you
+are a normal person  and to-night's entertainment was not for
+normal persons.  For myself I am grateful to Sir Timothy.  For a
+few moments of this aching aftermath of life, I forgot."
+
+Suddenly all the lights around the launch flamed out, the music
+stopped.  Sir Timothy came up on deck.  On either side of him was
+a man in ordinary dinner clothes.  The babel of voices ceased.
+Everyone was oppressed by some vague likeness.  A breathless
+silence ensued.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," Sir Timothy said, and once more the smile
+upon his lips assumed its most mocking curve, "let me introduce
+you to the two artists who have given us to-night such a
+realistic performance, Signor Guiseppe Elito and Signor Carlos
+Marlini.  I had the good fortune," he went on, "to witness this
+very marvellous performance in a small music-hall at Palermo, and
+I was able to induce the two actors to pay us a visit over here.
+Steward, these gentlemen will take a glass of champagne."
+
+The two Sicilians raised their glasses and bowed expectantly to
+the little company.  They received, however, a much greater
+tribute to their performance than the applause which they had
+been expecting.  There reigned everywhere a deadly, stupefied
+silence.  Only a half-stifled sob broke from Lady Cynthia's lips
+as she leaned over the rail, her face buried in her hands, her
+whole frame shaking.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+
+Francis and Margaret sat in the rose garden on the following
+morning.  Their conversation was a little disjointed, as the
+conversation of lovers in a secluded and beautiful spot should
+be, but they came back often to the subject of Sir Timothy.
+
+"If I have misunderstood your father," Francis, declared, "and I
+admit that I have, it has been to some extent his own fault.  To
+me he was always the deliberate scoffer against any code of
+morals, a rebel against the law even if not a criminal in actual
+deeds.  I honestly believed that The Walled House was the scene
+of disreputable orgies, that your father was behind Fairfax in
+that cold-blooded murder, and that he was responsible in some
+sinister way for the disappearance of Reggie Wilmore.  Most of
+these things seem to have been shams, like the fight last night."
+
+She moved uneasily in her place.
+
+"I am glad I did not see that," she said, with a shiver.
+
+"I think," he went on, "that the reason why your father insisted
+upon Lady Cynthia's and my presence there was that he meant it as
+a sort of allegory.  Half the vices in life he claims are
+unreal."
+
+Margaret passed her arm through his and leaned a little towards
+him.
+
+"If you knew just one thing I have never told you," she confided,
+"I think that you would feel sorry for him.  I do, more and more
+every day, because in a way that one thing is my fault."
+
+Notwithstanding the warm sunshine, she suddenly shivered.
+Francis took her hands in his.  They were cold and lifeless.
+
+"I know that one thing, dear," he told her quietly.
+
+She looked at him stonily.  There was a questioning fear in her
+eyes.
+
+"You know--"
+
+"I know that your fattier killed Oliver Hilditch."
+
+She suddenly broke out into a stream of words.  There was passion
+in her tone and in her eyes.  She was almost the accuser.
+
+"My father was right, then!" she exclaimed.  "He told me this
+morning that he believed that it was to you or to your friend at
+Scotland Yard that Walter had told his story.  But you don't know
+you don't know how terrible the temptation was how--you see I say
+it quite coolly--how Oliver Hilditch deserved to die.  He was
+trusted by my father in South America and he deceived him, he
+forged the letters which induced me to marry him.  It was part of
+his scheme of revenge.  This was the first time we had any of us
+met since.  I told my father the truth that afternoon.  He knew
+for the first time how my marriage came about.  My husband had
+prayed me to keep silent.  I refused.  Then he became like a
+devil.  We were there, we three, that night after you left, and
+Francis, as I live, if my father had not killed him, I should
+have!"
+
+"There was a time when I believed that you had," he reminded her.
+"I didn't behave like a pedagogic upholder of the letter of the
+law then, did I?"
+
+She drew closer to him.
+
+"You were wonderful," she whispered.
+
+"Dearest, your father has nothing to fear from me," he assured
+her tenderly.  "On the contrary, I think that I can show him the
+way to safety."
+
+She rose impulsively to her feet.
+
+"He will be here directly," she said.  "He promised to come
+across at half-past twelve.  Let us go and meet him.  But,
+Francis--"
+
+For a single moment she crept into his arms.  Their lips met, her
+eyes shone into his.  He held her away from him a moment later.
+The change was amazing.  She was no longer a tired woman.  She
+had become a girl again.  Her eyes were soft with happiness, the
+little lines had gone from about her mouth, she walked with all
+the spring of youth and happiness.
+
+"It is marvellous," she whispered.  "I never dreamed that I
+should ever be happy again."
+
+They crossed the rustic bridge which led on to the lawn.  Lady
+Cynthia came out of the house to meet them.  She showed no signs
+of fatigue, but her eyes and her tone were full of anxiety.
+
+"Margaret," she cried, "do you know that the hall is filled with
+your father's luggage, and that the car is ordered to take him to
+Southampton directly after lunch?"
+
+Margaret and Francis exchanged glances.
+
+"Sir Timothy may change his mind," the latter observed.  "I have
+news for him directly he arrives."
+
+On the other side of the wall they heard the whinnying of the old
+mare, the sound of galloping feet from all directions.
+
+"Here he comes!" Lady Cynthia exclaimed.  "I shall go and meet
+him."
+
+Francis laid his hand upon her arm.
+
+"Let me have a word with him first," he begged.
+
+She hesitated.
+
+"You are not going to say anything--that will make him want to go
+away?"
+
+"I am going to tell him something which I think will keep him at
+home."
+
+Sir Timothy came through the postern-gate, a moment or two later.
+He waved his hat and crossed the lawn in their direction.
+Francis went alone to meet him and, as he drew near, was
+conscious of a little shock.  His host, although he held himself
+bravely, seemed to have aged in the night.
+
+"I want one word with you, sir, in your study, please," Francis
+said.
+
+Sir Timothy shrugged his shoulders and led the way.  He turned to
+wave his hand once more to Margaret and Lady Cynthia, however,
+and he looked with approval at the luncheon-table which a couple
+of servants were laying under the cedar tree.
+
+"Wonderful thing, these alfresco meals," he declared.  "I hope
+Hedges won't forget the maraschino with the melons.  Come into my
+den, Ledsam."
+
+He led the way in courtly fashion.  He was the ideal host leading
+a valued guest to his sanctum for a few moments' pleasant
+conversation.  But when they arrived in the little beamed room
+and the door was closed, his manner changed.  He looked
+searchingly, almost challengingly at Francis.
+
+"You have news for me?" he asked.
+
+"Yes!" Francis answered.
+
+Sir Timothy shrugged his shoulders.  He threw himself a little
+wearily into an easy-chair.  His hands strayed out towards a
+cigarette box.  He selected one and lit it.
+
+"I expected your friend, Mr. Shopland," he murmured.  "I hope he
+is none the worse for his ducking."
+
+"Shopland is a fool," Francis replied.  "He has nothing to do
+with this affair, anyway.  I have something to give you, Sir
+Timothy."
+
+He took the two papers from his pocket and handed them over.
+
+"I bought these from John Walter the day before yesterday," he
+continued.  "I gave him two hundred pounds for them.  The money
+was just in time.  He caught a steamer for Australia late in the
+afternoon.  I had this wireless from him this morning."
+
+Sir Timothy studied the two documents, read the wireless.  There
+was little change in his face.  Only for a single moment his lips
+quivered.
+
+"What does this mean?" he asked, rising to his feet with the
+documents in his hand.
+
+"It means that those papers are yours to do what you like with.
+I drafted the second one so that you should be absolutely secure
+against any further attempt at blackmail.  As a matter of fact,
+though, Walter is on his last legs.  I doubt whether he will live
+to land in Australia."
+
+"You know that I killed Oliver Hilditch?" Sir Timothy said, his
+eyes fixed upon the other's.
+
+"I know that you killed Oliver Hilditch," Francis repeated.  "If
+I had been Margaret's father, I think that I should have done the
+same."
+
+Sir Timothy seemed suddenly very much younger.  The droop of his
+lips was no longer pathetic.  There was a little humourous twitch
+there.
+
+"You, the great upholder of the law?" he murmured.
+
+"I have heard the story of Oliver Hilditch's life," Francis
+replied.  "I was partially responsible for saving him from the
+gallows.  I repeat what I have said.  And if you will--"
+
+He held out his hand.  Sir Timothy hesitated for one moment.
+Instead of taking it, he laid his hand upon Francis' shoulder.
+
+"Ledsam," he said, "we have thought wrong things of one another.
+I thought you a prig, moral to your finger-tips with the morality
+of the law and the small places.  Perhaps I was tempted for that
+reason to give you a wrong impression of myself.  But you must
+understand this.  Though I have had my standard and lived up to
+it all my life, I am something of a black sheep.  A man stole my
+wife.  I did not trouble the Law Courts.  I killed him."
+
+"I have the blood of generations of lawyers in my veins," Francis
+declared, "but I have read many a divorce case in which I think
+it would have been better and finer if the two men had met as you
+and that man met."
+
+"I was born with the love of fighting in my bones," Sir Timothy
+went on.  "In my younger days, I fought in every small war in the
+southern hemisphere.  I fought, as you know, in our own war.  I
+have loved to see men fight honestly and fairly."
+
+"It is a man's hobby," Francis pronounced.
+
+"I encouraged you deliberately to think," Sir Timothy went on,
+"what half the world thinks that--my parties at The Walled House
+were mysterious orgies of vice.  They have, as a matter of fact,
+never been anything of the sort.  The tragedies which are
+supposed to have taken place on my launch have been just as much
+mock tragedies as last night's, only I have not previously chosen
+to take the audiences into my confidence.  The greatest pugilists
+in the world have fought in my gymnasium, often, if you will,
+under illegal conditions, but there has never been a fight that
+was not fair."
+
+"I believe that," Francis said.
+
+"And there is another matter for which I take some blame," Sir
+Timothy went on, "the matter of Fairfax and Victor Bidlake.  They
+were neither of them young men for whose loss the world is any
+the worse.  Fairfax to some extent imposed upon me.  He was
+brought to The Walled House by a friend who should have known
+better.  He sought my confidence.  The story he told was exactly
+that of the mock drama upon the launch.  Bidlake had taken his
+wife.  He had no wish to appeal to the Courts.  He wished to
+fight, a point of view with which I entirely sympathised.  I
+arranged a fight between the two.  Bidlake funked it and never
+turned up.  My advice to Fairfax was, whenever he met Bidlake, to
+give him the soundest thrashing he could.  That night at Soto's I
+caught sight of Fairfax some time before dinner.  He was talking
+to the woman who had been his wife, and he had evidently been
+drinking.  He drew me on one side.  'To-night,' he told me, 'I am
+going to settle accounts with Bidlake.'  'Where?' I asked.
+'Here,' he answered.  He went out to the theatre, I upstairs to
+dine.  That was the extent of the knowledge I possessed which
+enabled me to predict some unwonted happening that night.
+Fairfax was a bedrugged and bedrunken decadent who had not the
+courage afterwards to face what he had done.  That is all."
+
+The hand slipped from Francis' shoulder.  Francis, with a smile,
+held out his own.  They stood there for a moment with clasped
+hands--a queer, detached moment, as it seemed to Francis, in a
+life which during the last few months had been full of vivid
+sensations.  From outside came the lazy sounds of the drowsy
+summer morning--the distant humming of a mowing machine, the
+drone of a reaper in the field beyond, the twittering of birds in
+the trees, even the soft lapping of the stream against the stone
+steps.  The man whose hand he was holding seemed to Francis to
+have become somehow transformed.  It was as though he had dropped
+a mask and were showing a more human, a more kindly self.
+Francis wondered no longer at the halting gallop of the horses in
+the field.
+
+"You'll be good to Margaret?" Sir Timothy begged.  "She's had a
+wretched time."
+
+Francis smiled confidently.
+
+"I'm going to make up for it, sir," he promised.  "And this South
+American trip," he continued, as they turned towards the French
+windows, "you'll call that off?"
+
+Sir Timothy hesitated.
+
+"I am not quite sure."
+
+When they reached the garden, Lady Cynthia was alone.  She
+scarcely glanced at Francis.  Her eyes were anxiously fixed upon
+his companion.
+
+"Margaret has gone in to make the cocktails herself," she
+explained.  "We have both sworn off absinthe for the rest of our
+lives, and we know Hedges can't be trusted to make one without."
+
+"I'll go and help her," Francis declared.
+
+Lady Cynthia passed her arm through Sir Timothy's.
+
+"I want to know about South America," she begged.  "The sight of
+those trunks worries me."
+
+Sir Timothy's casual reply was obviously a subterfuge.  They
+crossed the lawn and the rustic bridge, almost in silence,
+passing underneath the pergola of roses to the sheltered garden
+at the further end.  Then Lady Cynthia paused.
+
+"You are not going to South America," she pleaded, "alone?"
+
+Sir Timothy took her hands.
+
+"My dear," he said, "listen, please, to my confession.  I am a
+fraud.  I am not a purveyor of new sensations for a decadent
+troop of weary, fashionable people.  I am a fraud sometimes even
+to myself.  I have had good luck in material things. I have had
+bad luck in the precious, the sentimental side of life.  It has
+made something of an artificial character of me, on the surface
+at any rate.  I am really a simple, elderly man who loves fresh
+air, clean, honest things, games, and a healthy life.  I have no
+ambitions except those connected with sport.  I don't even want
+to climb to the topmost niches in the world of finance.  I think
+you have looked at me through the wrong-coloured spectacles.  You
+have had a whimsical fancy for a character which does not exist."
+
+"What I have seen," Lady Cynthia answered, "I have seen through
+no spectacles at all--with my own eyes.  But what I have seen,
+even, does not count.  There is something else."
+
+"I am within a few weeks of my fiftieth birthday," Sir Timothy
+reminded her, "and you, I believe, are twenty-nine."
+
+"My dear man," Lady Cynthia assured him fervently, "you are the
+only person in the world who can keep me from feeling forty-nine."
+
+"And your people--"
+
+"Heavens!  My people, for the first time in their lives, will
+count me a brilliant success," Lady Cynthia declared.  "You'll
+probably have to lend dad money, and I shall be looked upon as
+the fairy child who has restored the family fortunes."
+
+Sir Timothy leaned a little towards her.
+
+"Last of all," he said, and this time his voice was not quite so
+steady, "are you really sure that you care for me, dear, because
+I have loved you so long, and I have wanted love so badly, and it
+is so hard to believe--"
+
+It was the moment, it seemed to her, for which she had prayed.
+She was in his arms, tired no longer, with all the splendid fire
+of life in her love-lit eyes and throbbing pulses.  Around them
+the bees were humming, and a soft summer breeze shook the roses
+and brought little wafts of perfume from the carnation bed.
+
+"There is nothing in life," Lady Cynthia murmured brokenly, "so
+wonderful as this."
+
+Francis and Margaret came out from the house, the former carrying
+a silver tray.  They had spent a considerable time over their
+task, but Lady Cynthia and Sir Timothy were still absent.  Hedges
+followed them, a little worried.
+
+"Shall I ring the gong, madam?" he asked Margaret.  "Cook has
+taken such pains with her omelette."
+
+"I think you had better, Hedges," Margaret assented.
+
+The gong rang out--and rang again.  Presently Lady Cynthia and
+Sir Timothy appeared upon the bridge and crossed the lawn.  They
+were walking a little apart.  Lady Cynthia was looking down at
+some roses which she had gathered.  Sir Timothy's unconcern
+seemed a trifle overdone.  Margaret laughed very softly.
+
+"A stepmother, Francis!" she whispered.  "Just fancy Cynthia as a
+stepmother!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Evil Shepherd, by E. Phillips Oppenheim
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EVIL SHEPHERD ***
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