Blue Hand

There was no word from Jim, though she guessed he was the masked stranger who had knocked down Jackson in the hall. The strain of waiting was beginning to tell upon Eunice; she had grown oddly nervous, started at every sound, and it was this unusual exhibition of nerves which had finally decided her to leave Grosvenor Square and return to the less exciting life at the photographic studio.

Why didn’t Jim write, she asked herself fretfully, and immediately after relentless logic demanded of her why she did not write to Jim.

She went for a walk in the park that afternoon hoping that she would see him, but although she sat for an hour under his favourite tree, he did not put in an appearance and she went home depressed and angry with herself.

A stamp upon a postcard would have brought him, but that postcard she would not write.

The next day brought Mrs. Mary Weatherwale, a stout, cheery woman of sixty, with a rosy apple face. She came in a four-wheeled cab, depositing her luggage in the hall, and greeted Eunice like an old friend.

“How is she, my darling?” (“Darling” was a favourite word of hers, Eunice discovered with amusement.) “Poor old Jane, I haven’t seen her for years and years. We used to be good friends once, you know, very good friends, but she—but there, let bygones be bygones, darling; show me to her room, will you?”

It required all the cheerfulness of Mrs. Weatherwale to disguise her shock at the appearance of her one-time friend.

“Why, Jane,” she said, “what’s the matter with you?”

“Sit down, Mary,” said the other pettishly. “All right, young lady, you needn’t wait.”

This ungrateful dismissal was addressed to Eunice, who was very glad to make her escape. She was passing through the hall later in the afternoon, when Digby Groat came in. He looked at the luggage, which had not been removed from the hall, and turned with a frown to Eunice.

“What is the meaning of this?” he asked. “To whom does this belong?”

“A friend of Mrs. Groat is coming to stay,” said Eunice.

“A friend of mother’s?” he answered quickly. “Do you know her name?”

“Mrs. Weatherwale.”

She saw an instant change come over his face.

“Mrs. Weatherwale, eh,” he said slowly. “Coming to stay here? At my mother’s invitation, I suppose.” He stripped his gloves and flung them on to the hall table and went up the stairs two at a time.

What happened in the sick-room Eunice could only guess. The first intimation she had that all was not well, was the appearance of Mrs. Weatherwale strutting down the stairs, her face as red as a turkey-cock, her bead bonnet trembling with anger. She caught sight of Eunice and beckoned her.

“Get somebody to find a cab for me, my darling,” she said. “I’m going back to Somerset. I’ve been thrown out, my darling! What do you think of that? A woman of my age and my respectability; thrown out by a dirty little devil of a boy that I wouldn’t harbour in my cow-yard.” She was choleric and her voice was trembling with her righteous rage. “I’m talking about you,” she said, raising her voice, and addressing somebody, apparently Digby, who was out of sight of Eunice. “You always were a cruel little beast, and if anything happens to your mother, I’m going to the police.”

“You had better get out before I send for a policeman,” said Digby’s growling voice.

“I know you,” she shook her fist at her invisible enemy. “I’ve known you for twenty-three years, my boy, and a more cruel and nastier man never lived!”

Digby came slowly down the stairs, a smile on his face.

“Really, Mrs. Weatherwale,” he said, “you are unreasonable. I simply do not want my mother to be associated with the kind of people she chose as her friends when she was a girl. I can’t be responsible for her vulgar tastes then; I certainly am responsible now.”

The rosy face of the woman flushed an even deeper red.

“Common! Vulgar!” she spluttered. “You say that? You dirty little foreigner. Ah! That got home. I know your secret, Mr. Digby Groat!”

If eyes could kill, she would have died at that moment. He turned at the foot of the stairs and walked into his study, and slammed the door behind him.

“Whenever you want to know anything about that!”—Mrs. Weatherwale pointed at the closed door—“send for me. I’ve got letters from his mother about him when he was a child of so high that would make your hair stand on ends, darling.”

When at last a cab bore the indignant lady from Grosvenor Square, Eunice breathed a sigh of relief. One more family skeleton, she thought, but she had already inspected the grisly bones. She would not be sorry to follow in Mrs. Weatherwale’s footsteps, though, unknown to her, Digby Groat had other plans.

Those plans were maturing, when he heard a sharp rat-tat at the door and came out into the hall. “Was that a telegram for me?” he asked.

“No, for me,” said Eunice, and there was no need to ask whom that message was from; her shining eyes, her flushed face, told their own story.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“JIM!”

Eunice came running across the grass with outstretched hands, oblivious to the fact that it was broad daylight and that she was being watched by at least a hundred idle loungers in the park.

Jim took both her hands in his and she experienced a moment of serene comfort. Then they both talked at once; they were both apologetic, interrupting one another’s explanations with the expression of their own contrition.

“Jim, I’m going to leave Mrs. Groat’s house,” she said when they had reached sanity.

“Thank God for that,” said Jim.

“You are so solemn about it,” she laughed. “Did you really think I was in any danger there?”

“I know you were,” he said.

She had so much to tell him that she did not know where to begin.

“Were you sorry not to see me?”

“The days I have not seen you are dead, and wiped off the calendar,” said Jim.

“Oh, before I forget,” said Eunice, “Mrs. Weatherwale has gone.”

“Mrs. Weatherwale!” he repeated, puzzled.

“I haven’t told you? No, of course not. I did not see you yesterday. But Mrs. Groat asked me to write to Mrs. Weatherwale, who is an old friend of hers, asking her to come and stay. I think Mrs. Groat is rather afraid of Digby.”

“And she came?” asked Jim.

The girl nodded.

“She came and stayed about one hour, then arrived my lord Digby, who bundled her unceremoniously into the street. There is no love lost there, either, Jim. The dear old lady hated him. She was a charming old soul and called me ‘darling.’”

“Who wouldn’t?” said Jim. “I can call you darling even though I am not a charming old soul. Go on. So she went away? I wonder what she knows about Digby?”

“She knows everything. She knows about Estremeda, of that I am sure. Jim, doesn’t that make a difference?”

He shook his head.

“If you mean does it make any difference about Digby inheriting his mother’s money when she gets it, I can tell you that it makes none. The will does not specify that he is the son of John Groat, and the fact that he was born before she married this unfortunate shipping clerk does not affect the issue.”

“When is the money to be made over to the Groats?”

“Next Thursday,” said Jim, with a groan, “and I am just as far from stopping the transfer of the property as I have ever been.”

He had not told her of his meeting with Lady Mary Danton. That was not his secret alone. Nor could he tell her that Lady Mary was the woman who had warned her.

They strolled across the Park towards the Serpentine and Jim was unusually preoccupied.

“Do you know, Eunice, that I have an uncanny feeling that you really are in some way associated with the Danton fortune?”

She laughed and clung tighter to his arm.

“Jim, you would make me Queen of England if you could,” she said, “and you have just as much chance of raising me to the throne as you have of proving that I am somebody else’s child. I don’t want to be anybody else’s, really,” she said. “I was very, very fond of my mother, and it nearly broke my heart when she died. And daddy was a darling.”

He nodded.

“Of course, it is a fantastic idea,” he said, “and I am flying in face of all the facts. I have taken the trouble to discover where you were born. I have a friend in Cape Town who made the inquiries for me.”

“Eunice May Weldon,” she laughed. “So you can abandon that idea, can’t you?” she said.

Strolling along by the side of the Serpentine, they had reached the bridge near the magazine and were standing waiting until a car had passed before they crossed the road. Somebody in the car raised his hat.

“Who was that?” said Jim.

“Digby Groat,” she smiled, “my nearly late employer! Don’t let us go to the tea-shop, Jim,” she said; “let us go to your flat—I’d love to.”

He looked at her dubiously.

“It is not customary for bachelors to give tea-parties to young females,” he said.

“I’m sure it is”—she waved aside his objection. “I’m perfectly certain it happens every day, only they don’t speak about it.”

The flat delighted her and she took off her coat and busied herself in the little kitchenette.

“You told me it was an attic with bare boards,” she said reproachfully as she was laying the cloth.

To Jim, stretched in his big chair, she was a thing of sheer delight. He wanted no more than to sit for ever and watch her flitting from room to room. The sound of her fresh voice was a delicious narcotic, and even when she called him, as she did, again and again, to explain some curio of his which hung in the hall, the spell was not broken.

“Everything is speckless,” she said as she brought in the tea, “and I’m sure you haven’t polished up those brasses and cleaned that china.”

“You’re right first time,” said Jim lazily. “An unprepossessing lady comes in every morning at half-past seven and works her fingers to the bone, as she has told me more times than once, though she manages to keep more flesh on those bones than seems comfortable for her.”

“And there is your famous train,” she said, jumping up and going to the window as an express whizzed down the declivity. “Oh, Jim, look at those boys,” she gasped in horror.

Across the line and supported by two stout poles, one of which stood in the courtyard of the flat, was a stretch of thin telegraph wires, and on these a small and adventurous urchin was pulling himself across hand-over-hand, to the joy of his companions seated on the opposite wall of the cutting.

“The young devil,” said Jim admiringly.

Another train shrieked past, and running down into Euston trains moved at a good speed. The telegraph wire had sagged under the weight of the boy to such an extent that he had to lift up his legs to avoid touching the tops of the carriages.

“If the police catch him,” mused Jim, “they will fine him a sovereign and give him a birching. In reality he ought to be given a medal. These little beggars are the soldiers of the future, Eunice, and some day he will reproduce that fearlessness of danger, and he will earn the Victoria Cross a jolly sight more than I earned it.”

She laughed and dropped her head against his shoulder.

“You queer man,” she said, and then returned to the contemplation of the young climber, who had now reached the opposite wall amidst the approving yells and shouts of his diminutive comrades.

“Now let us drink our tea, because I must get back,” said the girl.

The cup was to her lips when the door opened and a woman came in. Eunice did not hear the turning of the handle, and her first intimation of the stranger’s presence was the word “Jim.” She looked up. The woman in the doorway was, by all standards, beautiful, she noticed with a pang. Age had not lined or marred the beauty of her face and the strands of grey in her hair added to her attraction. For a moment they looked at one another, the woman and the girl, and then the intruder, with a nod and a smile, said:

“I will see you again. I am sorry,” and went out closing the door behind her.

The silence that followed was painful. Jim started three times to speak, but stopped as he realized the futility of explaining to the girl the reason of the woman’s presence. He could not tell her she was Lady Mary Danton.

“She called you ‘Jim,’” said the girl slowly. “Is she a friend of yours?”

“Er—yes,” he replied awkwardly. “She is Mrs. Fane, a neighbour.”

“Mrs. Fane,” repeated the girl, “but you told me she was paralysed and could not get up. You said she had never been out of doors for years.”

Jim swallowed something.

“She called you ‘Jim,’” said the girl again. “Are you very great friends?”

“Well, we are rather,” said Jim huskily. “The fact is, Eunice—”

“How did she come in?” asked the girl with a frown. “She must have let herself in with a key. Has she a key of your flat?”

Jim gulped.

“Well, as a matter of fact—” he began.

“Has she, Jim?”

“Yes, she has. I can’t explain, Eunice, but you’ve got—”

“I see,” she said quietly. “She is very pretty, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she is rather pretty,” admitted Jim miserably. “You see, we have business transactions together, and frequently I am out and she wants to get to my telephone. She has no telephone in her own flat, you see, Eunice,” he went on lamely.

“I see,” said the girl, “and she calls you ‘Jim’?”

“Because we are good friends,” he floundered. “Really, Eunice, I hope you are not putting any misconstruction upon that incident.”

She heaved a little sigh.

“I suppose it is all right, Jim,” she said, and pushed away her plate. “I don’t think I will wait any longer. Please don’t come back with me, I’d rather you didn’t. I can get a cab; there’s a rank opposite the flat, I remember.”

Jim cursed the accident which had brought the lady into his room at that moment and cursed himself that he had not made a clean breast of the whole thing, even at the risk of betraying Lady Mary.

He had done sufficient harm by his incoherent explanation and he offered no other as he helped the girl into her coat.

“You are sure you’d rather go alone?” he said miserably.

She nodded.

They were standing on the landing. Lady Mary’s front door was ajar and from within came the shrill ring of a telephone bell. She raised her grave eyes to Jim.

“Your friend has the key of your flat because she has no telephone of her own, didn’t you say, Jim?”

He made no reply.

“I never thought you would lie to me,” she said, and he watched her disappear down the staircase with an aching heart.

He had hardly reached his room and flung himself in his chair by the side of the tea-table, when Lady Mary followed him into the room.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I hadn’t the slightest idea she would be here.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Jim with a wan smile, “only it makes things rather awkward for me. I told her a lie and she found me out, or rather, your infernal telephone did, Lady Mary.”

“Then you were stupid,” was all the comfort she gave him.

“Why didn’t you stay?” he asked. “That made it look so queer.”

“There were many reasons why I couldn’t stay,” said Lady Mary. “Jim, do you remember the inquiries I made about this very girl, Eunice Weldon, and which you made too?”

He nodded.

He wasn’t interested in Eunice Weldon’s obvious parentage at that moment.

“You remember she was born at Rondebosch?”

“Yes,” he said listlessly. “Even she admits it,” he added with a feeble attempt at a jest.

“Does she admit this?” asked Lady Mary. She pushed a telegram across the table to Jim, and he picked it up and read:

“Eunice May Weldon died in Cape Town at the age of twelve months and three days, and is buried at Rosebank Cemetery. Plot No. 7963.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

JIM read the cablegram again, scarcely believing his eyes or his understanding,

“Buried at the age of twelve months,” he said incredulously, “but how absurd. She is here, alive, besides which, I recently met a man who knew the Weldons and remembered Eunice as a child. There is no question of substitution.”

“It is puzzling, isn’t it?” said Lady Mary softly, as she put the telegram in her bag. “But here is a very important fact. The man who sent me this cablegram is one of the most reliable private detectives in South Africa.”

Eunice Weldon was born, Eunice Weldon had died, and yet Eunice Weldon was very much alive at that moment, though she was wishing she were dead.

Jim leant his elbow on the table and rested his chin on his palm.

“I must confess that I am now completely rattled,” he said. “Then if the girl died, it is obvious the parents adopted another girl and that girl was Eunice. The question is, where did she come from, because there was never any question of her adoption, so far as she knew.”

She nodded.

“I have already cabled to my agent to ask him to inquire on this question of adoption,” she said, “and in the meantime the old idea is gaining ground, Jim.”

His eyes met hers.

“You mean that Eunice is your daughter?”

She nodded slowly.

“That circular scar on her wrist? You know nothing about it?”

She shook her head.

“It may have been done after “—she faltered—“after—I lost sight of her.”

“Lady Mary, will you explain how you came to lose sight of her?” asked Jim.

She shook her head.

“Not yet,” she said.

“Then perhaps you will answer another question. You know Mrs. Groat?”

She nodded.

“Do you know a woman named Weatherwale?”

Lady Mary’s eyes opened.

“Mary Weatherwale, yes. She was a farmer’s daughter who was very fond of Jane, a nice, decent woman. I often wondered how Jane came to make such a friend. Why do you ask?”

Jim told her what had happened when Mrs. Weatherwale had arrived at Grosvenor Square.

“Let us put as many of our cards on the table as are not too stale to exhibit,” she said. “Do you believe that Jane Groat had some part in the disappearance of my daughter?”

“Honestly I do,” said Jim. “Don’t you?”

She shook her head.

“I used to think so,” she said quietly, “but when I made inquiries, she was exonerated beyond question. She is a wicked woman, as wicked as any that has ever been born,” she said with a sudden fire that sent the colour flying to her face, “but she was not so wicked that she was responsible for little Dorothy’s fate.”

“You will not tell me any more about her?”

She shook her head.

“There is something you could say which might make my investigations a little easier,” said Jim.

“There is nothing I can say—yet,” she said in a low voice, as she rose and, without a word of farewell, glided from the room.

Jim’s mind was made up. In the light of that extraordinary cablegram from South Africa, his misunderstanding with Eunice faded into insignificance. If she were Lady Mary’s daughter! He gasped at the thought which, with all its consequences, came as a new possibility, even though he had pondered it in his mind.

He fixed upon Jane Groat as one who could supply the key of the mystery, but every attempt he had made to get the particulars of her past had been frustrated by ignorance, or the unwillingness of all who had known her in her early days.

There was little chance of seeing Septimus Salter in his office, so he went round to the garage where he housed his little car, and set forth on a voyage of discovery to Chislehurst, where Mr. Salter lived.

The old gentleman was alone; his wife and his eldest son, an officer, who was staying with him, had gone to Harrogate, and he was more genial in his reception than Jim had a right to expect.

“You’ll stay to dinner, of course,” he said.

Jim shook his head.

“No thank you, sir, I’m feeling rather anxious just now. I came to ask you if you knew Mrs. Weatherwale.”

The lawyer frowned.

“Weatherwale, Weatherwale,” he mused, “yes, I remember the name. I seldom forget a name. She appears in Mrs. Groat’s will, I think, as a legatee for a few hundred pounds. Her father was one of old Danton’s tenants.”

“That is the woman,” said Jim, and told his employer all that he had learnt about Mrs. Weatherwale’s ill-fated visit to London.

“It only shows,” said the lawyer when he had finished, “how the terrific secrets which we lawyers think are locked away in steel boxes and stowed below the ground in musty cellars, are the property of Tom, Dick and Harry! We might as well save ourselves all the trouble. Estremeda is, of course, the Spanish Marquis who practically lived with the Dantons when Jane was a young woman. He is, as obviously, the father of Digby Groat, and the result of this woman’s mad passion for the Spaniard. I knew there was some sort of scandal attached to her name, but this explains why her father would never speak to her, and why he cut her out of his will. I’m quite sure that Jonathan Danton knew nothing whatever about his sister’s escapade, or he would not have left her his money. He was as straitlaced as any of the Dantons, but, thanks to his father’s reticence, it would seem that Mrs. Groat is going to benefit.”

“And the son?” said Jim, and the lawyer nodded.

“She may leave her money where she wishes—to anybody’s son, for the matter of that,” said the lawyer. “A carious case, a very curious case”—he shook his grey head. “What do you intend doing?”

“I am going down to Somerset to see Mrs. Weatherwale,” said Jim. “She may give us a string which will lead somewhere.”

“If she’ll give you a string that will lead Mr. Digby Groat to prison,” growled the old lawyer, “get hold of it, Steele. and pull like the devil!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

WHEN his alarm clock turned him out at six in the morning, Jim was both sleepy and inclined to be pessimistic. But as his mind cleared and he realized what results the day’s investigations might bring, he faced his journey with a lighter heart.

Catching the seven o’clock from Paddington, he reached the nearest station to Mrs. Weatherwale’s residence soon after nine. He had not taken any breakfast, and he delayed his journey for half an hour, whilst the hostess of a small inn facing the station prepared him the meal without which no Englishman could live, as she humorously described it, a dish of eggs and bacon.

It seemed as though he were in another world to that which he had left behind at Paddington. The trees were a little greener, the lush grasses of the meadows were a more vivid emerald, and overhead in the blue sky, defying sight, a skylark trilled passionately and was answered somewhere from the ground. Tiny furry shapes in their bright spring coats darted across the white roadway almost under his feet. He crossed a crumbling stone bridge and paused to look down into the shallow racing stream that foamed and bubbled and swirled on its way to the distant sea.

The old masons who had dressed these powdery ashlars and laid the moss-green stones of the buttresses, were dead when burly Henry lorded it at Westminster. These stones had seen the epochs pass, and the maidens who had leant against the parapet listening with downcast eyes to their young swains had become old women and dust and forgotten.

Jim heaved a sigh as he resumed his trudge. Life would not be long enough for him, if Eunice…if I—

He shook the thought from him and climbed steadily to his destination.

Hill Farm was a small house standing in about three acres of land, devoted mainly to market garden. There was no Mr. Weatherwale. He had been dead for twelve years, Jim learnt at the inn, but the old lady had a son who assisted in the management of the farm.

Jim strode out to what was to prove a pleasant walk through the glories of a Somerset countryside, and he found Mrs. Weatherwale in the act of butter-making. She had a pasture and a dozen cows, as she informed him later.

“I don’t want to talk about Jane Groat,” she said decisively, when he broached the object of his visit. “I’ll never forgive that boy of hers for the trouble he gave me, apart from the insult. I gave up my work and had to hire a woman to take charge here and look after the boy—there’s my fare to London—”

“I dare say all that could be arranged, Mrs. Weatherwale,” said Jim with a laugh. “Mr. Digby Groat will certainly repay you.”

“Are you a friend of his?” she asked suspiciously, “because if you are—”

“I am not a friend of his,” said Jim. “On the contrary, I dislike him probably as much as you do.”

“That is not possible,” she said, “for I would as soon see the devil as that yellow-faced monkey.”

She wiped her hands on her apron and led the way to the sunny little parlour.

“Sit ye down, Mr. What-you-may-call-it,” she said briskly.

“Steele,” murmured Jim.

“Mr. Steele, is it? Just sit down there, will you?” She indicated a window-seat covered with bright chintz. “Now tell me just what you want to know.”

“I want to know something about Jane Groat’s youth, who were her friends, and what you know about Digby Groat?”

Mrs. Weatherwale shook her head.

“I can’t tell you much about that, sir,” she said. “Her father was old Danton who owned Kennett Hall. You can see it from here “—she pointed across the country to a grey mass of buildings that showed above the hill-crest.

“Jane frequently came over to the farm. My father had a bigger one in those days. All Hollyhock Hill belonged to him, but he lost his money through horses, drat them!” she said good-humouredly, and apparently had no particular grievance against the thoroughbred race-horse.

“And we got quite friendly. It was unusual, I admit, she being a lady of quality and me being a farmer’s daughter; but lord! I’ve got stacks of letters from her, or rather, I had. I burnt them this morning.”

“You’ve burnt them?” said Jim in dismay. “I was hoping that I should find something I wanted to know from those.”

She shook her head.

“There’s nothing there you would find, except a lot of silly nonsense about a man she fell in love with, a Spanish man.”

“The Marquis of Estremeda?” suggested Jim.

She closed her lips.

“Maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t,” she said. “I’m not going to scandalize at my time of life, and at her time of life too. We’ve all made mistakes in our time, and I dare say you’ll make yours, if you haven’t made them already. Which reminds me, Mr.—I don’t remember your name?”

“Steele,” said Jim patiently.

“Well, that reminds me there’s a duck of a girl in that house. How Jane can allow a beautiful creature like that to come into contact with a beast like Digby, I don’t know. But that is all by the way. No, I burnt the letters, except a few. I kept one or two to prove that a boy doesn’t change his character when he grows up. Why, it may be,” she said that good-humouredly, “when Digby is hanged the newspaper reporters would like to see these, and they will be worth money to me!”

Jim laughed. Her good-humour was infectious, and when after an absence of five minutes she returned to the room with a small box covered with faded green plush, he asked; “You know nothing of Digby Groat’s recent life?”

She shook her head.

“I only knew him as a boy, and a wicked little devil he was, the sort of boy who would pull a fly’s wings off for the sport of it. I used to think those stories about boys were lies, but it was true about him. Do you know what his chief delight was as a boy?”

“No, I don’t,” smiled Jim. “It was something unpleasant, I am sure.”

“To come on a Friday afternoon to Fanner Johnson’s and see the pigs killed for market,” she said grimly. “That’s the sort of boy he was.”

She took out a bundle of faded letters and fixing her large steel-rimmed spectacles, read them over.

“Here’s one,” she said; “that will show you the kind of kid he was.”

“I flogged Digby to-day. He tied a bunch of crackers round the kitten’s neck and let them off. The poor little creature had to be killed.”

“That’s Digby,” said Mrs. Weatherwale, looking over her glasses. “There isn’t a letter here which doesn’t say that she had to beat him for something or other,” she read on, reading half to herself, and Jim heard the word “baby.”

“What baby was that?”

She looked at him.

“It wasn’t her baby,” she said.

“But whose was it?” insisted Jim.

“It was a baby she was looking after.”

“Her sister-in-law’s?” demanded Jim.

The woman nodded.

“Yes, Lady Mary Danton’s, poor little soul—he did a cruel thing to her too.”

Jim dare not speak, and without encouragement Mrs. Weatherwale said: “Listen to this, if you want to understand the kind of little devil Digby was.”

“I had to give Digby a severe flogging to-day. Really, the child is naturally cruel. What do you imagine he did? He took a sixpence, heated it in the fire and put it on the poor baby’s wrist. It left a circular burn.”

“Great God!”-said Jim, springing to his feet, his face white. “A circular burn on the wrist?”

She looked at him in astonishment.

“Yes, why?”

So that was the explanation, and the heiress to the Danton millions was not Digby Groat or his mother, but the girl who was called Eunice Weldon, or, as the world would know her, Dorothy Danton!

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

EUNICE was Lady Mary’s daughter! There was no doubt of it, no possible doubt. His instinct had proved to be right. How had she got to South Africa? He had yet to find a solution to the mystery.

Mrs. Weatherwale’s rosy face was a picture of astonishment. For a moment she thought her visitor had gone mad.

“Will you read that piece again about Digby Groat burning the baby’s wrist,” said Jim slowly, and after a troubled glance at him, she complied.

“The little baby was lost soon after,” she explained. “It went out with a nurse; one of Jane’s girls took it out in a boat, and the boat must have been run down by some ship.”

And then a light dawned upon Jim.

What ships passed to the east of the Goodwins (for it was near there that the disaster must have occurred) on the day of the tragedy? He must find it out immediately and he must take the letter from Jane to her friend in order to place it before Septimus Salter. Here, however, the woman demurred, and Jim, sitting down again, told her plainly and frankly all his fears and suspicions.

“What, that beautiful girl I saw in Jane’s house?” said Mrs. Weatherwale in amazement. “You don’t tell me!”

“I do,” said Jim. “She has the mark on her wrist, a burn, and now I remember! Mrs. Groat knows she is the daughter of Lady Mary, too! It was the sight of that scar which brought about her stroke.”

“I don’t want any harm to happen to Jane, she hasn’t been a bad friend of mine, but it seems to me only justice to the young lady that she should have the letter. As a matter of fact, I nearly burnt it.”

“Thank God you didn’t,” said Jim fervently.

He carried his prize back by the first train that left for London and dashed into Salter’s office with his news.

“If your theory is correct.” said the old man when he had finished. “there ought not to be any difficulty in discovering the link between the child’s disappearance and her remarkable appearance in Cape Town as Eunice Weldon. We have had confirmation from South Africa that Eunice Weldon did die at this tender age, so, therefore, your Eunice cannot be the same girl. I should advise you to get busy because the day after tomorrow I hand over the Danton estate to Mrs. Groat’s new lawyers, and from what I can see of things,” said Mr. Salter grimly, “it is Digby Groat’s intention to sell immediately the whole of the Danton property.”

“Does that amount to much?”

“It represents more than three-quarters of the estate,” said the lawyer to Jim’s surprise. “The Lakeside properties are worth four hundred thousand pounds, they include about twenty-four homesteads and six fairly big farms. You remember he came here some time ago to question us as to whether he had the right of sale. I had a talk with Bennetts—they are his new solicitors—only this morning,” Mr. Salter went on stroking his big chin thoughtfully, “and it is pretty clear that Digby intends selling out. He showed Bennett the Power of Attorney which his mother gave him this morning.”

The lawyer was faithfully interpreting Digby Groat’s intentions. The will which Eunice had found had shocked him. He was determined that he should not be at the mercy of a capricious old woman who he knew disliked him as intensely as he hated her, and he had induced his mother to change her lawyers, not so much because he had any prejudice against Salter, but because he needed a new solicitor who would carry through the instructions which Salter would question.

Digby was determined to turn the lands and revenues of the Danton Estate into solid cash—cash which he could handle, and once it was in his bank he would breathe more freely.

That was the secret of his business in the city, the formation of a syndicate to take over the Danton properties on a cash basis, and he had so well succeeded in interesting several wealthy financiers in the scheme, that it wanted but the stroke of a pen to complete the deal.

“Aren’t there sufficient facts now,” asked Jim, “to prove that Eunice is Lady Mary’s daughter?”

Salter shook his head.

“No,” he said, “you must get a closer connection of evidence. But as I say, it should not be very difficult for you to do that. You know the date the child disappeared. It was on the 21st June, 1901. To refresh your memory I would remark that it was in that year the Boer War was being fought out.”

Jim’s first call was at the Union African Steamship Company, and he made that just when the office was closing.

Fortunately the assistant manager was there, took him into the office and made a search of his records.

“None of our ships left London River on the 20th or 21st June,” he said, “and, anyway, only our intermediate boats sail from there. The mail steamers sail from Southampton. The last ship to pass Southampton was the Central Castle. She was carrying troops to South Africa and she called at Plymouth on the 20th, so she must have passed Margate three days before.”

“What other lines of steamers run to South Africa?”

The manager gave him a list, and it was a longer one than Jim had expected.

He hurried home to break the news to Lady Mary, but she was out. Her maid, the mysterious Madge Benson, said she had left and did not expect to be back for two or three days, and Jim remembered that Lady Mary had talked of going to Paris.

“Do you know where she would stay in Paris?”

“I don’t even know she’s gone to Paris, sir,” said the woman with a smile. “Lady Mary never tells me her plans.”

Jim groaned.

There was nothing to do but wait until tomorrow and pursue his inquiries. In the meantime it was growing upon him that Eunice and he were bad friends. He smiled to himself. What would she say when she discovered that the woman who called him “Jim” was her mother! He must possess his soul in patience for another twenty-four hours.

Suddenly a thought came to him, a thought which struck the smile from his lips. Eunice Weldon might forgive him and might marry him and change the drab roadway of life to a path of flowers, but Dorothy Danton was a rich woman, wealthy beyond her dreams, and Jim Steele was a poor man. He sat back in his chair to consider that disquieting revelation. He could never marry the girl Eunice now, he thought; it would not be fair to her, or to him. Suppose she never knew! He smiled contemptuously at the thought.

“Get thee behind me, Satan.” he said to the little dog that crouched at his feet, watching him with eyes that never left his face. He bent down and patted the mongrel, who turned on his back with uplifted paws. “You and I have no particular reason to love Digby Groat, old fellow,” he said, for this was the dog he had rescued from Digby’s dissecting table, “and if he harms a hair of her head, he will be sorry he was ever born.”

He began his search in the morning, almost as soon as the shipping offices opened. One by one they blasted his hopes, and he scarcely dared make his last call which was at the office of the African Coastwise Line.

“And I don’t think it is much use going to them,” said the clerk at the last but one of his calls. “They don’t sail from London, they are a Liverpool firm, and all their packets sail direct from the Mersey. I don’t think we have ever had a Coastwise boat in the London docks. I happen to know,” he explained, “because I was in the Customs before I came to this firm.”

The Coastwise Line was an old-fashioned firm and occupied an old-fashioned office in a part of London which seemed to be untouched by the passing improvements of the age. It was one of those firms which have never succumbed to the blandishments of the Company Promoter, and the two senior partners of the firm, old gentlemen who had the appearance of being dignitaries of the Church, were seated on either side of a big partner’s table.

Jim was received with old-world courtesy and a chair was placed for him by a porter almost as ancient as the proprietors of the African Coastwise Line.

Both the gentlemen listened to his requirements in silence.

“I don’t think we have ever had a ship pass through the Straits of Dover,” said one, shaking his head. “We were originally a Liverpool firm, and though the offices have always been in London, Liverpool is our headquarters.”

“And Avonmouth,” murmured his partner.

“And Avonmouth, of course,” the elder of the two acknowledged the correction with a slight inclination of his head.

“Then there is no reason why I should trouble you, gentlemen,” said Jim with a heavy heart.

“It is no trouble, I assure you,” said the partner, “but to make absolutely sure we will get our sailings for—June, 1901, I think you said?”

He rang a bell, and to the middle-aged clerk, who looked so young, thought Jim, that he must be the office-boy, he made his request known. Presently the clerk came back with a big ledger which he laid on the partners’ desk. He watched the gentleman as his well-manicured finger ran carefully down the pages and suddenly stopped.

“Why, of course,” he said, looking up, “do you remember we took over a Union African trip when they were hard pressed with transport work?”

“To be sure,” said his partner. “It was the Battledore we sent out, she went from Tilbury. The only ship of ours that has ever sailed from Thames River.”

“What date did it sail?” asked Jim eagerly.

“It sailed with the tide, which was apparently about eight o’clock in the morning of the 21st June. Let me see,” said the partner, rising and going to a big chart that hung on the wall, “that would bring her up to the North Foreland Light at about twelve o’clock. What time did the accident occur?”

“At noon,” said Jim huskily, and the partners looked at one another.

“I don’t remember anything peculiar being reported on that voyage,” said the senior slowly.

“You were in Switzerland at the time,” said the other, “and so was I. Mr. Mansar was in charge.”

“Is Mr. Mansar here?” asked Jim eagerly.

“He is dead,” said the partner gently. “Yes, poor Mr. Mansar is dead. He died at a comparatively early age of sixty-three, a very amiable man, who played the piano remarkably well.”

“The violin,” murmured his partner.

Jim was not interested in the musical accomplishments of the deceased Mr. Mansar.

“Is there no way of finding out what happened on that voyage?”

It was the second of the partners who spoke.

“We can produce the log book of the Battledore.”

“I hope we can,” corrected the other. “The Battledore was sunk during the Great War, torpedoed off the Needles, but Captain Pinnings, who was in command of her at the time, is alive and hearty.”

“And his log book?” asked Jim.

“That we must investigate. We keep all log books at the Liverpool office, and I will write tonight to ask our managing clerk to send the book down, if it is in his possession.”

“This is very urgent,” said Jim earnestly. “You have been so kind that I would not press you if it were not a matter of the greatest importance. Would it be possible for me to go to Liverpool and see the log?”

“I think I can save you that trouble,” said the elder of the two, whose names Jim never knew. “Mr. Harry is coming down to London tomorrow, isn’t he?”

His friend nodded.

“Well, he can bring the book, if it exists. I will tell the clerk to telephone to Liverpool to that effect,” and with this Jim had to content himself, though it meant another twenty-four hours’ delay.

He reported progress to the lawyer, when he determined upon making a bold move. His first business was the protection of Eunice, and although he did not imagine that any immediate danger threatened her, she must be got out of 409, Grosvenor Square, at the earliest opportunity.

If Lady Mary were only in London, how simple it would be! As it was, he had neither the authority to command nor the influence to request.

He drove up to 409, Grosvenor Square, and was immediately shown into Digby Groat’s study.

“How do you do, Mr. Steele,” said that bland gentleman. “Take a seat, will you? It is much more comfortable than hiding under the table,” he added, and Jim smiled.

“Now, what can I do for you?”

“I want to see Miss Weldon,” said Jim.

“I believe the lady is out; but I will inquire.”

He rang the bell and immediately a servant answered the summons.

“Will you ask Miss Weldon to step down here?”

“It is not necessary that I should see her here,” said Jim.

“Don’t worry,” smiled Digby. “I will make my exit at the proper moment.”

The maid returned, however, with the news that the lady had gone out.

“Very well,” said Jim, taking up his hat, and with a smile as bland as his unwilling host’s, “I will wait outside until she comes in.”

“Admirable persistence!” murmured Digby. “Perhaps I can find her.”

He went out and returned again in a few minutes with Eunice.

“The maid was quite misinformed,” he said urbanely. “Miss Weldon had not gone out.”

He favoured her with a little bow and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Eunice stood with her hands behind her, looking at the man on whom her hopes and thoughts had centred, and about whose conduct such a storm was still raging in her bosom.

“You want to see me, Mr. Steele?”

Her attitude shook his self-possession and drove from his mind all the carefully reasoned arguments he had prepared.

“I want you to leave this house, Eunice,” he said.

“Have you a new reason?” she asked, though she hated herself for the sarcasm.

“I have the best of reasons,” he said doggedly. “I am satisfied that you are the daughter of Lady Mary Danton.”

Again she smiled.

“I think you’ve used that argument before, haven’t you?”

“Listen, Eunice, I beg of you,” he pleaded. “I can prove that you are Lady Mary’s daughter. That scar on your wrist was made by Digby Groat when you were a baby. And there is no Eunice Weldon. We have proved that she died in Cape Town a year after you were born.”

She regarded him steadily, and his heart sank.

“That is very romantic,” she said, “and have you anything further to say?”

“Nothing, except the lady you saw in my room was your mother.”

Her eyes opened wider and then he saw a little smile come and go like a ray of winter sunshine on her lips.

“Really, Jim,” she said, “you should write stories. And if it interests you, I might tell you that I am leaving this house in a few days. I am going back to my old employment. I don’t want you to explain who the woman was who has the misfortune to be without a telephone and the good fortune to have the key of your flat,” she said, her anger swamping the pity she had for him. “I only want to tell you that you have shaken my faith in men more than Digby Groat or any other man could have done. You have hurt me beyond forgiveness.”

For a moment her voice quivered, and then with an effort of will she pulled herself together and walked to the door. “Good-bye, Jim,” she said, and was gone.

He stood as she had left him, stunned, unable to believe his ears. Her scorn struck him like a whip, the injustice of her view of him deprived him of speech.

For a second a blinding wave of anger drowned all other emotions, but this passed. He could have gone now, for there was no hope of seeing her again and explaining even if he had been willing to offer any explanation.

But he stayed on. He was anxious to meet Digby Groat and find from his attitude what part he had played in forming the girl’s mind. The humour of the situation struck him and he laughed, though his laughter was filtered through a pain that was so nearly physical that he could not distinguish the one from the other.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

THE end was coming. Digby Groat took too sane a view of things to mistake the signs.

For two years he had been in negotiation with a land agent in San Paulo and had practically completed the purchase of an estate. By subterranean methods he had skilfully disguised the identity of the purchaser, and on that magnificent ranch he intended to spend a not unpleasant life. It might not come to a question of flight, in which case the ranch would be a diversion from the humdrum life of England. And more than ever was he determined that Eunice Weldon should accompany him, and share, at any rate, a year of his life. Afterwards—he shrugged his shoulders. Women had come into his life before, had at first fascinated, and then bored him, and had disappeared from his ken. Probably Eunice would go the same way, though he could not contemplate the possibility at the moment.

The hours of the morning passed all too slowly for Jim Steele. The partner brothers had said that their “Mr. Harry” would arrive at one o’clock, and punctually at that hour Jim was waiting in the outer office.

Mr. Harry’s train, however, must have been late. It was nearer two when he came in, followed by a porter carrying a thick parcel under his arm. Presently the porter came out. “Will you go in, sir,” he said respectfully, and Jim stepped quickly into the room.

Mr. Harry, whom he had thought of as a boy, was a grave man of fifty, and apparently the younger brother of the eldest partner.

“We have found the log of the Battledore,” said that gentleman, “but I have forgotten the date.”

“June 21st,” said Jim.

The log lay open upon the big table, and its presence brought an atmosphere of romance into this quiet orderly office.

“Here we are,” said the partner. “Battledore left Tilbury 9 a.m. on the tide. Wind east by south-east, sea smooth, hazy.” He ran his fingers down. “This is what I think you want.”

For Jim it was a moment of intense drama. The partner was reading some preliminary and suddenly he came to the entry which was to make all the difference in the world to the woman whom Jim loved dearer than life.

“‘Heavy fog, speed reduced at 11.50 to half. Reduced to quarter speed at 12.1. Bosun reported that we had run down small rowing boat and that he had seen two persons in the water. Able seaman Grant went overboard and rescued child. The second person was not found. Speed increased, endeavoured to speak Dungeness, but weather too hazy for flag signals’—this was before the days of wireless, you must understand, Mr. Steele.” Jim nodded.

“‘Sex of child discovered, girl, apparent age a few months. Child handed to stewardess.’”

Entry followed entry, but there was no further reference to the child until he came to Funchal.

“In the island of Madeira,” he explained. “‘Arrived Funchal 6 a.m. Reported recovery of child to British Consul, who said he would cable to London.’”

The next entry was: “Dakka—a port on the West Coast of Africa and French protectorate,” said the partner. “‘Received cable from British Consul at Funchal saying no loss of child reported to London police.’”

There was no other entry which affected Jim until one on the third day before the ship arrived at Cape Town.

“‘Mr. Weldon, a Cape Town resident who is travelling with his wife for her health, has offered to adopt the child picked up by us on June 21st, having recently lost one of his own. Mr. Weldon being known to the Captain and vouched for by Canon Jesson’—this was apparently a fellow-passenger of his,” explained the partner—“‘the child was handed to his care, on condition that the matter was reported to the authorities in Cape Town.’”

A full description of the size, weight, and colouring of the little waif followed, and against the query “Marks on Body” were the words “Scar on right wrist, doctor thinks the result of a recent burn.”

Jim drew a long sigh.

“I cannot tell you gentlemen how grateful I am to you. You have righted a great wrong and have earned the gratitude of the child who is now a woman.”

“Do you think that this is the young lady?”

Jim nodded.

“I am sure,” he said quietly. “The log of Captain Pinnings supplies the missing link of evidence. We may have to ask you to produce this log in court, but I hope that the claim of our client will not be disputed.”

He walked down Threadneedle Street, treading on air, and the fact that while he had gained for Eunice—her name was Dorothy now, but she would be always Eunice to him—a fortune, he had lost the greatest fortune that could be bestowed upon a man, did not disturb his joy.

He had made a rough copy of the log, and with this in his hand he drove to Septimus Salter’s office and without a word laid the extracts before him.

Mr. Salter read, and as he read his eyes lit up.

“The whole thing is remarkably clear,” he said; “the log proves the identity of Lady Mary’s daughter. Your investigations are practically complete?”

“Not yet, sir,” smiled Jim. “We have first to displace Jane Groat and her son,” he hesitated, “and we must persuade Miss Danton to leave that house.”

“In that case,” said the lawyer, rising, “I think an older man’s advice will be more acceptable than yours, my boy, and I’ll go with you.”

A new servant opened the door, and almost at the sound of the knock, Digby came out of his study, urbane and as perfectly groomed as usual.

“I want to see Miss Weldon,” said the lawyer, and Digby stiffened at the sight of him. He would have felt more uncomfortable if he had known what was in Salter’s mind.

Digby was looking at him straightly; his whole attitude, thought Jim, was one of tense anxiety.

“I am sorry you cannot see Miss Weldon,” he said, speaking slowly. “She left with my mother by an early Continental train and at this moment, I should imagine, is somewhere in the region of Paris.”

“That is a damned lie!” said Jim Steele calmly.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

THEY stood confronting one another, two men with murder in their hearts.

“It is a lie!” repeated Jim. “Miss Weldon is either here or she has been taken to that hell house of yours in Somerset!”

For the time being Digby Groat was less concerned by Jim’s vehement insult than he was by the presence of the lawyer.

“So you lend yourself to this blackguardly outrage,” he sneered. “I should have thought a man of your experience would have refused to have been made a dupe of by this fellow. Anyway,” he turned to Jim, “Miss Weldon wants no more to do with you. She has told me about that quarrel, and really, Steele, you have behaved very badly.”

The man was lying. Jim did not think twice about that. Eunice would never have made a confidant of him.

“What is your interest in Miss Weldon?” asked Digby, addressing the lawyer.

“Outside of a human interest, none,” said old Salter, and Jim was staggered.

“But—” he began.

“I think we had better go, Steele,” Salter interrupted him with a warning glance.

They were some distance from the house before Jim spoke.

“But why didn’t you tell him, Mr. Salter, that Eunice was the heiress of the Danton fortune?”

Salter looked at him with an odd queer expression in his bright blue eyes.

“Suppose all you fear has happened,” he said gently. “Suppose this man is the villain that we both believe he is, and the girl is in his power. What would be, the consequence of my telling him that Eunice Weldon was in a position to strip him of every penny he possesses, to turn him out of his house and reduce him to penury?”

Jim bit his lip.

“I’m sorry, sir.” he said humbly. “I’m an impetuous fool.”

“So long as Digby Groat does not know that Eunice threatens his position she is comparatively safe. At any rate, her life is safe. Once we let him learn all that we know, she is doomed.”

Jim nodded. “Do you think, then, that she is in real danger?” he asked.

“I am certain that Mr. Digby Groat would not hesitate at murder to serve his ends,” said the lawyer gruffly.

They did not speak again until they were in the office in Marlborough Street, and then Jim threw himself down in a chair with a groan and covered his face with his hands.

“It seems as if we are powerless,” he said bitterly, and then, looking up, “Surely, Mr. Salter, the law is greater than Digby Groat. Are there no processes we can set in motion to pull him down?” It was very seldom old Septimus Salter smoked in his office, but this was an occasion for an extraordinary happening. He took from a cabinet an old meerschaum pipe and polishing it on the sleeve of his broad-cloth coat, slowly filled it, packing down the straggling strands of tobacco which overflowed the pipe, with exasperating calmness.

“The law, my boy, is greater than Digby Groat, and greater than you or I. Sometimes ignorant people laugh at it, sometimes they sneer at it, generally they curse it. But there it is, the old dilatory machinery, grinding slow and grinding exceedingly small. It is not confined to the issue of search warrants, of arrest and judgments. It has a thousand weapons to strike at the cheat and the villain, and, by God, every one of those weapons shall be employed against Digby Groat!”

Jim sprang to his feet and gripped the old man’s hand. “And if the law cannot touch him,” he said, “I will make a law of these two hands and strangle the life out of him.”

Mr. Salter looked at him admiringly, but a little amused. “In which case, my dear Steele,” he said dryly, “the law will take you in her two hands and strangle the life out of you, and it doesn’t seem worth while, when a few little pieces of paper will probably bring about as effective a result as your wilful murder of this damnable scoundrel.”

Immediately Jim began his inquiries. To his surprise he learnt that the party had actually been driven to Victoria Station. It consisted of Eunice and old Mrs. Groat. Moreover, two tickets for Paris had been taken by Digby and two seats reserved in the Pullman. It was through these Pullman reservations that the names of Eunice and the old woman were easy to trace, as Digby Groat intended they should be.

Whether they had left by the train, he could not discover.

He returned to the lawyer and reported progress.

“The fact that Jane Groat has gone does not prove that our client has also gone,” said the lawyer sensibly.

“Our client?” said Jim, puzzled.

“Our client,” repeated Septimus Salter with a smile. “Do not forget that Miss Danton is our client, and until she authorizes me to hand her interests elsewhere—”

“Mr. Salter,” interrupted Jim, “when was the Danton estate handed over to Bennetts?”

“This morning,” was the staggering reply, though Mr. Salter did not seem particularly depressed.

“Good heavens,” gasped Jim, “then the estate is in Digby Groat’s hands?”

The lawyer nodded.

“For a while,” he said, “but don’t let that worry you at all. You get along with your search. Have you heard from Lady Mary?”

“Who, sir?” said Jim, again staggered.

“Lady Mary Danton,” said the lawyer, enjoying his surprise. “Your mysterious woman in black. Obviously it was Lady Mary. I never had any doubt of it, but when I learnt about the Blue Hand, I was certain. You see, my boy,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes, “I have been making a few inquiries in a direction which you have neglected.”

“What does the Blue Hand mean?” asked Jim.

“Lady Mary will tell you one of these days, and until she does, I do not feel at liberty to take you into my confidence. Have you ever been to a dyer’s, Steele?”

“A dyer’s, sir; yes, I’ve been to a dye-works, if that is what you mean.”

“Have you ever seen the hands of the women who use indigo?”

“Do you suggest that when she disappeared she went to a dye-works?” said Jim incredulously.

“She will tell you,” replied the lawyer, and with that he had to be content.

The work was now too serious and the strings were too widely distributed to carry on alone. Salter enlisted the services of two ex-officers of the Metropolitan Police who had established a detective agency, and at a conference that afternoon the whole of the story, as far as it was known, was revealed to Jim’s new helpers, ex-Inspector Holder and ex-Sergeant Field.

That afternoon Digby Groat, looking impatiently out of the window, saw a bearded man strolling casually along the garden side of the square, a pipe in his mouth, apparently absorbed in the contemplation of nature and the architectural beauty of Grosvenor Square. He did not pay as much attention to the lounger as he might have done, had not his scrutiny been interrupted by the arrival of Mr. Bennett, an angular, sandy-haired Scotsman, who was not particularly enamoured of his new employer.

“Well, Mr. Bennett, has old Salter handed over all the documents?”

“Yes, sir,” said Bennett, “every one.”

“You are sure he has not been up to any trickery?”

Mr. Bennett regarded him coldly.

“Mr. Septimus Salter, sir,” he said quietly, “is an eminent lawyer, whose name is respected wherever it is mentioned. Great lawyers do not indulge in trickery.”

“Well, you needn’t get offended. Good Lord, you don’t suppose he feels friendly towards you, do you?”

“What he feels to me, sir,” said Mr. Bennett, his strong northern accent betraying his annoyance, “is a matter of complete indifference. It is what I think of him that we are discussing. The leases of the Lakeside Property have been prepared for transfer. You are not losing much time, Mr. Groat.”

“No,” said Digby, after a moment’s thought. “The fact is, the people in the syndicate which is purchasing this property are very anxious to take possession. What is the earliest you can transfer?”

“Tomorrow,” was the reply. “I suppose “—he hesitated—“I suppose there is no question of the original heiress of the will—Dorothy Danton, I think her name is—turning up unexpectedly at the last moment?”

Digby smiled.

“Dorothy Danton, as you call her, has been food for the fishes these twenty years,” he said. “Don’t you worry your head about her.”

“Very good,” said Bennett, producing a number of papers from a black leather portfolio. “Your signature will be required on four of these, and the signature of your mother on the fifth.”

Digby frowned.

“My mother? I thought it was unnecessary that she should sign anything. I have her Power of Attorney.”

“Unfortunately the Power of Attorney is not sufficiently comprehensive to allow you to sign away certain royalty rights which descended to her through her father. They are not very valuable,” said the lawyer, “but they give her lien upon Kennett Hall, and in these circumstances, I think you had better not depend upon the Power of Attorney in case there is any dispute. Mr. Salter is a very shrewd man, and when the particulars of this transaction are brought to his notice, I think it is very likely that, feeling his responsibility as Mr. Danton’s late lawyer, he will enter a caveat.”

“What is a caveat?”

“Literally,” said Mr. Bennett, “a caveat emptor means ‘let the purchaser beware,’ and if a caveat is entered, your syndicate would not dare take the risk of paying you for the property, even though the caveat had no effect upon the estate which were transferred by virtue of your Power of Attorney.”

Digby tugged at his little moustache and stared out of the window for a long time.

“All right, I’ll get her signature.”

“She is in Paris, I understand.”

Digby shot a quick glance at him.

“How do you know?” he asked.

“I had to call at Mr. Salter’s office to-day,” he said, “to verify and agree to the list of securities which he handed me, and he mentioned the matter in passing.”

Digby growled something under his breath.

“Is it necessary that you should see Salter at all?” he asked with asperity.

“It is necessary that I should conduct my own business in my own way,” said Mr. Bennett with that acid smile of his.

Digby shot an angry glance at him and resolved that as soon as the business was completed, he would have little use for this uncompromising Scotsman. He hated the law and he hated lawyers, and he had been under the impression that Messrs. Bennett would be so overwhelmed with joy at the prospect of administering his estate that they would agree to any suggestion he made. He had yet to learn that the complacent lawyer is a figure of fiction, and if he is found at all, it is in the character of the seedy broken-down old solicitor who hangs about Police Courts and who interviews his clients in the bar parlour of the nearest public-house.

“Very good,” he said, “give me the paper. I will get her to sign it.”

“Will you go to Paris?”

“Yes,” said Digby. “I’ll send it across by—er—aeroplane.”

The lawyer gathered up the papers and thrust them back into the wallet.

“Then I will see you at twelve o’clock tomorrow at the office of the Northern Land Syndicate.”

Digby nodded.

“Oh, by the way, Bennett”—he called the lawyer back—“I wish you to put this house in the market. I shall be spending a great deal of my time abroad and I have no use for this costly property. I want a quick sale, by the way.”

“A quick sale is a bad sale for the seller,” quoth the lawyer, “but I’ll do what I can for you, Mr. Groat. Do you want to dispose of the furniture?”

Digby nodded.

“And you have another house in the country?”

“That is not for sale,” said Digby shortly.

When the lawyer had gone he went up to his room and changed, taking his time over his toilet.

“Now,” he said as he drew on his gloves with a quiet smile, “I have to induce Eunice to be a good girl!”

CHAPTER THIRTY

DIGBY GROAT made an unexpected journey to the west. A good general, even in the hour of his victory, prepares the way for retreat, and the possibility of Kennett Hall had long appealed to Digby as a likely refuge in a case of emergency.

Kennett Hall was one of the properties which his mother had inherited and which, owing to his failure to secure her signature, had not been prepared for transfer to the land syndicate. It had been the home of the Danton family for 140 years. A rambling, neglected house, standing in a big and gloomy park, it had been untenanted almost as long as Digby could remember.

He had sent his car down in the early morning, but he himself had gone by train. He disliked long motor journeys, and though he intended coming back by road, he preferred the quietude and smooth progress of the morning railway journey.

The car, covered with dust, was waiting for him at the railway station, and the few officials who constituted the station staff watched him go out of the gate without evidence of enthusiasm.

“That’s Groat who owns Kennett Hall, isn’t it?” said the porter to the aged station-master.

“That’s him,” was the reply. “It was a bad day for this country when that property came into old Jane Groat’s hands. A bad woman, that, if ever there was one.”

Unconscious of the criticisms of his mother, Digby was bowling up the hill road leading to the gates of Kennett Hall. The gates themselves were magnificent specimens of seventeenth-century ironwork, but the lodges on either side were those ugly stuccoed huts with which the mid-Victorian architect “embellished” the estates of the great. They had not been occupied for twenty years, and bore the appearance of their neglect. The little gardens which once had flowered so cheerfully before the speckless windows, were overrun by weeds, and the gravel drive, seen through the gates, was almost indistinguishable from the grassland on either side.

The caretaker came running down the drive to unlock the gates. He was an ill-favoured man of fifty with a perpetual scowl, which even the presence of his master could not wholly eradicate.

“Has anybody been here, Masters?” asked Digby.

“No, sir,” said the man, “except the flying gentleman. He came this morning. What a wonderful thing flying is, sir! The way he came down in the Home Park was wonderful to see.”

“Get on the step with the driver,” said Digby curtly, who was not interested in his servitor’s views of flying.

The car drove through a long avenue of elms and turned to breast a treeless slope that led up to the lower terrace. All the beauty and loveliness of Somerset in which it stood could not save Kennett Hall from the reproach of dreariness. Its parapets were crumbled by the wind and rain of long-forgotten seasons, and its face was scarred and stained with thirty winters’ rains. Its black and dusty windows seemed to leer upon the fresh clean beauty of the world, as though in pride of its sheer ugliness.

For twenty years no painter’s brush had touched the drab and ugly woodwork and the weeds grew high where roses used to bloom. Three great white seats of marble, that were placed against the crumbling terrace balustrade, were green with drippings from the neglected trees; the terrace floor was broken and the rags and tatters of dead seasons spread their mouldering litter of leaves and twigs and moss upon the marble walk where stately dames had trodden in those brave days when Kennett Hall was a name to inspire awe.

Digby was not depressed by his view of the property. He had seen it before, and at one time had thought of pulling it down and, erecting a modern building for his own comfort.

The man he had called Masters unlocked the big door and ushered him into the house.

The neglect was here apparent. As he stepped into the big bleak entrance he heard the scurry and scamper of tiny feet and smiled.

“You’ve got some rats here?”

“Rats?” said Masters in a tone of resignation, “there’s a colony of them, sir. It is as much as I can do to keep them out of my quarters, but there’s nothing in the east wing,” he hastened to add. “I had a couple of terriers and ferrets here for a month keeping them down, and they’re all on this side of the house.” He jerked his head to the right.

“Is the flying gentleman here?”

“He’s having breakfast, sir, at this minute.”

Digby followed the caretaker down a long gloomy passage on the ground floor, and passed through the door that the man opened.

The bearded Villa nodded with a humorous glint in his eye as Digby entered. From his appearance and dress, he had evidently arrived by aeroplane.

“Well, you got here,” said Digby, glancing at the huge meal which had been put before the man.

“I got here,” said Villa with an extravagant flourish of his knife. “But only by the favour of the gods. I do not like these scout machines: you must get Bronson to pilot it back.”

Digby nodded, and pulling out a rickety chair, sat down.

“I have given instructions for Bronson to come here—he will arrive tonight,” he said.

“Good,” muttered the man, continuing his meal.

Masters had gone, and Villa was listening to the receding sound of his footsteps upon the uncovered boards, before he asked:

“What is the idea of this, governor? You are not changing headquarters?”

“I don’t know,” replied Digby shortly, “but the Seaford aerodrome is under observation. At least, Steele knows, or guesses, all about it. I have decided to hire some commercial pilots to give an appearance of genuine business to the company.”

Villa whistled.

“This place is no use to you, governor,” he said, shaking his head. “They’d tumble to Kennett Hall—that’s what you call it, isn’t it?” He had an odd way of introducing slang words into his tongue, for he spoke in Spanish, and Digby smiled at “tumble.”

“You’re becoming quite an expert in the English language, Villa.”

“But why are you coming here?” persisted the other. “This could only be a temporary headquarters. Is the game slipping?” he asked suddenly.

Digby nodded.

“It may come to a case of sauve qui peut,” he said, “though I hope it will not. Everything depends upon—” He did not finish his sentence, but asked abruptly: “How far is the sea from here?”

“Not a great distance,” was the reply. “I travelled at six thousand feet and I could see the Bristol Channel quite distinctly.”

Digby was stroking his chin, looking thoughtfully at the table.

“I can trust you, Villa,” he said, “so I tell you now, much as you dislike these fast machines, you’ve got to hold yourself in readiness to pilot me to safety. Again, I say that I do not think it will come to flight, but we must be prepared. In the meantime, I have a commission for you,” he said. “It was not only to bring the machine that I arranged for you to come to this place.”

Villa had guessed that.

“There is a man in Deauville to whom you have probably seen references in the newspapers, a man named Maxilla. He is a rich coffee planter of Brazil.”

“The gambler?” said the other in surprise, and Digby nodded.

“I happen to know that Maxilla has had a very bad time—he lost nearly twenty million francs in one week, and that doesn’t represent all his losses. He has been gambling at Aix and at San Sebastian, and I should think he is in a pretty desperate position.”

“But he wouldn’t be broke,” said Villa, shaking his head. “I know the man you mean. Why, he’s as rich as Croesus! I saw his yacht when you sent me to Havre. A wonderful ship, worth a quarter of a million. He has hundreds of square miles of coffee plantations in Brazil—”

“I know all about that,” said Digby impatiently. “The point is, that for the moment he is very short of money. Now, do not ask me any questions, Villa: accept my word.”

“What do you want me to do?” asked the man. “Go to Deauville, take your slow machine and fly there; see Maxilla—you speak Portuguese?”

Villa nodded.

“Like a native,” he said. “I lived in Lisbon—”

“Never mind where you lived,” interrupted Digby, unpleasantly. “You will see Maxilla, and if, as I believe, he is short of money, offer him a hundred thousand pounds for his yacht. He may want double that, and you must be prepared to pay it. Maxilla hasn’t the best of reputations, and probably his crew—who are all Brazilians by the way—will be glad to sail under another flag. If you can effect the purchase, send me a wire, and order the boat to be brought round to the Bristol Channel to be coaled.”

“It is an oil-running ship,” said Villa.

“Well, it must take on supplies of oil and provisions for a month’s voyage. The captain will come straight to me in London to receive his instructions. I dare say one of his officers can bring the boat across. Now, is that clear to you?”

“Everything is clear to me, my dear friend,” said Villa blandly, “except two things. To buy a yacht I must have money.”

“That I will give you before you go.”

“Secondly,” said Villa, putting the stump of his forefinger in his palm, “where does poor August Villa come into this?”

“You get away as well,” said Digby.

“I see,” said Villa.

“Maxilla must not know that I am the purchaser under any circumstances,” Digby went on. “You may either be buying the boat for yourself in your capacity as a rich Cuban planter, or you may be buying it for an unknown friend. I will arrange to keep the captain and the crew quiet as soon as I am on board. You leave for Deauville tonight.”

He had other preparations to make. Masters received an order to prepare two small rooms and to arrange for beds and bedding to be erected, and the instructions filled him with consternation.

“Don’t argue with me,” said Digby angrily. “Go into Bristol, into any town, buy the beds and bring them out in a car. I don’t care what it costs. And get a square of carpet for the floor.”

He tossed a bundle of notes into the man’s band, and Masters, who had never seen so much money in his life, nearly dropped them in sheer amazement.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

DIGBY GROAT returned to town by car and reached Grosvenor Square in time for dinner. He had a hasty meal and then went up to his room and changed.

He passed the room that Eunice occupied and found Jackson sitting on a chair before the door.

“She’s all right,” said the man, grinning. “I’ve shuttered and padlocked the windows and I’ve told her that if she doesn’t want me to make friendly calls she has to behave.”

Digby nodded.

“And my mother—you gave her the little box?”

Again Jackson grinned.

“And she’s happy,” he said. “I never dreamt she was a dope, Mr. Groat—”

“There is no need for you to dream anything,” said Digby sharply.

He had a call to make. Lady Waltham was giving a dance that night, and there would be present two members of the syndicate whom he was to meet on the following morning. One of these drew him aside during the progress of the dance.

“I suppose those transfers are quite in order for tomorrow,” he said.

Digby nodded.

“Some of my people are curious to know why you want cash,” he said, looking at Digby with a smile.

The other shrugged his shoulders.

“You seem to forget, my dear man,” he said suavely, “that I am merely an agent in these matters, and that I am acting for my rather eccentric mother. God bless her!”

“That is the explanation which had occurred to me,” said the financier. “The papers will be in order, of course? I seem to remember you saying that there was another paper which had to be signed by your mother.”

Digby remembered with an unspoken oath that he had neglected to secure this signature. As soon as he could, he made his excuses and returned to Grosvenor Square.

His mother’s room was locked, but she heard his gentle tap.

“Who is that?” she demanded in audible agitation.

“It is Digby.”

“I will see you in the morning.”

“I want to see you tonight,” interrupted Digby sharply. “Open the door.”

It was some time before she obeyed. She was in her dressing-gown, and her yellow face was grey with fear.

“I am sorry to disturb you, mother,” said Digby, closing the door behind him, “but I have a document which must be signed tonight.”

“I gave you everything you wanted,” she said tremulously, “didn’t I, dear? Everything you wanted, my boy?”

She had not the remotest idea that he was disposing of her property.

“Couldn’t I sign it in the morning?” she pleaded. “My hand is so shaky.”

“Sign it now,” he almost shouted, and she obeyed.

The Northern Land Syndicate was but one branch of a great finance corporation, and had been called into existence to acquire the Danton properties. In a large, handsomely furnished board-room, members of the syndicate were waiting. Lord Waltham was one; Hugo Vindt, the bluff, good-natured Jewish financier, whose fingers were in most of the business pies, was the second; and Felix Strathellan, that debonair man-about-town, was the important third—for he was one of the shrewdest land speculators in the kingdom.

A fourth member of the party was presently shown in in the person of the Scotch lawyer, Bennett, who carried under his arm a black portfolio, which he laid on the table.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said shortly. Millionaires’ syndicates had long failed to impress him.

“Good morning, Bennett,” said his lordship. “Have you seen your client this morning?”

Mr. Bennett made a wry face as he unstrapped the portfolio.

“No, my lord, I have not,” he said, and suggested by his tone that he was not at all displeased that he had missed a morning interview with Digby Groat.

“A queer fellow is Groat,” said Vindt with a laugh. “He is not a business man, and yet he has curiously keen methods. I should never have guessed he was an Englishman: he looks more like a Latin, don’t you think. Lord Waltham?”

His lordship nodded.

“A queer family, the Groats,” he said. “I wonder how many of you fellows know that his mother is a kleptomaniac?”

“Good heavens,” said Strathellan in amazement, “you don’t mean that?”

His lordship nodded.

“She’s quite a rum old lady now,” he said, “though there was a time when she was as handsome a woman as there was in town. She used to visit us a lot, and invariably we discovered, when she had gone, that some little trinket, very often a perfectly worthless trifle, but on one occasion a rather valuable bracelet belonging to my daughter, had disappeared with her. Until I realized the true condition of affairs it used to worry me, but the moment I spoke to Groat, the property was restored, and we came to expect this evidence of her eccentricity. She’s a lucky woman,” he added.

“I wouldn’t say that with a son like Digby,” smiled Strathellan, who was drawing figures idly on his blotting-pad.

“Nevertheless, she’s lucky,” persisted his lordship. “If that child of the Dantons hadn’t been killed, the Groats would have been as poor as Church mice.”

“Did you ever meet Lady Mary, my lord?” asked Vindt.

Lord Waltham nodded.

“I met Lady Mary and the baby,” he said quietly; “I used to be on dining terms with the Dantons. And a beautiful little baby she was.”

“What baby is this?” asked a voice.

Digby Groat had come in in his noiseless fashion, and closed the door of the board-room softly behind him. The question was the first intimation they had of his presence, all except Lord Waltham, who, out of the corner of his eye, had seen his entrance.

“We were talking about Lady Mary’s baby, your cousin.”

Digby Groat smiled contemptuously.

“It will not profit us very much to discuss her.” he said.

“Do you remember her at all, Groat?” asked Waltham.

“Dimly,” said Digby with a careless shrug. “I’m not frightfully keen, on babies. I have a faint recollection that she was once staying in our house, and I associate her with prodigious howling! Is everything all right, Bennett?”

Bennett nodded.

“Here is the paper you asked for.” Digby took it from his pocket and laid it before the lawyer, who unfolded it leisurely and read it with exasperating slowness.

“That is in order,” he said. “Now, gentlemen, we will get to business.”

Such of them who were not already seated about the table, drew up their chairs.

“Your insistence upon having the money in cash has been rather a nuisance, Groat,” said Lord Waltham, picking up a tin box from the floor and opening it. “I hate to have a lot of money in the office; it has meant the employment of two special watchmen.”

“I will pay,” said Digby good-humouredly, watching with greedy eyes as bundle after bundle of notes was laid upon the table.

The lawyer twisted round the paper and offered him a pen.

“You will sign here, Mr. Groat,” he said.

At that moment Vindt turned his head to the clerk who had just entered.

“For me?” he said, indicating the letter in the man’s hand.

“No, sir, for Mr. Bennett.”

Bennett took the note, looked at the name embossed upon the flap, and frowned.

“From Salter,” he said, “and it is marked ‘urgent and important.’”

“Let it wait until after we have finished the business,” said Digby impatiently.

“You had better see what it is,” replied the lawyer, and took out a typewritten sheet of paper. He read it through carefully.

“What is it?” asked Digby.

“I’m afraid this sale cannot go through,” answered the lawyer slowly. “Salter has entered a caveat against the transfer of the property.”

Livid with rage Digby sprang to his feet.

“What right has he?” he demanded savagely. “He is no longer my lawyer: he has no right to act. Who authorized him?”

The lawyer had a queer expression on his face.

“This caveat,” he said, speaking deliberately, “has been entered by Salter on behalf of Dorothy Danton, who, according to the letter, is still alive.”

There was a painful silence, which the voice of Vindt broke.

“So that settles the transfer,” he said. “We cannot go on with this business, you understand, Groat?”

“But I insist on the transfer going through,” cried Digby violently. “The whole thing is a plot got up by that dithering old fool, Salter. Everybody knows that Dorothy Danton is dead! She has been dead for twenty years.”

“Nevertheless,” said Lord Waltham quietly, “we cannot move in face of the caveat. Without being a legal instrument, it places upon the purchasers of the property the fullest responsibility for their purchase.”

“But I will sign the transfer,” said Digby vehemently.

Lord Waltham shook his head.

“It would not matter if you signed twenty transfers,” he said. “If we paid you the money for this property and it proved to be the property of Miss Danton, as undoubtedly it would prove, if she were alive, we, and only we, would be responsible. We should have to surrender the property and look to you to refund us the money we had invested in the estate. No, no, Groat, if it is, as you say, a bluff on the part of Salter—and upon my word, I cannot imagine a man of Salter’s position, age and experience putting up empty bluff—then we can have a meeting on another day and the deal can go through. We are very eager to acquire these properties.”

There was a murmur of agreement from both Strathellan and Vindt.

“But at present, as matters stand, we can do nothing, and you as a business man must recognize our helplessness in the matter.”

Digby was beside himself with fury as he saw the money being put back in the tin box.

“Very well,” he said. His face was pallid and his suppressed rage shook him as with an ague. But he never lost sight of all the possible developments of the lawyer’s action. If he had taken so grave a step in respect to the property, he would take action in other directions, and no time must be lost if he was to anticipate Salter’s next move.

Without another word he turned on his heel and stalked down the stairs into the street. His car was waiting.

“To the Third National Bank,” he said, as he flung himself into its luxurious interior.

He knew that at the Third National Bank was a sum nearly approaching a hundred thousand pounds which his parsimonious mother had accumulated during the period she had been in receipt of the revenues of the Danton estate. Viewing the matter as calmly as he could, he was forced to agree that Salter was not the man who would play tricks or employ the machinery of the law, unless he had behind him a very substantial backing of facts. Dorothy Danton! Where had she sprung from? Who was she? Digby cursed her long and heartily. At any rate, he thought, as his car stopped before the bank premises, he would be on the safe side and get his hands on all the money which was lying loose.

He wished now that when he had sent Villa to Deauville he had taken his mother’s money for the purchase of the gambler’s yacht. Instead of that he had drawn upon the enormous funds of the Thirteen.

He was shown into the manager’s office, and he thought that that gentleman greeted him a little coldly.

“Good morning, Mr. Stevens, I have come to draw out the greater part of my mother’s balance, and I thought I would see you first.”

“I’m glad you did, Mr. Groat,” was the reply. “Will you sit down?” The manager was obviously ill at ease. “The fact is,” he confessed, “I am not in a position to honour any cheques you draw upon this bank.”

“What the devil do you mean?” demanded Digby.

“I am sorry,” said the manager, shrugging his shoulders, “but this morning I have been served with a notice that a caveat has been entered at the Probate Office, preventing the operation of the Danton will in your mother’s favour. I have already informed our head office and they are taking legal opinion, but as Mr. Salter threatens to obtain immediately an injunction unless we agree to comply, it would be madness on my part to let you touch a penny of your mother’s account. Your own account, of course, you can draw upon.”

Digby’s own account contained a respectable sum, he remembered.

“Very well,” he said after consideration. “Will you discover my balance and I will close the account.”

He was cool now. This was not the moment to hammer his head against a brick wall. He needed to meet this cold-blooded old lawyer with cunning and foresight. Salter was diabolically wise in the law and had its processes at his fingertips, and he must go wanly against the framed fighter or he would come to everlasting smash.

Fortunately, the account of the Thirteen was at another bank, and if the worst came to the worst—well, he could leave eleven of the Thirteen to make the best of things they could.

The manager returned presently and passed a slip across the table, and a few minutes afterwards Digby came back to his car, his pockets bulging with banknotes.

A tall bearded man stood on the sidewalk as he came out and Digby gave him a cursory glance. Detective, he thought, and went cold. Were the police already stirring against him, or was this some private watcher of Salter’s? He decided rightly that it was the latter.

When he got back to the house he found a telegram waiting. It was from Villa. It was short and satisfactory.

“Bought Pealigo hundred and twelve thousand pounds. Ship on its way to Avonmouth. Am bringing captain back by air. Calling Grosvenor nine o’clock.”

The frown cleared away from his face as he read the telegram for the second time, and as he thought, a smile lit up his yellow face. He was thinking of Eunice. The position was not without its compensations.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

EUNICE was sitting in the shuttered room trying to read when Digby Groat came in. All the colour left her face as she rose to meet him.

“Good evening. Miss Weldon,” he said in his usual manner. “I hope you haven’t been very bored.”

“Will you please explain why I am kept here a prisoner?” she asked a little breathlessly. “You realize that you are committing a very serious crime—”

He laughed in her face.

“Well,” he said almost jovially, “at any rate. Eunice, we can drop the mask. That is one blessed satisfaction! These polite little speeches are irksome to me as they are to you.”

He took her hand in his.

“How cold you are, my dear,” he said, “yet the room is warm!”

“When may I leave this house?” she asked in a low voice.

“Leave this house—leave me?” He threw the gloves he had stripped on to a chair and caught her by the shoulders. “When are we going? That is a better way of putting it. How lovely you are, Eunice!”

There was no disguise now. The mask was off, as he had said, and the ugliness of his black nature was written in his eyes.

Still she did not resist, standing stiffly erect like a figure of marble. Not even when he took her face in both his hands and pressed his lips to hers, did she move. She seemed incapable. Something inside her had frozen and she could only stare at him.

“I want you, Eunice! I have wanted you all the time. I chose you out of all the women in the world to be mine. I have waited for you, longed for you, and now I have you! There is nobody here, Eunice, but you and I. Do you hear, darling?”

Then suddenly a cord snapped within her. With an effort of strength which surprised him she thrust him off, her eyes staring in horror as though she contemplated some loathsome crawling thing. That look inflamed him. He sprang forward, and as he did, the girl in the desperation of frenzy, struck at him; twice her open hand came across his face. He stepped back with a yell. Before he could reach her she had flown into the bathroom and locked the door. For fully five minutes he stood, then he turned and walked slowly across to the dressing-table, and surveyed his face in the big mirror.

“She struck me!” he said. He was as white as a sheet. Against his pale face the imprint of her hand showed lividly. “She struck me!” he said again wonderingly, and began to laugh.

For every blow, for every joint on every finger of the hand that struck the blow, she should have pain. Pain and terror. She should pray for death, she should crawl to him and clasp his feet in her agony. His breath came quicker and he wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

He passed out, locking the door behind him. His hand was on the key when he heard a sound and looking along the corridor, saw the door of his mother’s room open and the old woman standing in the doorway.

“Digby,” she said, and there was a vigour and command in her voice which made him frown. “I want you!” she said imperatively, and in amazement he obeyed her.

She had gone back to her chair when he came into the room.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“Shut the door and sit down.”

He stared at her dumbfounded. Not for a year had she dared address him in that tone.

“What the devil do you mean by ordering me—” he began.

“Sit down,” she said quietly, and then he understood.

“So, you old devil, the dope is in you!”

“Sit down, my love child,” she sneered. “Sit down, Digby Estremeda! I want to speak to you.”

His face went livid.

“You—you—” he gasped.

“Sit down. Tell me what you have done with my property.”

He obeyed her slowly, looking at her as though he could not believe the evidence of his ears.

“What have you done with my property?” she asked again. “Like a fool I gave you a Power of Attorney. How have you employed it? Have you sold—” she was looking at him keenly.

He was surprised into telling the truth.

“They have put an embargo—or some such rubbish—on the sale.”

She nodded.

“I hoped they would,” she said. “I hoped they would!”

“You hoped they would?” he roared, getting up.

Her imperious hand waved him down again. He passed his hand over his eyes like a man in a dream. She was issuing orders; this old woman whom he had dominated for years, and he was obeying meekly! He had given her the morphine to quieten her, and it had made her his master.

“Why did they stop the sale?”

“Because that old lunatic Salter swears that the girl is still alive—Dorothy Danton, the baby who was drowned at Margate!”

He saw a slow smile on her lined face and wondered what was amusing her.

“She is alive!” she said.

He could only glare at her in speechless amazement.

“Dorothy Danton alive?” he said. “You’re mad, you old fool! She’s gone beyond recall—dead—dead these twenty years!”

“And what brought her back to life, I wonder?” mused the old woman? “How did they know she was Dorothy? Why, of course you brought her back!” She pointed her skinny finger at her son. “You brought her, you are the instrument of your own undoing, my boy!” she said derisively. “Oh, you poor little fool—you clever fool!”

Now he had mastered himself.

“You will tell me all there is to be told, or, by God, you’ll be sorry you ever spoke at all,” he breathed.

“You marked her. That is why she has been recognized—you marked her!”

“I marked her?”

“Don’t you remember, Digby,” she spoke rapidly and seemed to find a joy in the hurt she was causing, “a tiny baby and a cruel little beast of a boy who heated a sixpence and put it on the baby’s wrist?”

It came back to him instantly. He could almost hear the shriek of his victim. A summer day and a big room full of old furniture. The vision of a garden through an open window and the sound of the bees… a small spirit-lamp where he had heated the coin….

“My God!” said Digby, reeling back. “I remember!”

He stared at the mocking face of his mother for a second, then turned and left the room. As he did so, there came a sharp rat-tat at the door. Swiftly he turned into his own room and ran to the window.

One glance at the street told him all that he wanted to know. He saw Jim and old Salter… there must have been a dozen detectives with them.

The door would hold for five minutes, and there was time to carry out his last plan.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

A MINUTE later he appeared in Eunice Weldon’s room. “I want you,” he said, and there was a sinister look in his eye that made the girl cower back from him in fear that she could not master. “My dear,” he said with that smile of his, “you need not be afraid, your friends are breaking into the house and in half an hour you will be free. What I intend doing to you is to put you in such a condition that you will not be able to give information against me until I am clear of this house. No, I am not going to kill you,” he almost laughed, “and if you are not sensible enough to realize why I am taking this step, then you are a fool—and you are not a fool, Eunice.”

She saw something bright and glittering in his hand and terror took possession of her.

“Don’t touch me,” she gasped. “I swear I will not tell,” but he had gripped her arm.

“If you make a sound,” his face was thrust into hers, “you’ll regret it to the last day of your life.”

She felt a sudden pricking sensation in her arm and tried to pull it away, but her arm was held as by a vice.

“There. It wasn’t very painful, was it?”

She heard him utter a curse, and when he turned his face was red with rage.

“They’ve smashed in the gates,” he said sharply.

She was walking toward him, her hand on the little puncture the needle had made, and her face was curiously calm.

“Are you going now?” she asked simply.

“We are going in a few minutes,” said Digby, emphasizing the “we.”

But even this she did not resent. She had fallen into a curious placid condition of mind which was characterized by the difficulty, amounting to an impossibility, of remembering what happened the previous minute. All she could do was to sit down on the edge of a chair, nursing her arm. She knew it hurt her, and yet she was conscious of no hurt. It was a curious impersonal sensation she had. To her, Digby Groat had no significance. He was a somebody whom she neither liked nor disliked. It was all very strange and pleasant.

“Put your hat on,” he said, and she obeyed. She never dreamt of disobeying.

He led her to the basement and through a door which communicated with a garage. It was not the garage where he kept his own car—Jim had often been puzzled to explain why Digby kept his car so far from the house. The only car visible was a covered van, such as the average tradesman uses to deliver his goods.

“Get in,” said Digby, and Eunice obeyed with a strange smile.

She was under the influence of that admixture of morphine and hyacin, which destroyed all memory and will.

“Sit on the floor,” he ordered, and laced the canvas flap at the back. He reached under the driver’s seat and pulled out a cotton coat which had once been white, but was now disfigured with paint and grease, buttoning it up to the throat. A cap he took from the same source and pulled it over his head, so that the peak well covered his eyes.

Then he opened the gates of a garage. He was in a mews, and with the exception of a woman who was talking to a milkman, the only two persons in sight, none saw the van emerge.

There was not the slightest suspicion of hurry on his part. He descended from his seat to close the gates and lock them, lit a pipe and, clambering up, set the little van going in the direction of the Bayswater Road.

He stopped only at the petrol station to take aboard a fair supply of spirit, and then he went on, still at a leisurely pace, passing through the outlying suburbs, until he came to the long road leading from Staines to Ascot. Here he stopped and got down.

Taking the little flat case from his pocket, and recharging the glass cylinder, he opened the canvas flap at the back and looked in.

Eunice was sitting with her back braced against the side of the van, her head nodding sleepily. She looked up with a puzzled expression.

“It won’t hurt you,” said Digby. Again the needle went into her arm, and the piston was thrust home.

She screwed up her face a little at the pain and again fondled her arm.

“That hurt,” she said simply.

Just outside Ascot a touring car was held up by two policemen and Digby slowed from necessity, for the car had left him no room to pass.

“We are looking for a man and a girl,” said one of the policemen to the occupants of the car. “All right, sir, go on.”

Digby nodded in a friendly way to the policeman.

“Is it all right, sergeant?”

“Off you go,” said the sergeant, not troubling to look inside a van on which was painted the name of a reputable firm of London furnishers.

Digby breathed quickly. He must not risk another encounter. There would be a second barrier at the cross roads, where he intended turning. He must go back to London, he thought, the police would not stop a London-bound car. He turned into a secondary road and reached the main Bath road passing another barrier, where, as he had expected, the police did not challenge him, though they were holding up a string of vehicles going in the other direction. There were half a dozen places to which he could take her, but the safest was a garage he had hired at the back of a block of buildings in Paddington. The garage had been useful to the Thirteen, but had not been utilized for the greater part of a year, though he had sent Jackson frequently to superintend the cleaning.

He gained the west of London as the rain began to fall. Everything was in his favour. The mews in which the garage was situated was deserted and he had opened the gates and backed in the car before the occupants of the next garage were curious enough to come out to see who it was.

Digby had one fad and it had served him well before. It was to be invaluable now. Years before, he had insisted that every house and every room, if it were only a store-room, should have a lock of such a character that it should open to his master key.

He half led, half lifted the girl from the car, and she sighed wearily, for she was stiff and tired.

“This way,” he said, and pushed her before him up the dark stairs, keeping her on the landing whilst he lit the gas.

Though it had not been dusted for the best part of a month, the room overlooking the mews was neat and comfortably furnished. He pulled down the heavy blind before he lit the gas here, felt her pulse and looked into her eyes.

“You’ll do, I think,” he said with a smile. “You must wait here until I come back. I am going to get some food.”

“Yes,” she answered.

He was gone twenty minutes, and on his return he saw that she had taken off her coat and had washed her hands and face. She was listlessly drying her hands when he came up the stairs. There was something pathetically childlike in her attitude, and a man who was less of a brute than Digby Groat would have succumbed to the appeal of her helplessness.

But there was no hint of pity in the thoughtful eyes that surveyed her. He was wondering whether it would be safe to give her another dose. In order to secure a quick effect he had administered more than was safe already. There might be a collapse, or a failure of heart, which would be as fatal to him as to her. He decided to wait until the effects had almost worn off.

“Eat,” he said, and she sat at the table obediently.

He had brought in cold meat, a loaf of bread, butter and cheese. He supplemented this feast with two glasses of water which he drew in the little scullery.

Suddenly she put down her knife and fork.

“I feel very tired,” she said.

So much the better, thought Digby. She would sleep now.

The back room was a bedroom. He watched her whilst she unfastened her shoes and loosened the belt of her skirt before she lay down. With a sigh, she turned over and was fast asleep before he could walk to the other side of the bed to see her face.

Digby Groat smoked for a long time over his simple meal. The girl was wholly in his power, but she could wait. A much more vital matter absorbed his attention. He himself had reached the possibility which he had long foreseen and provided against. It was not a pleasant situation, he thought, and found relief for his mind by concentrating his thoughts upon the lovely ranch in Brazil, on which, with average luck, he would spend the remainder of his days.

Presently he got up, produced from a drawer a set of shaving materials wrapped in a towel, and heating some water at the little gas-stove in the kitchen, he proceeded to divest himself of his moustache.

With the master key he unlocked the cupboard that ran the height of the room, and surveyed thoughtfully the stacks of dresses and costumes which filled the half a dozen shelves. The two top shelves were filled with boxes, and he brought out three of these and examined their contents. From one of these he took a beautiful evening gown of silver tissue, and laid it over the back of a chair. A satin wrap followed, and from another box he took white satin shoes and stockings and seemed satisfied by his choice, for he looked at them for a long time before he folded them and put them back where he had found them. His own disguise he had decided upon.

And now, having mapped out his plan, he dressed himself in a chauffeur’s uniform, and went out to the telephone.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

“DEAD! Jane Groat dead?”

To Lady Mary the news came as a shock.

Jim, gaunt and hollow-eyed, sitting listlessly by the window of Mr. Salter’s office, nodded.

“The doctors think it was an overdose of morphia that killed her,” he said shortly.

Lady Mary was silent for a long while, then;

“I think perhaps now is a moment when I can tell you something about the Blue Hand,” she said.

“Will it assist us?” asked Jim, turning quickly.

She shook her head.

“I am afraid it will not, but this I must tell you. The person against whom the Blue Hand was directed was not Digby Groat, but his mother. I have made one grave mistake recently,” she said, “and it was to believe that Digby Groat was dominated by his mother. I was amazed to discover that so far from her dominating him, she was his slave, and the only explanation I can give for this extraordinary transition is Digby Groat’s discovery that his mother was a drug-taker. Once he was strong enough to keep the drug from her the positions were reversed. The story of the Blue Hand,” she said with her sad little smile, “is neither as fantastic nor as melodramatic as you might expect.”

There was a long silence which neither of the men broke.

“I was married at a very early age, as you know.” She nodded to Salter. “My father was a very poor nobleman with one daughter and no sons, and he found it not only difficult to keep up the mortgaged estates which he had inherited, but to make both ends meet even though he was living in the most modest way. Then he met Jonathan Danton’s father, and between the two they fixed up a marriage between myself and Jonathan. I never met him until a week before my wedding-day. He was a cold, hard man, very much like his father, just to a fault, proud and stiff-necked, and to his natural hardness of demeanour was added the fretfulness due to an affected heart, which eventually killed him.

“My married life was an unhappy one. The sympathy that I sought was denied me. With all his wealth he could have made me happy, but from the first he seemed to be suspicious of me, and I have often thought that he hated me because I was a member of a class which he professed to despise. When our daughter was born I imagined that there would be a change in his attitude, but, if anything, the change was for the worse.

“I had met his sister, Jane Groat, and knew, in a vague kind of way, that some scandal had attached to her name—Jonathan never discussed it, but his father, in his lifetime, loathed Jane and would not allow her to put her foot inside his house. Jonathan hadn’t the same prejudices. He knew nothing of her escapade with the Spaniard, Estremeda, and I only learnt of the circumstances by accident.

“Jane was a peculiar mixture. Some days she would be bright and vivacious, and some days she would be in the depths of gloom, and this used to puzzle me, until one day we were at tea together at our house in Park Lane. She had come in a state of nerves and irritability which distressed me. I thought that her little boy was giving her trouble, for I knew how difficult he was, and how his cruel ways, even at that tender age, annoyed her. I nearly said distressed her,” she smiled, “but Jane was never distressed at things like that. We were having a cup of tea when she put her hand in her bag and took out a small bottle filled with brown pellets.

“‘I really can’t wait any longer, Mary,’ she said, and swallowed one of the pills. I thought it was something for digestion, until I saw her eyes begin to brighten and her whole demeanour change, then I guessed the truth.

“‘You’re not taking drugs, are you, Jane? ‘I asked.

“‘I’m taking a little morphine,’ she replied. ‘Don t be shocked, Mary. If you had my troubles, and a little devil of a boy to look after, as I have, you’d take drugs too!’

“But that was not her worst weakness, from my point of view. What that was I learnt after my husband sailed to America on business.

“Dorothy was then about seven or eight months old, a bonny, healthy, beautiful child, whom my husband adored in his cold, dour fashion. One morning Jane came into my room while I was dressing, and apologizing for her early arrival, asked me if I would go shopping with her. She was so cheerful and gay that I knew she had been swallowing some of those little pellets, and as I was at a loose end that morning I agreed. We went to several stores and finished up at Clayneys, the big emporium in Brompton Road. I noticed that Jane made very few purchases, but this didn’t strike me as being peculiar, because Jane was notoriously mean, and I don’t think she had a great deal of money either. I did not know Clayneys. I had never been to the shop before. This explanation is necessary in view of what followed. Suddenly, when we were passing through the silk department, Jane turned to me with a startled expression and said to me under her breath, ‘Put this somewhere.’

“Before I could expostulate, she had thrust something into the interior of my muff. It was a cold day and I was carrying one of those big pillow muffs which were so fashionable in that year. I had hardly done so before somebody tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to see a respectable-looking man who said sharply, ‘I’ll trouble you to accompany me to the manager’s office.’

“I was dazed and bewildered, and the only thing I recollect was Jane whispering in my ear, ‘Don’t give your name.’ She apparently was suspect as well, for we were both taken to a large office, where an elderly man interviewed us. ‘What is your name?’ he asked. The first name I could think of was my maid, Madge Benson. Of course, I was half mad. I should have told them that I was Lady Mary Danton and should have betrayed Jane upon the spot. My muff was searched and inside was found a large square of silk, which was the article Jane had put into it.

“The elderly man retired with his companion to a corner of the room and I turned to Jane. ‘You must get me out of this; it is disgraceful of you, Jane. Whatever made you do it?’

“‘For God’s sake, don’t say a word,’ she whispered. ‘Whatever happens, I will take the responsibility. The magistrate—’

“‘The magistrate?’ I said in horror. ‘I shall not go before a magistrate?’

“‘You must, you must; it would break Jonathan’s heart, and he would blame you if I came into court. Quick.’ She lowered her voice and began speaking rapidly. ‘I know the magistrate at Paddington and I will go to him and make a confession of the whole thing. When you come up tomorrow you will be discharged. Mary, you must do this for me, you must!’

“To cut a long story short, the manager came back and, summoning a policeman, gave me into custody. I neither denied my crime nor in any way implicated Jane. I found afterwards that she explained to the proprietor that she was a distant relation of mine and she had met me in the shop by accident. How can I depict the horror of that night spent in a police-court cell? In my folly I even thanked God that my name had not been given. The next morning I came before the magistrate, and did not doubt that Jane had kept her word. There was nobody in the court who knew me. I was brought up under the name of Madge Benson and the elderly man from Clayneys went into the witness-box and made his statement. He said that his firm had been losing considerable quantities through shop-lifting, and that he had every reason to believe I was an old hand.

“Humiliating as this experience was, I did not for one moment doubt that the magistrate would find some excuse for me and discharge me. The shame of that moment as I stood there in the dock, with the curious crowd sneering at me! I cannot even speak of it to-day without my cheeks burning. The magistrate listened in silence, and presently he looked at me over his glasses and I waited.

“‘There has been too much of this sort of thing going on,’ said he, ‘and I am going to make an example of you. You will go to prison with hard labour for one month.’

“The court, the magistrate, the people, everything and everybody seemed to fade out, and when I came to myself I was sitting in a cell with the jailer’s wife forcing water between my teeth. Jane had betrayed me. She had lied when she said she would go to the magistrate, but her greatest crime had yet to be committed.

“I had been a fortnight in Holloway Gaol when she came to visit me. I was not a strong woman and they put me to work with several other prisoners in a shed where the prison authorities were making experiments with dyes. You probably don’t know much about prisons,” she said, “but in every county gaol through England they make an attempt to keep the prisoners occupied with some one trade. In Maidstone the printing is done for all the prisons in England—I learnt a lot about things when I was inside Holloway! In Shepton Mallet the prisoners weave. In Exeter they make harness. In Manchester they weave cotton, and so on.

“The Government were thinking of making one of the prisons a dye-works. When I came to the little interview-room to see Jane Groat, I had forgotten the work that had stained both my hands, and it was not until I saw her starting at the hands gripping the bars that I realized that the prison had placed upon me a mark which only time would eradicate.

“‘May, look!’ she stammered. ‘Your hands are blue!’

“My hands were blue,” said Lady Mary bitterly. “The Blue Hand became the symbol of the injustice this woman had worked.

“I did not reproach her. I was too depressed, too broken to taunt her with her meanness and treachery. But she promised eagerly that she would tell my husband the truth, and told me that the baby was being taken care of, and that she had sent it with her own maid to Margate. She would have kept the baby at her own house, she said, and probably with truth, but she feared the people, seeing the baby, would wonder where I was. If the baby was out of town, I too might be out of town.

“And then occurred that terrible accident that sent, as I believed, my darling baby to a horrible death. Jane Groat saw the advantage which the death gave to her. She had discovered in some underhand fashion the terms of my husband’s will, terms which were unknown to me at the time. The moment Dorothy was gone she went to him with the story that I had been arrested and convicted for shop-lifting, and that the baby, whom it was my business to guard, had been left to the neglectful care of a servant and was dead.

“The shock killed Jonathan. He was found dead in his study after his sister had left him. The day before I came out of prison I received a note from Jane telling me boldly what had happened. She made no attempt to break to me gently the news of my darling baby’s death. The whole letter was designed to produce on me the fatal effect that her news had produced on poor Jonathan. Happily I had some money and the property in the City, which my husband, in a moment of generosity, which I am sure he never ceased to regret, had given to me. At my father’s suggestion I turned this into a limited liability company, the shares of which were held, and are still held, by my father’s lawyer.

“Soon after my release my father inherited a considerable fortune, which on his death came to me. With that money I have searched the world for news of Dorothy, news which has always evaded me. The doubt in my mind as to whether Dorothy was dead or not concentrated on my mistrust of Jane. I believed, wrongly, as I discovered, that Jane knew my girlie was alive. The Blue Hand was designed to terrorize her into a confession. As it happened, it only terrorized the one person in the world I desired to meet—my daughter!”

Salter had listened in silence to the recital of this strange story which Lady Mary had to tell.

“That clears up the last mystery,” he said.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

EUNICE woke and, opening her eyes, tried hard to remember what had happened. Her last clear recollection was of her room in Grosvenor Square. The last person—she shivered as she recalled the moment—was Digby Groat, and he was coming towards her—she sat up in bed and reeled with the pain in her head. Where was she? She looked round. The room was meanly furnished, a heavy green blind had been drawn over the small window, but there was enough light in the room to reveal the shabby wardrobe, the common iron bed on which she lay, the cheap washstand and the threadbare carpet that covered the floor.

She was fully dressed and feeling horribly grimy. She almost wished at that moment she was back in Grosvenor Square, with its luxurious bathroom and its stinging shower-baths.

But where was she? She got off the bed, and, staggering across the room, she pulled aside the blind. She looked out upon the backs of drab buildings. She was in London, then. Only London could provide that view. She tried to open the door—it was locked, and as she turned the handle she heard footsteps outside.

“Good morning,” said Digby Groat, unlocking the door.

At first she did not recognize him in his chauffeur uniform and without his moustache.

“You?” she said in horror. “Where am I? Why have you brought me here?”

“If I told you where you were you would be no wiser,” said Digby coolly. “And the reason you are with me must be fairly obvious. Be sensible and have some breakfast.”

He was looking at her with a keen professional eye. The effect of the drug had not worn off, he noticed, and she was not likely to give him a great deal of trouble.

Her throat was parched and she was ravenously hungry. She sipped at the coffee he had made, and all the time her eyes did not leave his.

“I’ll make a clean breast of it,” he said suddenly. “The fact is, I have got into very serious trouble and it is necessary that I should get away.”

“From Grosvenor Square?” She opened her eyes wide in astonishment. “Aren’t you going back to Grosvenor Square?”

He smiled.

“It is hardly likely.” he said sarcastically. “Your friend Steele—”

“Is he there?” she cried eagerly, clasping her hands. “Oh, tell me, please.”

“If you expect me to sing your lover’s praises you’re going to get a jar!” said Digby, without heat. “Now eat some food and shut up.” His tone was quiet but menacing, and she thought it best not to irritate him.

She was only beginning to understand her own position. Digby had run away and taken her with him. Why did she go? she wondered. He must have drugged her! And yet—she remembered the hypodermic syringe and instinctively rubbed her arm.

Digby saw the gesture and could almost read her thoughts. How lovely she was, he mused. No other woman in the world, after her experience of yesterday, could face the cold morning clear-eyed and flawless as she did. The early light was always kind to her, he remembered. The brightness of her soft eyes was undiminished, untarnished was the clarity of her complexion. She was a thing of delight, a joy to the eye, even of this connoisseur of beauty, who was not easily moved by mere loveliness.

“Eunice,” he said, “I am going to marry you.”

“Marry me,” she said, startled. “Of course, you will do nothing of the kind, Mr. Groat. I don’t want to marry you.”

“That is quite unimportant,” said Digby, and leaning forward over the table, he lowered his voice. “Eunice, do you realize what I am offering you and the alternative?”

“I will not marry you,” she answered steadily, “and no threat you make will change my mind.”

His eyes did not leave hers.

“Do you realize that I can make you glad to marry me,” he said, choosing his words deliberately, “and that I will stop at nothing—nothing?”

She made no reply, but he saw her colour change.

“Now understand me, my dear, once and for all. It is absolutely necessary that I should marry you, and you can either agree to a ceremony or you can take the consequence, and you know what that consequence will be.”

She had risen to her feet and was looking down at him, and in her eyes was a contempt which would have wilted any other man than he.

“I am in your power,” she said quietly, “and you must do what you will, but consciously I will never marry you. You were able to drug me yesterday, so that I cannot remember what happened between my leaving your house and my arrival in this wretched place, and possibly you can produce a similar condition, but sooner or later, Digby Groat, you will pay for all the wrong that you have done to the world. If I am amongst the injured people who will be avenged, that is God’s will.”

She turned to leave the room, but he was at the door before her and pulled her arm violently towards him.

“If you scream,” he said, “I will choke the life out of you.”

She looked at him with contempt.

“I shall not scream.”

Nor did she even wince when the bright needle passed under the skin of her forearm.

“If anything happens to me,” she said in a voice scarcely above a whisper, “I will kill myself in your presence, and with some weapon of yours.” Her voice faded away and he watched her.

For the first time, he was afraid. She had touched him on a sensitive point—his own personal safety. She knew. What had put that idea into her head, he wondered, as he watched the colour come and go under the influence of the drug? And she would do it! He sweated at the thought. She might have done it here, and he could never have explained his innocence of her murder.

“Phew!” said Digby Groat, and wiped his forehead.

Presently, he let her hand drop and guided her to a chair.

Again, her hand touched her arm, tenderly, and then:

“Get up,” said Digby, and she obeyed. “Now go to your room and stay there until I tell you I want you.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

THAT afternoon he had a visitor. He was, apparently, a gentleman who was anxious to rent a garage, and he made one or two inquiries in the mews before he called at Digby Groat’s temporary home. Those people who troubled to observe him, noticed that he stayed a considerable time within this garage, and when he came out he seemed satisfied with his negotiations. He was in truth Villa, who had come in answer to an urgent wire.

“Well,” said Digby, “is everything ready?”

“Everything is ready, dear friend,” said Villa amiably. “I have the three men you want. Bronson is one, Fuentes and Silva are the others; they are known to you?”

Digby nodded. Bronson was an army aviator who had left the service under a cloud. Digby had employed him once before, to carry him to Paris—Bronson ran a passenger carrying service which Digby had financed. The other two he knew as associates of Villa—Villa had queer friends.

“Bronson will be in a field just outside Rugby. I told him to pretend he had made a false landing.”

“Good,” said Digby. “Now you understand that I shall be travelling north in the disguise of an old woman. A car must be waiting a mile short of the station and Fuentes must reach the line with a red hand-lamp and signal the train to stop. When it stops he can clear and by that time I shall be well away. I know Rugby well and this sketch-map will tell you everything.” He handed a sheet of paper to Villa. “The car must be waiting at the end of the lane marked B. on the plan—the house—is it in good condition?”

“There’s a house on the property,” said Villa, “but it is rather a tumbledown affair.”

“It can’t be worse than Kennett Hall,” said Digby. “That will do splendidly. You can keep the girl there all night and bring her to Kennett Hall in the morning. I will be there to receive you. Tomorrow afternoon, just before sundown, we will take our final flight to the sea.”

“What about Bronson?”

“Bronson will have to be settled with,” said Digby, “but you can leave that to me.”

He had his own views about Bronson which it was not expedient at the moment to discuss.

“How are you going to get to the Hall?” asked the interested Villa.

“You can leave that to me also,” said Digby with a frown. “Why are you so curious? I will tell you this much, that I intend taking on the car and travelling through the night.”

“Why not take the girl by the car?” demanded the persistent Villa.

“Because I want her to arrive at Kennett Hall by the only way that is safe. If the Hall is being watched, there is a chance of getting away again before they close in on us. No, I will be there before daybreak, and make a reconnaissance. In a case like this, I can trust nobody but myself, and what is more, Villa, I know the people who are watching me. Now, do you understand?”

“Perfectly, my friend,” said Villa jovially; “as to that little matter of sharing out—”

“The money is here,” said Digby, tapping his waist, “and you will have no cause to complain. There is much to be done yet—we have not seen the worst of our adventures.”

For Eunice Weldon the worst was, for the moment, a splitting headache which made it an agony to lift her head from the pillow. She seemed to have passed through the day in a condition which was neither wakefulness nor sleep. She tried to remember what had happened and where she was, but the effort was so painful that she was content to lie with her throbbing head, glad that she was left alone. Several times the thought of Digby Groat came through her mind, but he was so inexplicably confused with Jim Steele that she could not separate the two personalities.

Where she was she neither knew nor cared. She was lying down and she was quiet—that satisfied her. Once she was conscious of a sharp stinging sensation in her right arm, and soon after she must have gone to sleep again, only to wake with her head racked with shooting pains as though somebody was driving red-hot nails into her brain.

At last it became so unendurable that she groaned, and a voice near her—an anxious voice, she thought—said;

“Have you any pain?”

“My head,” she murmured. “It is dreadful!”

She was conscious of a “tut” of impatience, and almost immediately afterwards somebody’s arm was round her neck and a glass was held to her lips.

“Drink this,” said the voice.

She swallowed a bitter draught and made a grimace of distaste.

“That was nasty,” she said.

“Don’t talk,” said the voice. Digby was seriously alarmed at the condition in which he found her when he had returned from a visit of reconnaissance. Her colour was bad, her breathing difficult and her pulse almost imperceptible. He had feared this, and yet he must continue his “treatment.”

He looked down at her frowningly and felt some satisfaction when he saw the colour creep back to the wax-like face, and felt the throb of the pulse under his fingers.

As to Eunice, the sudden release from pain which came almost immediately after she had taken the draught, was so heavenly that she would have been on her knees in gratitude to the man who had accomplished the miracle, and with relief from pain came sleep.

Digby heaved a sigh of relief and went back to his work. It was very pleasant work for him, for the table was covered with little packages of five thousand dollar gold bills, for he had been successful in drawing the funds of the Thirteen and exchanging them for American money. He did not want to find himself in Brazil with a wad of English notes which he could not change because the numbers had been notified.

His work finished, he strapped the belt about his waist and proceeded leisurely to prepare for the journey. A grey wig changed the appearance of his face, but he was not relying upon that disguise. Locking the door, he stripped himself of his clothes and began to dress deliberately and carefully.

It was nearly eight o’clock that night when Eunice returned to consciousness. Beyond an unquenchable thirst, she felt no distress. The room was dimly illuminated by a small oil-lamp that stood on the washstand, and the first thing that attracted her eye, after she had drunk long and eagerly from the glass of water that stood on the table by the side of the bed, was a beautiful evening dress of silver tissue which hung over the back of the chair. Then she saw pinned to the side of the pillow a card. It was not exactly the same shade of grey that Digby and she had received in the early stages of their acquaintance. Digby had failed to find the right colour in his search at the local stationers, but he had very carefully imitated the pen-print with which the mysterious woman in black had communicated her warnings, and the girl reading at first without understanding and then with a wildly beating heart, the message of the card saw her safely assured.

“Dress in the clothes you will find here, and if you obey me without question I will save you from an ignominious fate. I will call for you but you must not speak to me. We are going to the north in order to escape Digby Groat.”

The message was signed with a rough drawing of the Blue Hand.

She was trembling in every limb, for now the events of the past few days were slowly looming through the fog with which the drugs had clouded her brain. She was in the power of Digby Groat, and the mysterious woman in black was coming to her rescue. It did not seem possible. She stood up and almost collapsed, for her head was humming and her knees seemed incapable of sustaining her weight. She held on to the head of the bedstead for several minutes before she dared begin to dress.

She forgot her raging thirst, almost forgot her weakness, as with trembling hands she fastened the beautiful dress about her and slipped on the silk stockings and satin shoes. Why did the mysterious woman in black choose this conspicuous dress, she wondered, if she feared that Digby Groat would be watching for her? She could not think consecutively. She must trust her rescuer blindly, she thought. She did her hair before the tiny mirror and was shocked to see her face. About her eyes were great dark circles; she had the appearance of one who was in a wasting sickness.

“I’m glad Jim can’t see you, Eunice Weldon,” she said, and the thought of Jim acted as a tonic and a spur.

Her man! How she had hurt him. She stopped suddenly in the act of brushing her hair. She remembered their last interview. Jim said she was the daughter of Lady Mary Danton! It couldn’t be true, and yet Jim had said it, and that gave it authority beyond question. She stared at her reflection, and then the effort of thought made her head whirl again and she sat down.

“I mustn’t think, I mustn’t think,” she muttered, and yet thoughts and doubts, questions and speculations, crowded in upon her. Lady Mary Danton was her mother! She was the woman who had come into Jim’s flat. There was a tap at the door and she started. Was it Digby Groat? Digby who had brought her here?

“Come in,” she said faintly.

The door opened but the visitor did not enter, and she saw, standing on the little landing, a woman in black, heavily veiled, who beckoned to her to follow. She rose unsteadily and moved towards her.

“Where are we going?” she asked, and then, “Thank you, thank you a thousand times, for all you are doing for me!”

The woman made no reply, but walked down the stairs, and Eunice went after her.

It was a dark night; rain was falling heavily and the mews was deserted except for the taxi-cab which was drawn up at the door. The woman opened the door of the cab and followed Eunice into its dark interior.

“You must not ask questions,” she whispered. “There is a hood to your coat. Pull it over your head.”

What did it mean? Eunice wondered.

She was safe, but why were they going out of London? Perhaps Jim awaited her at the end of the journey and the danger was greater than she had imagined. Whither had Digby Groat gone, and how had this mysterious woman in black got him out of the way? She put her hand to her head. She must wait. She must have patience. All would be revealed to her in good time—and she would see Jim!

The two people who were interested in the departure of the eleven-forty-five train for the north, did not think it was unusual to see a girl in evening dress, accompanied by a woman in mourning, take their places in a reserved compartment. It was a train very popular with those visitors to London who wanted to see a theatre before they left, and the detective who was watching on the departure platform, scrutinizing every man who was accompanied by a woman, gave no attention to the girl in evening dress and, as they thought, her mother. Perhaps if she had not been so attired, they might have looked more closely—Digby Groat was a great student of human nature.

Lady Mary, in her restlessness, had come to Euston to supplement the watch of the detectives, and had passed every carriage and its occupants under review just before Eunice had taken her seat.

“Sit in the corner,” whispered the “woman,” “and do not look at the platform. I am afraid Groat will be on the look-out for me.”

The girl obeyed and Lady Mary, walking back, seeing the young girl in evening dress, whose face was hidden from her, never dreamt of making any closer inspection. The detective strolled along the platform with her towards the entrance.

“I am afraid there will be no more trains tonight, my lady,” said the bearded officer, and she nodded. “I should think they’ve left by motor-car.”

“Every road is watched now,” said Lady Mary quietly, “and it is impossible for them to get out of London by road.”

At the moment the train, with a shrill whistle, began to move slowly out of the station.

“May I look now?” said Eunice, and the “woman” in black nodded.

Eunice turned her head to the platform and then with a cry, started up.

“Why, why,” she cried wildly, “there is Mrs. Fane—Lady Mary, my mother!”

Another instant, and she was dragged back to her seat, and a hateful voice hissed in her ear; “Sit down!” The “woman” in black snapped down the blind and raised “her” veil. But Eunice knew that it was Digby Groat before she saw the yellow face of the man.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

THE recognition had been mutual. Lady Mary had seen that white face, those staring eyes, for a second, and then the train had rolled quickly past her, leaving her momentarily paralysed.

“There, there!” she gasped, pointing. “Stop the train!”

The detective looked round. There was no official in sight, and he tore back to the barriers, followed by Lady Mary. He could discover nobody with authority to act.

“I’ll find the station-master,” he cried. “Can you telephone anywhere?”

There was a telephone booth within a few yards and her first thought was of Jim.

Jim was sitting in his room, his head in his hands, when the telephone bell rang, and he went listlessly to answer the call. It was Lady Mary speaking.

“Eunice is on the northern train that has just left the station,” she said, speaking rapidly. “We are trying to stop it at Willesden, but I am afraid it will be impossible. Oh, for God’s sake do something, Jim!”

“On the northern train?” he gasped. “How long has it left?”

“A few seconds ago….”

He dropped the receiver, threw open the door and ran downstairs. In that moment his decision had been taken. Like a flash there had come back to his mind a sunny afternoon when, with Eunice at his side, he had watched a daring little boy pulling himself across the lines by the telegraph wire which crossed the railway from one side to the other. He darted into the courtyard and as he mounted the wall he beard the rumble and roar of the train in the tunnel.

It would be moving slowly because the gradient was a stiff one. From which tunnel would it emerge? There were two black openings and it might be from either. He must risk that, he thought, and reaching up for a telegraph wire, swung himself over the coping. The wires would be strong enough to hold a boy. Would they support him? He felt them sagging and heard an ominous creak from the post which was in the courtyard, but he must risk that too. Hand over hand he went, and presently he saw with consternation the gleam of a light from the farther tunnel. In frantic haste he pulled himself across. There was no time for caution. The engine, labouring heavily, had passed before he came above the line. Now he was over the white-topped carriages, and his legs were curled up to avoid contact with them. He let go and dropped on his foot. The movement of the carriage threw him down and he all but fell over the side, but gripping to a ventilator, he managed to scramble to his knees.

As he did so he saw the danger ahead. The train was running into a second tunnel. He had only time to throw himself flat on the carriage, before he was all but suffocated by the sulphur fumes which filled the tunnel. He was on the right train, he was certain of that, as he lay gasping and coughing, but it would need all his strength to hold himself in position when the driver began to work up speed.

He realized, when they came out again into the open, that it was raining, and raining, heavily. In a few minutes he was wet through, but he clung grimly to his perilous hold. Would Lady Mary succeed in stopping the train at Willesden? The answer came when they flashed through that junction, gathering speed at every minute.

The carriages rocked left and right and the rain-splashed roofs were as smooth as glass. It was only by twining his legs about one ventilator, and holding on to the other, that he succeeded in retaining his hold at all. But it was for her sake. For the sake of the woman he loved, he told himself, when utter weariness almost forced him to release his grip. Faster and faster grew the speed of the train, and now in addition to the misery the stinging rain caused him, he was bombarded by flying cinders and sparks from the engine.

His coat was smouldering in a dozen places, in spite of its sodden condition, his eyes were grimed and smarting with the dust which the rain washed into them, and the agony of the attacks of cramp, which were becoming more and more frequent, was almost unendurable. But he held on as the train roared through the night, flashing through little wayside stations, diving into smoky tunnels, and all the time rocking left and right, so that it seemed miraculous that it was able to keep the rails.

It seemed a century before there came from the darkness ahead a bewildering tangle of red and green lights. They were reaching Rugby and the train was already slowing. Suddenly it stopped with unusual suddenness and Jim was jerked from his hold. He made a wild claw at the nearest ventilator, but he missed his hold and fell with a thud down a steep bank, rolling over and over… another second, and he fell with a splash into water.

The journey had been one of terror for Eunice Danton. She understood now the trick that had been played upon her. Digby Groat had known she would never leave willingly and had feared to use his dope lest her appearance betrayed him. He had guessed that in his disguise of the woman in black she would obey him instantly, and now she began to understand why he had chosen evening dress for her.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

He had drawn the blinds of the carriage and was smoking a cigarette.

“If I had known you would ask that question,” he said sarcastically, “I would have had a guide book prepared. As it is, you must possess your soul in patience, and wait until you discover your destination.”

There was only one carriage on the train which was not a corridor car, and Digby had carefully chosen that for his reservation. It was a local car that would be detached at Rugby, as he knew, and the possibility of an interruption was remote. Once or twice he had looked up to the ceiling and frowned. The girl, who had caught a scratching sound, as though somebody was crawling along the roof of the carriage, watched him as he pulled down the window and thrust out head and shoulders. He drew in immediately, his face wet with rain.

“It is a filthy night,” he said as he pulled down the blinds again. “Now, Eunice, be a sensible girl. There are worse things that could happen to you than to marry me.”

“I should like to know what they were,” said Eunice calmly. The effect of the drug had almost worn oft and she was near to her normal self.

“I have told you before,” said Digby, puffing a ring of smoke to the ceiling, “that if your imagination will not supply you with a worse alternative, you are a singularly stupid young person, and you are not stupid.” He stopped. Suddenly he changed his tone and, throwing the cigarette on to the ground, he came over to her and sat by her side. “I want you, Eunice,” he said, his voice trembling and his eyes like fiery stars. “Don’t you understand I want you? That you are necessary to me. I couldn’t live without you now. I would sooner see you dead, and myself dead too, than hand you to Jim Steele, or any other man.” His arm was about her, his face so close to hers that she could feel his quick breath upon her cheek. “You understand?” he said in a low voice. “I would sooner see you dead. That is an alternative for you to ponder on.”

“There are worse things than death.”

“I’m glad you recognize that,” said Digby, recovering his self-possession with a laugh. He must not frighten her at this stage of the flight. The real difficulties of the journey were not yet passed.

As to Eunice, she was thinking quickly. The train must stop soon, she thought, and though he kill her she would appeal for help. She hated him now, with a loathing beyond description—seeing in him the ugly reality, and her soul shrank in horror from the prospect he had opened up to her. His real alternative she knew and understood only too well. It was not death—that would be merciful and final. His plan was to degrade her so that she would never again hold up her head, nor meet Jim’s tender eyes. So that she would, in desperation, agree to marriage to save her name from disgrace, and her children from shame.

She feared him more now in his grotesque woman garb, with that smile of his playing upon his thin lips, than when he had held her in his arms, and his hot kisses rained on her face. It was the brain behind those dark eyes, the cool, calculating brain that had planned her abduction with such minute care, that she had never dreamt she was being duped—this was what terrified her. What was his plan now? she wondered. What scheme had he evolved to escape from Rugby, where he must know the station officials would be looking for him?

Lady Mary had seen her and recognized her and would have telegraphed to the officials to search the train. The thought of Lady Mary started a new line of speculation. Her mother! That beautiful woman of whom she had been jealous. A smile dawned on her face, a smile of sheer joy and happiness, and Digby Groat, watching her, wondered what was the cause.

She puzzled him more than he puzzled her.

“What are you smiling at?” he asked curiously, and as she looked at him the smile faded from her face. “You are thinking that you will be rescued at Rugby,” he bantered.

“Rugby,” she said quickly. “Is that where the train stops?” And he grinned.

“You’re the most surprising person. You are constantly trapping me into giving you information,” he mocked her. “Yes, the train will stop at Rugby.” He looked at his watch and she heard him utter an exclamation. “We are nearly there,” he said, and then he took from the little silk bag he carried in his role of an elderly woman a small black case, and at the sight of it Eunice shrank back.

“Not that, not that,” she begged. “Please don’t do that.”

He looked at her.

“Will you swear that you will not make any attempt to scream or cry out so that you will attract attention?”

“Yes, yes,” she said eagerly. “I will promise you.”

She could promise that with safety, for if the people on the platform did not recognize her, her case was hopeless.

“I will take the risk,” he said. “I am probably a fool, but I trust you. If you betray me, you will not live to witness the success of your plans, my friend.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

SHE breathed more freely when she saw the little black case dropped into the bag, and then the speed of the train suddenly slackened and stopped with such a violent jerk that she was almost thrown from the seat.

“Is there an accident?”

“I don’t think so,” said Digby, showing his teeth mirthlessly. He had adjusted his wig and his bonnet and now he was letting down the window and looking out into the night. There came to his ears a sound of voices up the line and a vista of signal lamps. He turned to the girl as he opened the door.

“Come along,” he commanded sharply, and she stood aghast.

“We are not in the platform.”

“Come out quickly,” he snarled. “Remember you promised.”

With difficulty she lowered herself in the darkness and his arm supported her as she dropped to the permanent way. Still clutching her arm, they stumbled and slid down the steep embankment and came presently to a field of high grass. Her shoes and stockings were sodden by the rain which was falling more heavily than ever, and she could scarcely keep her feet, but the hand that gripped her arm did not relax, nor did its owner hesitate. He seemed to know the way they were going, though to the girl it was impossible to see a yard before her.

The pitiless rain soaked her through and through before she had half crossed the field. She heard Digby curse as he caught his foot in his skirt, and at any other time she might have laughed at the picture she conjured up of this debonair man, in his woman’s dress. But now she was too terrified to be even amused.

But she had that courage which goes with great fear. The soul courage which rises superior to the weakness of the flesh.

Once Digby stopped and listened. He heard nothing but the patter of the rain and the silvery splash of the water as it ran from the bushes. He sank on his knees and looked along the ground, striving to get a skyline, but the railway embankment made it impossible. The train was moving on when the girl looked back, and she wondered why it had stopped so providentially at that spot.

“I could have sworn I heard somebody squelching through the mud,” said Digby. “Come along, there is the car.”

She caught the faint glimmer of a light and immediately afterwards they left the rough and soggy fields and reached the hard road, where walking was something more of a pleasure.

The girl had lost one shoe in her progress and now she kicked off the other. It was no protection from the rain, for the thin sole was soaked through, so that it was more comfortable walking in her stockinged feet.

The distance they had traversed was not far. They came from the side-lane on to the main road, where a closed car was standing, and Digby hustled her in, saying a few low words to the driver, and followed her.

“Phew, this cursed rain,” he said, and added with a laugh! “I ought not to complain. It has been a very good friend to me.”

Suddenly there was a gleam of light in the car. He had switched on a small electric lamp.

“Where are your shoes?” he demanded.

“I left them in the field,” she said.

“Damn you, why did you do that?” he demanded angrily. “You think you were leaving a clue for your lover, I suppose?”

“Don’t be unreasonable, Mr. Groat. They weren’t my shoes, so they couldn’t be very much of a clue for him. They were wet through, and as I had lost one I kicked off the other.”

He did not reply to this, but sat huddled in a corner of the car, as it ran along the dark country road.

They must have been travelling for a quarter of an hour when the car stopped before a small house and Digby jumped out. She would have followed him, but he stopped her.

“I will carry you,” he said.

“It is not necessary,” Eunice replied coldly.

“It is very necessary to me,” he interrupted her. “I don’t want the marks of your stockinged feet showing on the roadside.”

He lifted her in his arms; it would have been foolish of her to have made resistance, and she suffered contact with him until he set her down in a stone passage in a house that smelt damp and musty.

“Is there a fire here?” He spoke over his shoulders to the chauffeur.

“Yes, in the back room. I thought maybe you’d want one, boss.”

“Light another,” said Digby. He pushed open the door, and the blaze from the fire was the only light in the room.

Presently the driver brought in an oil motor-lamp. In its rays Digby was a ludicrous spectacle. His grey wig was soaked and clinging to his face; his dress was thick with mud, and his light shoes were in as deplorable a condition as the girl’s had been.

She was in a very little better case, but she did not trouble to think about herself and her appearance. She was cold and shivering and crept nearer to the fire, extending her chilled hands to the blaze.

Digby went out. She heard him still speaking in his low mumbling voice, but the man who replied was obviously not the chauffeur, though his voice seemed to have a faintly familiar ring. She wondered where she had heard it before, and after awhile she identified its possessor. It was the voice of the man whom she and Jim had met coming down the steps of the house in Grosvenor Square.

Presently Digby came back carrying a suitcase.

“It is lucky for you, my friend, that I intended you should change your clothes here,” he said as he threw the case down. “You will find everything in there you require.”

He pointed to a bed which was in the corner of the room.

“We have no towels, but if you care to forgo your night’s sleep, or sleep in blankets, you can use the sheets to dry yourself,” he said.

“Your care for me is almost touching,” she said scornfully, and he smiled.

“I like you when you are like that,” he said in admiration. “It is the spirit in you and the devil in you that appeal to me. If you were one of those puling, whining misses, all shocks and shivers, I would have been done with you a long time ago. It is because I want to break that infernal pride of yours, and because you offer me a contest, that you stand apart from, and above, all other women.”

She made no reply to this, and waited until he had gone out of the room before she looked for some means of securing the door. The only method, apparently, was to place a chair under the door-knob, and this she did, undressing quickly and utilizing the sheet as Digby had suggested.

The windows were shuttered and barred. The room itself, except for the bed and the chair, was unfurnished and dilapidated. The paper was hanging in folds from the damp walls, and the under part of the grate was filled with the ashes of fires that had burnt years before, and the smell of decay almost nauseated her.

Was there any chance of escape? she wondered. She tried the shuttered window, but found the bars were so thick that it was impossible to wrench them from their sockets without the aid of a hammer. She did not dream that they would leave the door unguarded, but it was worth trying, and she waited until the house seemed quiet before she made her attempt.

Stepping out into the dark passage, she almost trod on the hand of Villa, who was lying asleep in the passage. He was awake instantly.

“Do you want anything, miss?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she replied, and went back to the room. It was useless, useless, she thought bitterly, and she must wait to see what the morrow brought forth.

Her principal hope lay in her—her mother. How difficult that word was to say! How much more difficult to associate a name, the mention of which brought up the picture of the pleasant-faced woman who had been all that a mother could be to her in South Africa, with that gracious lady she had seen in Jim Steele’s flat!

She lay down, not intending to sleep, but the warmth of the room and her own tiredness made her doze. It seemed she had not slept more than a few minutes when she woke to find Villa standing by her side with a huge cup of cocoa in his hand.

“I’m sorry I can’t give you tea, miss,” he said.

“What time is it?” she asked in surprise.

“Five o’clock. The rain has stopped and it is a good morning for flying.”

“For flying?” she repeated in amazement.

“For flying,” said Villa, enjoying the sensation he had created. “You are going a little journey by aeroplane.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

JIM STEELE had had as narrow an escape from death as he had experienced in the whole course of his adventurous life. It was not a river into which he tumbled, but a deep pool, the bottom of which was a yard thick with viscid mud, in which his feet and legs were held as by hidden hands.

Struggle as he did, he could not release their grip, and he was on the point of suffocation when his groping hands found a branch of a tree which, growing on the edge of the pond, had drooped one branch until its end was under water. With the strength of despair, he gripped, and drew himself up by sheer force of muscle. He had enough strength left to drag himself to the edge of the pond, and there he lay, oblivious to the rain, panting and fighting for his breath.

In the old days of the war, his comrades of the Scout Squadron used to tick off his lives on a special chart which was kept in the mess-room. He had exhausted the nine lives, with which they had credited him, when the war ended, and all further risk seemed to an end.

“There go two more!” he gasped to himself. His words must have been inspired, for as he drew himself painfully to his bruised knees he heard a voice not a dozen yards away, and thanked God again. It was Digby Groat speaking.

“Keep close to my side,” said Digby.

“I will,” muttered Jim, and walked cautiously in the direction where he had heard the voice, but there was nobody in sight. The train, which had been stationary on the embankment above—he had forgotten the train—began to move, and in the rumble of its wheels, any sound might well be drowned.

He increased his pace, but still he did not catch sight of the two people he was tracking. Presently he heard footsteps on a roadway, but only of a man.

They had reached better going than the field, thought Jim, and moved over in the same direction. He found the lane, and as he heard the footsteps receding at the far end he ran lightly forward, hoping to overtake them before they reached the car, the red rear-light of which he could see. The wheels were moving as he reached the open road, and he felt for his revolver. If he could burst the rear tyres he could hold them. Jim was a deadly shot. Once, twice, he pressed the trigger, but there was no more than a “click,” as the hammer struck the sodden cartridge, and before he could extract the dud and replace it the car was out of range.

He was aching in every limb. His arms and legs were cramped painfully, but he was not deterred. Putting the useless pistol in his pocket, he stepped off at a jog-trot, following in the wake of the car.

He was a magnificent athlete and he had, too, the intangible gift of class, that imponderable quality which distinguishes the great race-horse from the merely good. It served a double purpose, this exercise. It freed the cramped muscles, it warmed his chilled body and it cleared the mind. He had not been running for ten minutes before he had forgotten that within the space of an hour he had nearly been hurled to death from the roof of a train and had all but choked to death in the muddy depths of a pond.

On, on, without either slackening or increasing his pace, the same steady lop-lopping stride that had broken the heart of the Oxford crack when he had brought victory to the light-blue side at Queen’s Park.

It was half an hour before he came in sight of the car, and he felt well rewarded, although he had scarcely glimpsed it before it had moved on again.

Why had it stopped? he wondered, checking his pace to a walk. It may have been tyre trouble. On the other hand, they might have stopped at a house, one of Digby Groat’s numerous depots through the country.

He saw the house at last and went forward with greater caution, as he heard a man’s voice asking the time.

He did not recognize either Villa or Bronson, for though he had heard Villa speak, he had no very keen recollection of the fact. “What to do?” murmured Jim.

The house was easily approachable, but to rush in with a defective revolver would help neither him nor the girl. If that infernal pond had not been there! He groaned in the spirit. That he was wise in his caution he was soon to discover. Suddenly a man loomed up before him and Jim stopped dead on the road. The man’s back was towards him, and he was smoking as he walked up and down, taking his constitutional, for the rain had suddenly ceased. He passed so close as he turned back that, had he stretched out his hand towards the bushes under which Jim was crouching, he would not have failed to touch him.

In a little while a low voice called:

“Bronson!”

“Bronson!” thought Jim. “I must remember that name!”

The man turned and walked quickly back to the house, and the two talked in a tone so low that not a syllable reached Jim.

At the risk of discovery he must hear more, and crept up to the house. There was a tiny porch before the door and under this the two men were standing.

“I will sleep in the passage,” said the deep-throated Villa. “You can take the other room if you like.”

“Not me,” said the man called Bronson. “I’d rather stand by the machine all night. I don’t want to sleep anyway.”

“What machine?” wondered Jim. “Was there another motor-car here?”

“Will the boss get there tonight?” asked Villa.

“I can’t tell you, Mr. Villa,” replied Bronson. “He might not, of course, but if there are no obstacles he’ll be at the Hall before daybreak. It is not a very good road.”

At the Hall! In a flash it dawned upon Jim. Kennett Hall! The pile of buildings which Mrs. Weatherwale had pointed out to him as the one-time ancestral home of the Dantons. What a fool he had been not to remember that place when they were discussing the possible shelters that Digby Groat might use!

Both Villa and Bronson were smoking now and the fragrance of the former man’s cigar came to the envious Jim.

“She won’t give any trouble, will she, Mr. Villa?” asked Bronson.

“Trouble?” Villa laughed. “Not she. She’ll be frightened to death. I don’t suppose she’s ever been in an aeroplane before.”

So that was the machine. Jim’s eyes danced. An aeroplane… where? He strained his eyes to beyond the house, but it was too dark to distinguish anything.

“Nothing funny will happen to that machine of yours in the rain?”

“Oh no,” said Bronson. “I have put the sheet over the engines. I have frequently kept her out all night.”

Then you’re a bad man, thought Jim, to whom an aeroplane was a living, palpitating thing. So Eunice was there and they were going to take her by aeroplane somewhere. What should he do? There was time for him to go back to Rugby and inform the police, but—

“Where is Fuentes?” asked Bronson. “Mr. G. said he would be here.”

“He’s along the Rugby Road,” replied Villa. “I gave him a signal pistol to let us know in case they send a police-car after us. If you aren’t going to bed, Bronson, I will, and you can wait out here and keep your eye open for any danger.”

Fuentes was in it, too, and his plan to get back to Rugby would not work. Nevertheless, the watchful Fuentes had allowed Jim to pass, though it was likely that he was nearer to Rugby than the place where he had come out on to the road. They might not get the girl away on the machine in the darkness, but who knows what orders Digby Groat had left for her disposal in case a rescue was attempted? He decided to wait near, hoping against hope that a policeman cyclist would pass.

Villa struck a match to start a new cigar and in its light Jim had a momentary glimpse of the two men. Bronson was in regulation air-kit. A leather coat reached to his hips, his legs were encased in leather breeches and top-boots. He was about his height, Jim thought, as an idea took shape in his mind. What an end to that adventure! Jim came as near to being excited as ever he had been in his life.

Presently Villa yawned.

“I’m going to lie down in the passage, and if that dame comes out, she’s going to have a shock,” he said. “Good night. Wake me at half-past four.”

Bronson grunted something and continued his perambulations up and down the road. Ten minutes passed, a quarter of an hour, half an hour, and the only sound was the dripping of the rain from the trees, and the distant clatter and rumble of the trains as they passed through Rugby.

To the north were the white lights of the railway sidings and workshops; to the west, the faint glow in the sky marked the position of a town. Jim pulled his useless pistol from his pocket and stepped on to the roadway, crouching down, so that when he did rise, he seemed to the astonished Bronson to have sprung out of the ground. Something cold and hard was pushed under the spy’s nose.

“If you make a sound, you son of a thief!” said Jim, “I’ll blow your face off! Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” muttered the man, shivering with fright.

Jim’s left hand gripped his collar. The automatic pistol under his nose was all too obvious, and Felix Bronson, a fearful man for whom the air alone had no terror, was cowed and beaten.

“Where is the bus?” asked Jim in a whisper.

“In the field behind the house,” the man answered in the same tone. “What are you going to do? Who are you? How did you get past—”

“Don’t ask so many questions,” said Jim; “lead the way—not that way,” as the man turned to pass the house.

“I shall have to climb the fence if I don’t go that way,” said Bronson sullenly.

“Then climb it.” said Jim, “it will do you good, you lazy devil!”

They walked across the field, and presently Jim saw a graceful outline against the dark sky.

“Now take off your clothes,” he said peremptorily.

“What do you mean?” demanded the startled Bronson. “I can’t undress here!”

“I’m sorry to shock your modesty, but that is just what you are going to do,” said Jim; “and it will be easier to undress you alive than to undress you dead, as I know from my sorrowful experience in France.”

Reluctantly Bronson stripped his leather coat.

“Don’t drop it on the grass,” said Jim, “I want something dry to wear.”

In the darkness Bronson utilized an opportunity that he had already considered. His hand stole stealthily to the hip-pocket of his leather breeches, but before it closed on its objective Jim had gripped it and spun him round, for Jim possessed other qualities of the cat besides its lives.

“Let me see that lethal weapon. Good,” said Jim, and flung his own to the grass. “I am afraid mine is slightly damaged, but I’ll swear that yours is in good trim. Now, off with those leggings and boots.”

“I shall catch my death of cold.” Bronson’s teeth were chattering.

“In which case,” said the sardonic Jim, “I shall send a wreath; but I fear you are not born to die of cold in the head, but of a short sharp jerk to your cervical vertebra.”

“What is that?” asked Bronson.

“It is German for neck,” said Jim, “and if you think I am going to stand here giving you lectures on anatomy whilst you deliver the goods, you have made a mistake—strip!”

CHAPTER FORTY

UNDER menace of Jim Steele’s pistol, Mr. Bronson stripped and shivered. The morning was raw, and the clothes that Jim in his mercy handed to the man to change were not very dry. Bronson said as much, but evoked no sympathy from Jim. He stood shivering and shaking in the wet clothes, whilst his captor strapped his wrists behind.

“Just like they do when they hang you,” said Jim to cheer him up. “Now, my lad, I think this handkerchief round your mouth and a nearly dry spot under a hedge is all that is required to make the end of a perfect night.”

“You’re damned funny,” growled Bronson in a fury, “but one of these days—”

“Don’t make me sing,” said Jim, “or you’ll be sorry.”

He found him a spot under a hedge, which was fairly dry and sheltered from observation, and there he entertained his guest until the grey in the sky warned him that it was time to wake Villa.

Mr. Villa woke with a curse.

“Come in and have some cocoa.”

“Bring it out here,” said Jim. He heard the man fumbling with the lock of the door and raised his pistol.

Something inside Jim Steele whispered: “Put that pistol away,” and he obeyed the impulse, as with profit he had obeyed a hundred others.

Men who fight in the air and who win their battles in the great spaces of the heavens are favoured with instincts which are denied to the other mortals who walk the earth.

He had time to slip the pistol in his pocket and pull the goggles down over his eyes before the door opened and Villa sleepily surveyed him in the half-light.

“Hullo, you’re ready to fly, are you?” he said with a guffaw. “Well, I shan’t keep you long.”

Jim strolled away from the house, pacing the road as Bronson had done the night before.

What had made him put the pistol away? he wondered. He took it out furtively and slipped the cover. It was unloaded!

He heard the man calling.

“Put it down,” he said, when he saw the cup in his hand.

He drank the cocoa at a gulp, and making his way across the field to the aeroplane he pulled on the waterproof cover, tested the engine and pulled over the prop.

Eunice had swallowed the hot cocoa and was waiting when Villa came in. What the day would bring forth she could only guess. Evidently there was some reason why Digby Groat should not wait for her, and amongst the many theories she had formed was one that he had gone on in order to lead his pursuers from her track. She felt better now than she had done since she left the house in Grosvenor Square, for the effect of the drug had completely gone, save for a tiredness which made walking a wearisome business. Her mind was clear, and the demoralizing tearfulness which the presence of Digby evoked had altogether dissipated.

“Now, young miss, are you ready?” asked Villa. He was, at any rate. He wore a heavy coat and upon his head was a skin cap. This, with his hairy face and his broad stumpy figure, gave him the appearance of a Russian in winter attire. Why did he wrap himself up so on a warm morning? she wondered. He carried another heavy coat in his hand and held it up for her to put on.

“Hurry up, I can’t wait for you all day. Get that coat on.”

She obeyed.

“I am ready,” she said coldly.

“Now, my dear, step lively!”

Jim, who had taken his place in the pilot’s seat, heard Villa’s deep voice and looking round saw the woman he loved.

She looked divinely beautiful by the side of that squat, bearded man who was holding her forearm and urging her forward.

“Now, up with you.”

He pushed her roughly into one of the two seats behind the pilot, and Jim dared not trust himself to look back.

“I’ll swing the prop. for you, Bronson,” said Villa, making his way to the propeller, and Jim, whose face was almost covered by the huge fur-lined goggles, nodded. The engine started with a splutter and a roar and Jim slowed it.

“Strap the lady,” he shouted above the sound of the engine, and Villa nodded and climbed into the fuselage with extraordinary agility for a man of his build.

Jim waited until the broad strap was buckled about the girl’s waist, and then he let out the engine to its top speed. It was ideal ground for taking off, and the plane ran smoothly across the grass, faster and faster with every second. And then, with a touch of the lever, Jim set the elevator down and the girl suddenly realized that the bumping had stopped and all conscious motion had ceased. The Scout had taken the air.

Eunice had never flown in an aeroplane before, and for a moment she forgot her perilous position in the fascination of her new and wonderful experience. The machine did not seem to leave the earth. Rather it appeared as though the earth suddenly receded from the aeroplane and was sinking slowly away from them. She had a wonderful feeling of exhilaration as the powerful Scout shot through the air at a hundred miles an hour, rising higher and higher as it circled above the field it had left, a manoeuvre which set Villa wondering, for Bronson should have known the way back to Kennett Hall without bothering to find his landmark.

But Bronson, so far from being at the wheel, at that moment was lying bound hand and feet beneath a bush in the field below, and had Villa looked carefully through his field glasses he would not have failed to see the figure of the man wearing Jim’s muddy clothes. Villa could not suspect that the pilot was Jim Steele, the airman whose exploits in the abstract he had admired, but whose life he would not at this moment have hesitated to take.

“It is lovely!” gasped Eunice, but her voice was drowned in the deafening thunder of the engines.

They were soaring in great circles, and above were floating the scarves of mist that trailed their ravelled edges to the sun, which tinted them so that it seemed to her the sky’s clear blue was laced with golden tissue. And beneath she saw a world of wonder: here was spread a marvellous mosaic, green and brown and grey, each little pattern rigidly defined by darked lines, fence and hedge and wall. She saw the blood-red roof of house and the spread of silver lakes irregular in shape, and to her eye like gouts of mercury that some enormous hand had shaken haphazard on the earth.

“Glorious!” her lips said, but the man who sat beside her had no eye for the beauty of the scene.

Communication between the pilot and his passengers was only possible through the little telephone, the receiver of which Jim had mechanically strapped to his ear, and after awhile he heard Villa’s voice asking:

“What are you waiting for? You know the way?”

Jim nodded.

He knew the way back to London just as soon as he saw the railway.

The girl looked down in wonder on the huge chequer-board intercepted by tiny white and blue ribbons.

They must be roads, and canals, she decided, and those little green and brown patches were the fields and the pastures of Warwickshire. How glorious it was on this early summer morning to be soaring through the cloud-wisps that flecked the sky, wrack from the storm that had passed overnight. And how amazingly soothing was the loneliness of wings! She felt aloof from the world and all its meanness. Digby Groat was no more than that black speck she could see, seemingly stationary, on the white tape of a road. She knew that speck was a man and he was walking. And within that circle alone was love and hate, desire and sacrifice.

Then her attention was directed to Villa. He was red in the face and shouting something into the telephone receiver, something she could not hear, for the noise of the engines was deafening.

She saw the pilot nod and turn to the right and the movement seemed to satisfy Villa, for he sank back in his seat.

Little by little, the nose of the aeroplane came back to the south, and for a long time Villa did not realize the fact. It was the sight of the town which he recognized that brought the receiver of the telephone to his lips.

“Keep to the right, damn you, Bronson. Have you lost your sense of direction?”

Jim nodded, and again the machine banked over, only to return gradually to the southerly course; but now Villa, who had directed the manoeuvre, was alert.

“What is wrong with you, Bronson?” and Jim heard the menace in his voice.

“Nothing, only I am avoiding a bad air current,” he answered, and exaggerated as the voice was by the telephone, Villa did not dream that it was anybody but Bronson to whom he was speaking.

Jim kept a steady course westward, and all the time he was wondering where his destination was supposed to have been. He was a raving lunatic, he thought, not to have questioned Bronson before he left him, but it had never occurred to him that his ignorance on the subject would present any difficulties.

He was making for London, and to London he intended going. That had been his plan from the first, and now, without disguise, he banked left, accelerated his engines and the Scout literally leapt forward.

“Are you mad?” It was Villa’s voice in his ear, and he made no reply, and then the voice sank to a hiss: “Obey my instructions or we crash together!”

The barrel of an automatic was resting on his shoulder. He looked round, and at that moment Eunice recognized him and gave a cry.

Villa shot a swift glance at her, and then leapt forward and jerked at Jim’s shoulders, bringing his head round.

“Steele!” he roared, and this time the pistol was under Jim’s ear. “You obey my instructions, do you hear?”

Jim nodded.

“Go right, pick up Oxford and keep it to your left until I tell you to land.”

There was nothing for it now but to obey. But Jim did not fear. Had the man allowed him to reach London it might have been well for all parties. As Villa was taking an aggressive line, and had apparently recognized him, there could be only one end to this adventure, pistol or no pistol. He half twisted in his narrow seat, and looked back at Eunice with an encouraging smile, and the look he saw in her eyes amply repaid him for all the discomfort he had suffered.

But it was not to look at her eyes that he had turned. His glance lingered for a while on her waist, and then on the waist of Villa, and he saw all that he wanted to know. He must wait until the man put his pistol away; at present Villa held the ugly-looking automatic in his hand. They passed over Oxford, a blur of grey and green, for a mist lay upon the city, making it difficult to pick out the buildings.

Soon Jim’s attention was directed elsewhere. One of his engines had begun to miss and he suspected water was in the cylinder. Still, he might keep the machine going for awhile. A direction was roared in his ear, and he bore a little more west. It seemed that the engine difficulty had been overcome, for she was running sweetly. Again he glanced back. The pistol was tucked in the breast of Villa’s leather jacket, and probably would remain there till the end of the journey. To wait any longer would be madness.

Eunice, watching the scene below in a whirl of wonder, suddenly felt the nose of the aeroplane dive down, as though it were aiming directly for earth. She experienced no sense of fear, only a startled wonder, for as suddenly the nose of the aeroplane came up again with a rush and the sky seemed to turn topsy-turvy. There was a tremendous strain at the leather belt about her waist, and looking “down” she found she was staring at the sky! Then she was dimly conscious of some commotion on her right and shut her eyes in instinctive apprehension. When she opened them again Villa was gone! Jim had looped the loop, and, unprepared for this form of attack, Villa, who was not secured to the machine, had lost his balance and fallen. Down, down, the tiny fly shape twirled and rolled with outstretched arms and legs, tragically comic in its grotesqueness….

Jim turned his head away and this time swung completely round to the girl, and she saw his lips move and his eyes glance at the telephone which the man had left.

She picked up the mouthpiece with trembling hands. Something dreadful had happened. She dare not look down: she would have fainted if she had made the attempt.

“What has happened?” she asked in a quavering voice.

“Villa has parachuted to the ground,” lied Jim soothingly. “Don’t worry about him. He’s not in any danger—in this world,” he added under his breath.

“But, Jim, how did you come here?”

“I’ll have to explain that later,” he shouted back, “my engine is misbehaving.”

This time the trouble was much more serious, and he knew that the journey to London he had contemplated would be too dangerous to attempt. He was not at sufficient height to command any ground he might choose, and he began to search the countryside for a likely landing. Ahead of him, fifteen miles away, was a broad expanse of green, and a pin-point flicker of white caught his eye. It must be an aerodrome, he thought, and the white was the ground signal showing the direction of the winds. He must reach that haven, though, had he been alone, he would not have hesitated to land on one of the small fields beneath him.

Here the country is cut up into smaller pastures than in any other part of England, and to land on one of those fields with its high hedges, stiff and stout stone walls, would mean the risk of a crash, and that was a risk he did not care to take.

As he grew nearer to the green expanse he saw that he had not been mistaken. The sheet was obviously planted for the purpose of signalling, and a rough attempt had been made to form an arrow. He shut off his engines and began to glide down, and the wheels touched the earth so lightly that Eunice did not realize that the flight was ended.

“Oh, it was wonderful, Jim,” she cried as soon as she could make herself heard, “but what happened to that poor man? Did you—”

There was a flippant reply on Jim’s lips, but when he saw the white face and the sorrowful eyes he decided it was not a moment for flippancy. He, who had seen so many better men than Villa die in the high execution of their duty, was not distressed by the passing of a blackguard who would have killed him and the girl without mercy.

He lifted Eunice and felt her shaking under the coat she wore. And so they met again in these strange circumstances, after the parting which she had thought was final. They spoke no word to one another. He did not kiss her, nor did she want that evidence of his love. His very presence, the grip of his hands, each was a dear caress which the meeting of lips could not enhance.

“There’s a house here,” said Jim, recovering his breath. “I must take you there and then go and telegraph dear old Salter.”

He put his arm about her shoulder, and slowly they walked across the grasses gemmed with wild flowers. Knee-deep they paced through the wondrous meadowland, and the scent of the red earth was incense to the benediction which had fallen on them.

“This house doesn’t seem to be occupied,” said Jim, “and it is a big one, too.”

He led the way along a broad terrace, and they came to the front of the building. The door stood open, and there the invitation ended. Jim looked into a big dreary barn of a hall, uncarpeted and neglected.

“I wonder what place this is,” said Jim, puzzled.

He opened a door that led from the hall to the left. The room into which he walked was unfurnished and bore the same evidence of decay as the hall had shown. He crossed the floor and entered a second room, with no other result. Then he found a passageway.

“Is anybody here?” he called, and turned immediately. He thought he heard a cry from Eunice, whom he had left outside on the terrace admiring the beauty of the Somerset landscape. “Was that you, Eunice?” he shouted, and his voice reverberated through the silent house.

There was no reply. He returned quickly by the way he had come, but when he reached the terrace Eunice was gone! He ran to the end, thinking she had strolled back to the machine, but there was no sign of her. He called her again, at the top of his voice, but only the echoes answered. Perhaps she had gone into the other room. He opened the front door and again stepped in.

As he did so Xavier Silva crept from the room on the left and poised his loaded cane. Jim heard the swish of the stick and, half turning, took the blow short on his shoulder. For a second he was staggered, and then driving left and right to the face of the man he sent him spinning.

Before he could turn, the noose of a rope dropped over his head and he was jerked to the ground, fighting for breath.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

WHILST Jim had been making his search of the deserted house, Eunice had strolled to the edge of the terrace, and, leaning on the broken balustrade, was drinking in the beauty of the scene. Thin wraiths of mist still lingered in the purple shadows of the woods and lay like finest muslin in the hollows. In the still air the blue-grey smoke of the cottagers’ fires showed above the tree-tops, and the sun had touched the surface of a stream that wound through a distant valley, so that it showed as a thread of bubbling gold amidst the verdant green.

Somebody touched her gently on the shoulder. She thought it was Jim.

“Isn’t it lovely, Jim?”

“Very lovely, but not half as lovely as you, my dear.”

She could have collapsed at the voice. Swinging round she came face to face with Digby Groat, and uttered a little cry.

“If you want to save Steele’s life,” said Digby in a low urgent tone, “you will not cry out, you understand?”

She nodded.

He put his arm round her shoulder and she shivered, but it was no caress he offered. He was guiding her swiftly into the house. He swung open a door and, pushing her through, followed.

There was a man in the room, a tall, dour man, who held a rope in his hand.

“Wait, Masters,” whispered Digby. “We’ll get him as he comes back.” He had heard the footsteps of Jim in the hall and then suddenly there was a scuffle.

Eunice opened her lips to cry a warning, but Digby’s hand covered her mouth and his face was against her ear.

“Remember what I told you,” he whispered.

There was a shout outside, it was from Xavier, and Masters dashed out ahead of his employer. Jim’s back was turned to the open door, and Digby signalled. Immediately the rope slipped round Jim’s neck and he was pulled breathlessly to the ground; his face grew purple and his hands were tearing at the cruel noose. They might have choked him then and there, but that Eunice, who had stood for a moment paralysed, flew out of the room and, thrusting Masters aside, knelt down and with her own trembling hands released the noose about her lover’s neck.

“You beasts, you beasts!” she cried, her eyes flashing her hate.

In an instant Digby was on her and had lifted her clear.

“Rope him,” he said laconically, and gave his attention to the struggling girl. For now Eunice was no longer quiescent. She fought with all her might, striking at his face with her hands, striving madly to free herself of his grip.

“You little devil!” he cried breathlessly, when he had secured her wrists and had thrust her against the wall. There was an ugly red mark where her nails had caught his face, but in his eyes there was nothing but admiration.

“That is how I like you best,” he breathed. “My dear, I have never regretted my choice of you! I regret it least at this moment!”

“Release my hands!” she stormed. She was panting painfully, and, judging that she was incapable of further mischief, he obeyed.

“Where have you taken Jim? What have you done with him?” she asked, her wide eyes fixed on his. There was no fear in them now. He had told her that he had seen the devil in her. Now it was fully aroused.

“We have taken your young friend to a place of safety,” said Digby. “What happened this morning, Eunice?”

She made no reply.

“Where is Villa?”

Still she did not answer.

“Very good,” he said. “If you won’t speak I’ll find a way of making your young man very valuable.”

“You’d make him speak!” she said scornfully. “You don’t know the man you’re dealing with. I don’t think you’ve ever met that type in the drawing-rooms you visited during the war. The real men were away in France, Digby Groat. They were running the risks you shirked, facing the dangers you feared. If you think you can make Jim Steele talk, go along and try!”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said, white to the lips, for her calculated insult had touched him on the raw. “I can make him scream for mercy.”

She shook her head.

“You judge all men by yourself,” she said, “and all women by the poor little shop-girls you have broken for your amusement.”

“Do you know what you’re saying?” he said, quivering with rage. “You seem to forget that I am—”

“I forget what you are!” she scoffed. The colour had come back to her face and her eyes were bright with anger. “You’re a half-breed, a man of no country and no class, and you have all the attributes of a half-breed. Digby Groat, a threatener of women and an assassin of men, a thief who employs other thieves to take the risks whilst he takes the lion’s share of the loot. A quack experimenter, who knows enough of medicines to drug women and enough of surgery to torture animals—I have no doubt about you!”

For a long time he could not speak. She had insulted him beyond forgiveness, and with an uncanny instinct had discovered just the things to say that would hurt him most.

“Put out your hands,” he almost yelled, and she obeyed, watching him contemptuously as he bound them together with the cravat which he had torn from his neck.

He took her by the shoulders and, pushing her feet from her ungently, sat her in a corner.

“I’ll come back and deal with you, my lady,” he growled.

Outside in the hall Masters was waiting for him, and the big, uncouth man was evidently troubled.

“Where have you put him?”

“In the east wing, in the old butler’s rooms,” he said, ill at ease. “Mr. Groat, isn’t this a bad business?”

“What do you mean, bad business?” snarled Digby.

“I’ve never been mixed up in this kind of thing before,” said Masters. “Isn’t there a chance that they will have the law on us?”

“Don’t you worry, you’ll be well paid,” snapped his employer, and was going away when the man detained him.

“Being well paid won’t keep me out of prison, if this is a prison job,” he said. “I come of respectable people, and I’ve never been in trouble all my life. I’m well known in the country, and although I’m not very popular in the village, yet nobody can point to me and say that I’ve done a prison job.”

“You’re a fool,” said Digby, glad to have some one to vent his rage upon. “Haven’t I told you that this man has been trying to run off with my wife?”

“You didn’t say anything about her being your wife,” said Masters, shaking his head and looking suspiciously at the other, “and, besides, she’s got no wedding-ring. That’s the first thing I noticed. And that foreign man hadn’t any right to strike with his cane—it might have killed him.”

“Now look here, Masters,” said Digby, controlling himself, for it was necessary that the man should be humoured, “don’t trouble your head about affairs that you can’t understand. I tell you this man Steele is a scoundrel who has run away with my wife and has stolen a lot of money. My wife is not quite normal, and I am taking her away for a voyage…” He checked himself. “Anyway, Steele is a scoundrel,” he said.

“Then why not hand him over to the police,” said the uneasy Masters, “and bring him before the justices? That seems to me the best thing to do, Mr. Groat. You’re going to get a bad name if it comes out that you treated this gentleman as roughly as you did.”

“I didn’t treat him roughly,” said Digby coolly, “and it was you who slipped the rope round his neck.”

“I tried to get it over his shoulders,” explained Masters hastily; “besides, you told me to do it.”

“You’d have to prove that,” said Digby, knowing that he was on the right track. “Now listen to me, Masters. The only person who has committed any crime so far has been you!”

“Me?” gasped the man. “I only carried out your orders.”

“You’d have to prove that before your precious justices,” said Digby, with a laugh, and dropped his hand on the man’s shoulder, a piece of familiarity which came strangely to Masters, who had never known his employer in such an amiable mood. “Go along and get some food ready for the young lady,” he said, “and if there is any trouble, I’ll see that you get clear of it. And here.” He put his hand in his pocket and took out a wad of notes, picked two of them out and pressed them into the man’s hand. “They are twenty-pound banknotes, my boy, and don’t forget it and try to change them as fivers. Now hurry along and get your wife to find some refreshment for the young lady.”

“I don’t know what my wife’s going to say about it,” grumbled the man, “when I tell her—”

“Tell her nothing,” said Digby sharply. “Damn you, don’t you understand plain English?”

At three o’clock that afternoon a hired car brought two passengers before the ornamental gate of Kennett Hall, and the occupants, failing to secure admission, climbed the high wall and came trudging up towards the house.

Digby saw them from a distance and went down to meet the bedraggled Bronson and the dark-skinned Spaniard who was his companion. They met at the end of the drive, and Bronson and his master, speaking together, made the same inquiry in identical terms;