Miss Ferriby's Clients

  Chapter 16

  Welton Keynes staggered back with his hand to his face which was cut and bleeding, the jewels which Miss Ferriby had flung at him having inflicted more than one wound.

  The hunchback continued to glare at him across the table as she stood, the letter crunched up in one of her hands, the other resting in front of her.

  "You love this girl, this miserable, white-faced Barbara Ashcot whom you pretended not to care about!" she hissed out, as she panted and shook with rage and mortification. "You were only pretending to love me to amuse yourself, and not because you cared about me, or ever meant to marry me!"

  Welton made no answer. He did not yet know what Barbara had said in her letter, and his first anxiety was to get hold of it, to read it, and to know whether the girl had given any hint of his feelings or intentions towards Miss Ferriby and her gang.

  It was true that he had never, as far as he remembered, been very outspoken, either to Mrs. Ashcot or her daughter on the subject of the activities at The Lawns. A sense of loyalty to the woman in whose employ he was, had prevented his being very outspoken on the matter. But the Ashcots had been even more suspicious than he, and he did not doubt that Barbara, in this her first letter to him, would have expressed her own opinions about Miss Ferriby pretty freely.

  For another reason he was anxious to get hold of the letter. More and more deeply he had felt drawn to the girl during the past few days, touched by her interest in his employment, and sensible that she was a friend and ally upon whom he could reckon for sympathy in the difficult circumstances of his life. He wanted to know what she had to say to him, how she expressed herself, and he was enraged to see a letter precious to him crushed up in the jealous hands of this woman, hunchback or no.

  Bent, therefore, on obtaining possession of his letter, he folded his arms and pretended to take no notice of Miss Ferriby's tirade, but to treat it with the contempt which an attack so violent and so brutal deserved. The blood was still flowing from two small cuts on his face, the one on his forehead and the other on his chin, but he paid no heed to them, and it was the woman herself who called his attention to them.

  It seemed Miss Ferriby could not bear the sight of blood, and as she glared angrily at Welton, her attention could not fail to be attracted by the sight of the wounds she had made in her passionate attack. She shuddered and suddenly said, "I'm ... I'm sorry if I've hurt you. Let me see if I can do something to stop the bleeding."

  Welton said nothing, but waited without moving until she got round the table and stood close to him. Then he quickly wrenched the letter from her hand, and getting away to the opposite side of the room, smoothed the paper out so that he could read Barbara's letter.

  It was this:

  Dear Mr. Keynes,

  I am much troubled about you, and although you do not say why it is that you cannot come and see us for the next few days, I am afraid I know, and that it is on account of the horrible woman at The Lawns. We know she hates us, because she knows that we have seen enough of her doings to suspect the nature of them. I most earnestly warn you not to stay with her, and I do beg you to remember what my mother and I told you at the outset about her, and about the former secretaries she has had. She is a most dangerous woman, without any heart or conscience, and if you will not do exactly as she wishes you to do, she will find some means of revenging herself upon you. I know all this sounds fanciful, and it is true that I would find it hard to give you proof of all I am saying. But all the same I believe I am not saying one word more than the truth, and I think you yourself must have seen enough of her and her visitors of all sorts to be anxious to break off all connection with her.

  Please forgive my writing like this. I would not, if I did not feel as I do about you. I know you will forgive me.

  Yours very sincerely,

  Barbara Ashcot.

  Welton was by no means so quick in mastering the contents of this letter as Miss Ferriby had been. Hampered as he was by having to keep an eye on the woman, who, however, made no attempt to interfere with his reading of the letter, he found some difficulty in reading it, and had to content himself in some places with gathering the sense rather than reading all the words of Barbara's warning.

  Truly, a more unfortunate letter for Miss Ferriby to have seized and read it would have been impossible to find. Barbara had been more outspoken with her pen than she had ever been with her lips, and it was quite impossible to suppose that Miss Ferriby would fail to guess that the girl knew her warnings would be received sympathetically.

  There was no longer any hope, therefore, of persuading Miss Ferriby that he felt anything for her but the most profound mistrust, or that he felt anything but friendship for the Ashcots, whom she herself hated and made it clear she despised.

  When he finished reading the letter, he put it quickly into his pocket, and taking out his handkerchief, wiped the blood from his face.

  Miss Ferriby was waiting, white and trembling, while he put back his letter. "Will you forgive me for what I did?" she said. "I'm very sorry I hurt you. But I was jealous. Tell me you look upon this girl's imagined warnings and absurd suspicions as ridiculous and uncalled for, and I'll forgive you everything."

  "You are not asked to forgive that or anything else, Miss Ferriby," answered Welton, speaking in a tone he had never used to her before. "You have done an unpardonable thing in opening and reading my letter, and you have only yourself to thank that you have read the truth about yourself in it."

  Miss Ferriby looked aghast. Clever as she was, her fancy for the handsome young man clearly made her loath to realize the fact that he did not care for her, never had cared for her, and that no words she could utter would matter to him compared with one word, one look, from the girl whose letter she had torn open.

  These words, therefore, which he spoke in a hard, grave tone, shocked and unnerved her. In spite of her masculine face, her deep voice, her commanding intelligence, she was at heart a very woman, not of the best sort, be it understood, but unmistakably feminine in her desire for love, in her fancies, in her lack of logic when it came to be a question of the affections.

  Thus she could not understand how it was that Welton Keynes, a handsome young man, should have been attracted by the girl whom she had persistently run down, and that he should prefer a woman of his own generation to one in every way her superior.

  For a moment she was overwhelmed by the discovery that Welton not only resented her action, but frankly took the part of Barbara Ashcot against her. Then she spoke in a low voice, pleadingly. "Won't you forgive? It was only my love for you, Welton, which made me do what I did. It was your treatment of me, your coldness, and then my discovery that you were corresponding with this girl, which maddened me. Won't you let bygones be bygones, and go away with me? What would it matter to you whether they call me dangerous or not, if I were your wife? You know I love you. I would act only for you. I would do nothing that you disapproved of. Would this girl do as much, do you think? Come, tell me you forgive me."

  "But I don't," said Welton firmly. "I can't, Miss Ferriby. Whatever you may have done in your own house, whatever you may have thought you had a right to do, nothing can excuse the way in which you have behaved to me. I could not trust a woman who would open a letter not intended for her. Nor a woman who could so far forget herself as to throw things at me."

  Miss Ferriby saw that pleading was useless, and as she watched him, a change came over her face. "Do you intend never to come to The Lawns again, then?" she asked, with great abruptness.

  "I don't think you can expect me to come," he said coolly.

  She uttered a hard little laugh, and he saw at once that she saw through his motives and intentions. "So you have been making a fool of me," she said with vicious emphasis. "You have been pretending to care for me, pretending to love me, while all the time you were making up to this girl, and exchanging comments on me and my doings with her and her mischief-making old mother. Well, it's your own affair, of course. I won'
t intrude upon you any longer."

  Her rage, her mortification, her dismay, were visible in her strongly-marked face, and were appalling in intensity.

  She gathered up the jewels which she had displayed on the table and went in search of those she had thrown at Welton. He helped her to collect them from the floor, and handed such of those as he recovered back into her hands.

  Then the door opened, and Basil came in. He had been awakened by the sound of voices and scuffling, and as soon as he became aware of the identity of the unexpected nocturnal visitor, and of the fact that she and Welton were quarrelling, he had hastily dressed and come in to see what was the matter.

  Miss Ferriby turned sharply at his entrance. "Who is this?" she asked, as she spoke feeling in her bodice for what Welton guessed to be a weapon of some sort.

  "It's my brother," he said quickly, as Basil entered.

  The hunchback stared at him, and apparently reassured, let her hand drop. Basil bowed, and went quietly across the room to the window. Drawing aside the curtain, he looked out into the street below to see in what conveyance she had come. But all he saw was a man on the pavement looking up at the house. Miss Ferriby came softly and swiftly behind Basil, and looked out also. The brothers thought she must recognize the man, for she uttered a low cry of dismay.

  Welton understood then that as she followed him, another member of the household had followed her; for when he looked out with the others, he saw that the man in the street below was no other than the footman, Box.

  Miss Ferriby stepped back into the middle of the room, and drawing together the sides of her handsome mantle, made a dash for the door. She had hidden the bag in which she was carrying her jewels and money under the fold of her cloak, and Welton easily guessed that she would do her best to hide from her partner in crime the fact that she had taken the precious booty away with her on this dubious expedition.

  The brothers watched the man, after putting out the light in the room in order to be unseen from the street. And in a few minutes they saw him joined by Miss Ferriby, and then saw the two walk down the street together.

  Then Welton and Basil looked at each other.

  "What did she come for?" asked Basil, not even then daring to raise his voice above a whisper.

  "She wanted me to go away with her to France, to marry her. And she brought with her a quantity of valuable jewellery and money, which I strongly suspect was not hers, but part of the plunder which the gang are supposed to share."

  Basil shook with terror. "And you refused to go?"

  "Of course."

  "She'll have her knife in you for this, Welton!"

  "I can't help it. Surely you don't suggest that I would have humoured her to the extent of letting her think I was going to do as she wished?"

  "I think you had better have tried to keep in with her. The look she gave you as she went out was deadly, horrible."

  Welton shrugged his shoulders. "I couldn't help myself. She snatched from the table, tore open, and read before my eyes a letter addressed to me. Surely that's the sort of thing nobody could even pretend to put up with?"

  Basil still looked alarmed. "Was she jealous?" he asked.

  "Yes."

  "Well, you've managed to get yourself into a nice hole! I suppose that was one of her pals waiting down below?"

  "Yes, but she didn't expect him. And my fervent hope is that they will quarrel so much over this business -- for she was ready to go off with the money, which I am quite sure was not all hers even by the rules of thieves -- that they'll forget all about me."

  "And you think she is one of a gang of thieves?"

  "I don't think it. I know it."

  "Why don't you give information to the police, and have the whole gang arrested before they can do anything?"

  "That's what I want to do."

  Welton was moving towards the door, but his brother stopped him. "Wait a minute," he said. "I can't let you go by yourself. You don't know what games they may be up to. The gang -- some of them -- may be on the watch for you."

  "That's just what I think myself," said Welton. "I'm shadowed, I know. And it was because I was followed here tonight by one of the gang, that Miss Ferriby herself was caught by him."

  "Then we'll wait till daylight," said Basil promptly. "For the chances are that instead of quarrelling, they'll join forces against you, since they are sure to see that they've lost their hold on you now."

  Welton thought the idea a good one. Miss Ferriby, although she had been quite ready to throw over her confederates and to leave them all in the lurch when she thought she had a prospect of a different and less anxious life before her, would probably be clever enough to regain her influence over Box in a very short time, when once she knew that Welton had only been playing with her.

  They would both be suspicious of his intentions, and might lie in wait for him that night. Or whether they would go back to The Lawns and prepare for a visit from the police, Welton could not guess. But he thought it possible that Miss Ferriby, having left The Lawns with the intention of not returning to it, might persist in her resolution and perhaps, in default of the husband she wanted, bestow her ardently desired hand on Box and seek a new life of adventure with him on the proceeds of their former crimes and misdemeanours.

  The brothers retired to rest, but it was long before they could sleep. Welton, indeed, was questioned by Basil until he had told the whole story of his adventures at The Lawns, and the younger brother was appalled at the account.

  The last thing they decided before going to sleep was that, as soon as it was light in the morning, they would go to the nearest police station, give information of the gang at The Lawns, and risk the consequences together.

  But before they could get out in the morning, hastily eating a cold breakfast almost before it was light, a maid came up and said that there were two gentlemen downstairs who wanted to see Mr. Welton Keynes.

  The brothers looked at each other, and Basil, after a few words of whispered consultation with his brother, retired into the next room, while the maid was directed to show the gentlemen up.

  Already the brothers had guessed that the visit had some connection with the affair at The Lawns, and Welton was not surprised when the "two gentlemen" announced themselves as police officers, and informed him that they had come to see him in connection with some information which he had given to Mr. Ospringe concerning a man in his service, named Cockett.

  Welton Keynes was delighted to find that he was thus saved all the trouble and danger of a visit to the police station, and he at once asked the visitors to sit down, and gave them a succinct account of his adventures at The Lawns.

  Fortune-telling, visits of professional thieves, murderers, and other criminals for purposes of disguise: about these things he told all he knew; and he also laid before the men the artful scheme, whereby the information necessary to Miss Ferriby in her profession of fortune-teller was gleaned by persons in her employ, who went out as servants and as guests into the houses of prominent and rich people.

  He gave the name of Lady Mirfield as one of the marked victims of the gang, and said that the woman who had passed as her maid not many days ago was now, or was a few hours previously, one of the servants at The Lawns. Welton added that there were other servants there whom he had not even seen, and who took great care never to be seen by casual visitors at The Lawns.

  "It can scarcely be doubted," he added, "that these men and women -- for I believe there are some of each sex -- are also actively engaged as spies in the houses of well known and wealthy people."

  The officer who was taking the lead in the questions put to Welton, a tall, dark man with a thick black moustache and keen dark eyes, a typical police official in appearance and manner, smiled. "It looks like it," he said. "And do these men and women only take temporary engagements? Or do some of them take situations permanently?"

  "That I have no means of knowing. You see, I have only been a short time employed there as secretary, and I
am only making conjectures about the members of the household whom I have not seen, based on what I know of those I have seen. I can't conceive any other motive for their being kept out of sight than the one I have suggested."

  "You say you have recognized one in the service of Mr. Ospringe, and another in that of Lady Mirfield?"

  "And a third, the one who is commonly seen about at The Lawns, I recognized as he was entering the house of Mr. Van Velsen. It was a night or two later that I heard of the robbery there."

  "Ah! And you could identify that man?"

  "Oh, yes. He was disguised, but I knew him and he knew me."

  "You knew him by name -- by one name, at any rate?"

  "Yes, by the name of Box. And the man who was engaged at Mr. Ospringe's I knew as Cockett. The maid's name I never heard."

  "But you could identify her?"

  "Yes."

  The officer looked at his notes, and then shut up his notebook and looked thoughtful. The silence that followed was broken by his companion, a thin, fair man with an intelligent face.

  "You haven't got anything that can be called evidence so far," he said quietly.

  "I agree," said the other man. He turned to Welton again. "There's really only the fortune-telling that you could swear to, sir?"

  "I can swear to having seen the man Box enter Mr. Van Velsen's as a guest the night previous to that of the robbery," said Welton.

  "Well, yes, that's all right as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. We want a good deal more than that. We hope, Mr. Keynes, that you will help us get it."

  "I'll do anything I can, of course, though I would rather not have had to give evidence against the two women who live opposite Miss Ferriby."

  Both men smiled a little. "I don't see that need trouble you, sir. They are both clearly innocent," said the taller man.

  "Then what do you want me to do?"

  "We want you to go back to The Lawns this morning as if nothing had happened."

  Welton drew back, appalled. "I can't do that," he said with decision. "It wouldn't be safe for one thing, and it wouldn't do any good for another."

  "I'm not altogether sure that it would be comfortable for you," replied the officer, "but it's necessary if you want to give us any effective help. You must put them off their guard."

  "But to play the spy! To go there for the very purpose of betraying them!" Welton said.

  "Well, we don't think anything of a job like that ourselves," said the second man. "But I can see how you'd look upon it, sir. But if we put it to you that it's our only chance of bringing these people to justice, I'm sure you won't refuse to help us. You've said yourself the gang is a pest to society."

  "Yes, I admit that. But considering the relations I've had with the head of them -- if Miss Ferriby is the head -- and even the personal kindness and confidence with which she has treated me, I should feel very reluctant to play such a part as you suggest."

  "Well, what have you done already? When you spoke to Mr. Ospringe you must have known he would inform us," said the leader of the two men.

  "Yes, but I didn't know that I would be expected to take an active part in the business."

  "I would have thought," said the thin man, "a young man like you would have rather welcomed the thing for the sake of the sport. I'm pretty sure, sir, you must have had your suspicions about these people almost from the first, and that it was for the excitement of the thing that you stayed on."

  "Well, you're not altogether wrong there," admitted Welton.

  "And if you weren't afraid of danger then, when we were not even on the alert, I don't see why you should be now, when we are."

  Welton hesitated. "If," he said, "I were absolutely certain of the worst of the things I only suspect, I would do as you wish without an instant's delay."

  "Ah," said the big man, turning triumphantly to his companion, "I thought so. Well, then, Mr. Keynes, I may tell you frankly that a greater danger to society never lived than this Miss Ferriby, or Fiammetta as she calls herself. She is not only a receiver, and a trainer and a protectress of thieves of the boldest sort, but she wouldn't herself stick at murder, and some of her friends and accomplices have already committed it."

  Welton uttered an exclamation of horror, but not of incredulity. It was just what he would have expected.

  "What is it you propose?" he asked after a moment's pause.

  "Only this: that you should go to The Lawns this morning and do your work there as usual. When I appear at the window of the room -- you will tell me where it is -- just open the window and let me in. After that, I can manage all that is necessary myself."

  "Couldn't you get in the ordinary way, as one of the people who come to have their fortunes told?"

  The officer shook his head. "They're too fly," he said. "Look at me. Everybody can tell me for what I am. Look at my boots."

  "It's easy enough to change them," remarked Welton.

  "But not so easy to change this," said the man, touching his own face. "You see, I'm well known, and these gentry know me perfectly and would never admit me. But if I get over the wall into the garden, I can get in easily enough if you will just open the window."

  Welton hesitated, but recognizing that he was indeed anxious to assist in the capture of a most dangerous and desperate gang, and that, as the police truly said, he was exposing himself to no uncommon danger, so that he was risking something in the cause of honesty and good order, he at length agreed to help the police in the way suggested.

  He carefully described the position of the room in which he did his work, and stated at what hour he was usually alone there. Then the two officers, having made a note of all he had to say, thanked him and assured him that in the event of his being attacked by the people at The Lawns when they found out what he had done, he would find assistance ready to hand. They then took their leave.

  Welton at once took his brother into his confidence, and told him all that had passed.

  Basil, thoroughly alarmed, was sorry his brother had promised to go back to The Lawns. "They may suspect you from the first," he said. "Naturally Miss Ferriby won't expect to see you after tonight's work. And if there should be any hitch in the police arrangements, you could be murdered before they can come to your rescue."

  Welton, however, did not think things looked as black as that. He pointed out that robbery is one thing and murder another, and that though the police officers had mentioned murder as one of the crimes committed by the gang, they did not speak as if they had any very strong proof of what they asserted on that head.

  "And what good would they do themselves by murdering me?" Weston asked. "It would be the very worst thing they could do, now that they would know the police were on their track."

  Basil still looked grim. "I didn't like the look on the woman's face," he said. "It seemed to me to be the most ferocious expression I had ever seen on a human face. I think she would do anything, anything to be revenged on you."

  Welton laughed at the suggestion. "Anything short of risking her own neck, I dare say," he said. "But to tell you the truth, the sporting part of the business has begun to appeal to me, and I've made up my mind to go through with it boldly, not to stick at difficulties, and not to stick at -- well, tarradiddles. I shall have to convince Miss Ferriby that I'm sorry for my behaviour to her last night, that I've thought it over, and that I've been touched by her devotion."

  Basil listened gloomily to this suggestion, but Welton had made up his mind, and the brothers parted that morning, both in a state of high anticipation over the day's doings.

  Welton hurried away to Chiswick and wondered, as he pulled the handle of the bell outside the little green door in the wall, whether he would detect any change in the demeanour of Box towards him. Would they all be surprised to see him back again? Or would they show active resentment at his daring to make a reappearance among them.

  His questions were soon answered. Box let him in with exactly the same placid face as ever, led the way int
o the house, opened the library door and retreated as if nothing unusual had ruffled the placid current of their existence.

  Welton sat down to his desk, opened the letters as usual, and on hearing a slight sound, looked up to see Miss Ferriby taking her usual place in her high chair in the corner.

  She herself appeared as calm as if nothing had happened to disturb the even tenor of their lives. And he began almost to wonder, as with trembling fingers he turned over the papers before him, whether the events of the previous night had occurred in a dream, and whether the woman before him, placid, keen-witted, tranquil, as she sat inspecting her letters with her sharp grey eyes, had ever addressed him with embarrassing words of passion and love, and whether it was her large white hand which had really thrown those jewels at him on the previous night, which had cut and scarred his chin and forehead.

  But before the morning's work with the correspondence was over, he found out that this appearance of calmness was deceptive, and that underneath the grey false hair and the placid exterior, the same fiery spirit was burning. Miss Ferriby looked through the letters he passed to her, and presently laid them down in her lap.

  There was a pause. Welton took up a pen, prepared to make notes at her dictation. But instead of dictating, she said abruptly, "Why did you come back this morning?

  Her tone was searching, her look piercing. He hesitated. "We have settled nothing," he said in a low voice.

  "Have you forgotten that the very last thing you said to me last night was that you wouldn't come back?"

  "I believe I did."

  She looked at him keenly. He thought he perceived some sign of a storm within, for a dark look came over her face. He was glad that she thus betrayed feelings other than gentle and kindly ones, for when her voice softened, wicked and unprincipled as he knew her to be, his distaste for the idea of trapping a woman came back in full force.

  "Well, I'm glad to see you again," she said in a different tone, harder, colder. "Though I still think you were foolish not to take the offer I made, and go away with me. You would have been happy with me, Welton. You look upon me as a dreadful person, I suppose, but you would have found me very easy to get on with, and much pleasanter as a companion than one of your niminy-piminy girls who know nothing of life. Your Barbara Ashcot, whom I suppose you think of making your wife some day, is a fool, a simple dull fool, and you would be bored to death if you made her your wife."

  Welton smiled. "I haven't any thought of making her my wife. I can't afford such a luxury," he said.

  "You could afford to marry a woman with a little money, though."

  "I shouldn't care to have to make such considerations as that influence me in the matter."

  "But they have to be thought of nowadays, Welton. Could you forgive a woman for being jealous? If..." and as she spoke she came gradually forward in her chair, and leaning towards him, fixed her great grey eyes penetratingly upon his face, "...if she were ready to forgive you a great deal more than that?

  A cold shiver ran down Welton's back. What did she guess? Had she any idea of the stratagem by which he proposed to put her and her accomplices into the hands of the police?

  "No woman whom I loved would ever have much to forgive," replied he evasively.

  She frowned. "We are talking of a woman who offers love before it is returned, even before it is asked," she said impatiently. "Tell me, could you forgive jealousy in a woman who, knowing more about you and your intentions and hopes than you supposed possible, could yet forgive you all, and offer you her love still?"

  Welton hesitated. Then he answered frankly. "I am quite sure that I could only love a woman in whom I had the utmost confidence, whom I had to forgive nothing whatever."

  She laughed gently, almost incredulously. "Ah. you think so. But it only shows that you have never yet felt what I call love at all," she said. "Now I, who know what passion is, who have felt it in every fibre of my being, I say that I could forgive coldness, treachery, ay, and even contempt to one who had inspired me with the deepest affection I am capable of. I say I could wipe out everything, forget everything, and only ask in return for my devotion to be allowed to go on loving, loving till my life's end."

  Passion thrilled in her voice, which had become sweet and womanly. Welton, stirred, troubled, dismayed, felt ashamed, contrite, and yet shocked and repelled at the same time. For while he recognized that there was genuine feeling in her words, he knew also that there lurked there other sentiments, other passions less foolish, perhaps, but far less blameless and innocent.

  Before he could frame any sort of reply, and while yet Miss Ferriby, leaning forward eagerly, was looking into his eyes with a sort of glow which disconcerted him, there suddenly entered the man Box, carrying coal for the fire, which was such an unnecessary action on his part, as the scuttle was quite full. Welton guessed at once that he was on guard over his ostensible mistress, and that he had come in at what he considered an opportune moment.

  Welton immediately decided in his own mind that Box must have been concealed somewhere within hearing of what was going on in the library between Miss Ferriby and himself, and that he had come in just in time to check her in her profession of affection.

  Miss Ferriby drew back with an angry look on her face. Welton saw her exchange a rapid glance with Box, who, however, remained as imperturbable outwardly as before, and busied himself with the fire without a word.

  It was time for Miss Ferriby to retire as usual at her luncheon hour, and Welton was growing nervous about his share in the arrangement he had made with the detectives.

  He had given the two police officers the time at which he would be alone, and when Miss Ferriby had disappeared behind her curtain and Box by the opposite door, he watched the window with a fast-beating heart.

  There was one thing he had forgotten to tell the men. He knew that he was generally kept more or less under observation, and it was possible, even probable that, if he were to let the detectives in by the window, they would find both the doors of the room locked if they were to try to penetrate further into the house.

  However, this was a difficulty which the officers might know how to deal with, and in the meantime there was nothing to do but wait.

  But the time went by, and he became conscious that there must be a hitch somewhere, for nobody appeared at the window. Yet surely his directions for finding the room and the window had been perfectly clear.

  His luncheon was brought in as usual, and he tried to eat it without much success. Then he felt bound, as nobody had appeared at the window, to go on with his work as usual.

  The hours seemed to drag heavily by, and then at half past four Miss Ferriby, beautifully and exotically dressed as usual, appeared in the doorway behind the curtain with her face flushed and a certain look of strange excitement in her eyes.

  "I'm tired, worried, upset," she said. "Come into my den, and talk to me."

  He could not refuse, so he followed her across the tiny central hall of the house, past the staircase, and through the long drawing room into the little inner one with the one high window.

  It was almost dark in this room, and the light of the small fire which was burning in the grate cast rich lights and shadows on the beautiful tapestry hangings.

  She pointed to the deep-seated chair near the fireplace. "Sit down there," she said, "and wait for me."

  He obeyed, and seated himself in the armchair, while Miss Ferriby went out of the room again, closing the door behind her.

  He was left alone such a long time that he presently got up, and with a strange suspicion in his mind he pulled aside the portière which hung over the door, and tried the handle.

  It was locked.

  Looking up at the window high in the wall, Welton discerned something that had escaped his notice before: the window was protected by iron bars on the outside.

  There was no second door, and no other window.

  He was, in fact, caught like a rat in a trap.

  Welton's heart beat fa
st as he asked himself whether the police had made no mistake, whether they were close at hand in case of an emergency, and -- whether they would be in time.